Electronic mail is one means of dealing with resistance and recalcitrance among students faced with class materials that challenge their beliefs. A professor at a small technical university in the south found three topics particularly difficult for her conservative Christian students to deal with: the radicalism of the Romantic poets, feminism, and homosexuality. Through electronic mail, however, the instructor found a means of challenging her students. After collecting her students' journal entries via electronic mail, she would post them anonymously for all to read and respond to on a electronic bulletin board. Collaborative learning of this sort benefits both the instructor and students alike. In this case, the instructor would probably never have been aware of the "backlash" of feminism felt by her female students, many of whom began their feminist statements with, "I am not a feminist but..." Similarly, electronic mail proved productive for debates about the "immoral" lifestyle of Shelley and Byron and the religious skepticism of Blake and Shelley. Electronic mail has other advantages in that it encourages participation from students who would not normally speak out; it fosters enthusiasm and interest where other more conventional forms of communication do not; and it constitutes a more intimate relationship between communicants than do other forms of communication, while at the same time preserving anonymity. Contains eight references. (TB)