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Name: Daniel Sansbury
Class: Senior
Major: Classical studies
Hometown: Chattanooga, Tenn.
You’re taking Literature and Film of the Holocaust, a May Session course taught by religious studies professor Kevin Lewis. What’s it been like?
After the first few days, it starts to drag you down. You’re seeing thousands upon thousands of dead bodies. Some of the first film we saw was British footage of the camps being liberated, which is pretty grim. I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum, so I knew what I was in for, but it’s been intense. The first week we watched a lot of documentaries, and this week we’ve been watching films—not Schindler’s List, but movies like that.
I’m guessing there’s been a lot of discussion. It gets pretty intense and often veers off into politics before we reel it back in and get back to the topic at hand. We watched a lot of survivors talk about the guilt they felt afterwards, knowing that so many others died. That provoked a lot of discussion about what each of us might have done.
What’s been your overall impression of taking a May Session course?
This is the first one I’ve taken. I need seven courses to graduate in December, so I’m taking this, another in Summer II—that will be my first summer school course—and a full load in the fall. It’s nice only having homework for one course; it’s easier to stay focused. Basically, you go to class every day and spend the weekend writing a paper. Fortunately, I had already taken a film studies class, so I was already familiar with a critical approach to film—that’s helped a lot.
You came to USC as a McNair Scholar and took a couple of years off in the middle of your studies. What are your plans after graduation?
I’m thinking about graduate school; I’d like to teach, I think. I was in a boarding school before college, so I came to USC with a lot of course credit under my belt. My younger brother is doing just the opposite here: I think he’s going to graduate in three or three-and-a-half years.
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