By Vallerie Masciarelli,
Staff Writer

The students in Professor of Communications Frank Klapak’s Culture Wars course, EL336, will record a live webcast on December 12, 2005, at 1 p.m.

They will fictionally determine who killed gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide in February.

“What we are looking at is how America is currently in a culture war between the political left, and the political right; the religious left, and the religious right; (and) the social and cultural left, and the social and cultural right,” said Klapak, who told his class he believes there is more to Thompson’s story.

“I said I had a suspicion that he may have been murdered because he was about to come out with a story that would not have been flattering to either of the two sides,” Klapak said. The class’s job was to determine what really happened.

“It’s about understanding what forces acted on Hunter S. Thompson,” said Neha Bawa, senior.

“We’re trying to figure out if he was pushed into committing suicide by external forces, or if something was internally troubling him,” she added.

Throughout the course, Klapak’s students created an historically fictional character that was born in the 1940’s.

Every week, they developed that character another ten years, taking care to note how he or she was “molded” by what was happening in that time period.

“We are concluding the course with a final thing they need to write as a radio drama, the way we had radio drama in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s,” Klapak said. “Each character they have been working on will be a witness called either to the prosecution or the defense.”

Klapak said the class would be putting so much work into this project, that they thought it was a shame it would not be shared; and so, the idea of making the webcast was born.

“I hope they (the listeners) are entertained,” said Katie Lambert, senior, who thought it might be difficult for them to follow along, since the class spent a whole semester building up to this project.

“There’s a lot of symbolic instances and a lot of depth to it that I don’t think that audience members tuning in will understand,” Lambert said.

The class divided into two parts to create the webcast. The first division was the writers, who created the script, and the other, a “Chorus,” who chanted things like “Prosecute him!”

“It kind of parallels the life of Christ a little bit,” said Katie Aikins, senior.
Klapak hopes this project has helped his class gain a better understanding of the culture wars, for he feels strongly about Thompson’s message.

“(The) two parties are hacking away at each other, and the country’s going down the tubes,” Klapak said. “Not the people, but the parties.”

“It’s helped me pull my perspective about the party situation in America together,” said Bawa. “I’m hoping that each one of us starts seeing the larger picture and starts taking responsibility as we get ready to graduate and get out and become citizens of the world,” Bawa said.

Many students in this class are seniors, who said this is their last major English course before they graduate.

“I’m borrowing from the drama...they will go out with a bang,” said Klapak.

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