Pronouncing Touareg

Among the obscure items I collect to amaze my students and annoy my colleagues is the by-now-long-useless fact that in 1869 Alexandrine Tinne was hacked to death by the Touaregs. Alexine was an incredibly rich, incredibly beautiful, incredibly brave woman who, at enormous expense, attempted to explore the White Nile and its tributaries. In this territory some years later American Presbyterians established a Christian outpost, which was once home to the little auburn-tressed charmer who grew up to be my wife.

According to legend, Miss Tinne went on her adventure in Africa to forget a devastating romantic disappointment. In any case, she hated men (see Penelope Gladstone's 1979 Travels of Alexine: Alexine Tinne : 1835-1869). To be regarded by a woman with complete indifference is a difficult situation for any man, but profound animosity is quite interesting to experience. I have always assumed that God probably intended gentle women to share the earth with us men and other wild beasts.

The Touaregs were then, and are now, a nomadic African tribe to whom part of a display case in Chicago's Field Museum is devoted. Interestingly, the Volkswagen Company is spending a lot of money on television advertising hoping to get good mileage out of the Touareg name for their new automobile. Presumably, Volkswagen did extensive market research on this name and is not concerned about a boycott (or even a girlcott) of this product. Volkswagen does not seem to care that I could never purchase a car carrying a name whose major association in my mind is the murder of a fascinating woman.

As I understand sociological fashion, it is now permissible to believe that boys and girls are genuinely different and that human society can use both. If unharnessed Mars lead to unhealthy patriarchy, uncorsetted Venus leads to unhealthy feminization. In creating two sexes God may have known what he/she was doing. Still, grandfather (and/or grandmother) clocks on earth will continue to operate on pendulums. This means we are all "swingers."

I find Augustine's idea that everyone will be 30 years old in heaven quite attractive. Not so happy is his reflection, before concluding otherwise, that in heaven all women might need to be changed into men (The City of God 22:15-7). Surely Goethe is correct " the eternal feminine leads us upward" ("Das Ewig Weibliche/ Zieht uns hinan"). The centrality of Beatrice in the Divine Comedy would never allow Dante to subscribe to the benighted view of his mentor, Thomas Aquinas, that "the female is a misbegotten male" ( ST I. qu.92.art.1). Nevertheless, all the theologians eternally singing and dancing in Dante's Fourth Heaven are male. I am delighted that Thomas and his earthly enemy, Siger of Brabant, are side by side in the celestial choreography. Still I do not believe that God would put on a real musical without both Guys and Dolls.

And I trust that Alexine Tinne, restored to great beauty, is at long last willing to dance – if not with me, at least with one of you handsome dudes.

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