Was it Cambridge? -- II

We have to examine it, weigh it, analyze it, attempt to resolve it -- without fear or favor, as usual.

I trust you realized we weren't done with the "Was it Cambridge?" question.

As we resume, let me start by attempting to account for how it was that I could have travelled from Canada to study literature at Cambridge.

First, admittedly, there was the Cambridge brand -- which, for me, meant an ill-defined sense that those people had some clue about literature, as well as some pride of purpose. (Yes, yes, dinosaur thinking, I realize.) Local colleges everywhere, I supposed, offered continuing ed in English lit. But it did not seem ridiculous that people from around the world seeking more of an immersion experience in English lit, and willing to travel someplace for it and join a community of others who'd done likewise, might choose a place like Cambridge. It also did not seem absurd to regard it as one of the world's centres of English literature, and therefore a place that might have a relatively abundant supply of apt teachers that the administration could draw upon.

Cambridge's own description of the program (already quoted above) did nothing to dispel such fancies:

The University has been running a specialist English Literature Summer School for nineteen years. It is designed to meet the needs of graduate and undergraduate students, teachers, professionals and others with a specific interest in this discipline. The programme offers a unique opportunity to live and study in surroundings which have sustained a long and distinguished literary tradition.... Cambridge ... continues to be an important centre of literary creativity and forum for critical debate.

Also contributing to my inclination to go abroad was the memory of my less than satisfactory Canadian summer studies four years ago, in which I repeatedly found my Shakespeare professor, Reina Green, to be academically dishonest.

I can say at this point, however, that despite Ms. Green's faults, in teaching she was superior to all three of my Cambridge teachers -- even though it was only Dalhousie University, in a place called Halifax. She was intensely interested in the subject. She was prepared for classes. She didn't ramble, like the Cambridge monologuists. The course was focussed, serious, relevant, more grounded in the actual texts. And I learned much more.

I did not neglect to document that experience, by the way (in a mere 9 letters).

As an aside, when Sarah Ormrod told me she'd been alerted that I had a website^[1], and that she'd be displeased to find unkind things said there about the Cambridge summer program, I saw she was holding a printed copy of my Shakespeare in Canada. How had she come upon that particular item, of all the diverse writings to be found at urielw.com?

Hmmm. I'd mentioned it to just one person at Cambridge -- fellow student Jacquie, in an email I sent her Aug. 9 which included a hyperlink to the story.

My guess: Busy with the resumption of teaching duties, Jacquie didn't look at it right away. But then she sent her "I'm home!" message, precipitating the Aug. 14 email flareup between her friends and me^[2]. And when she saw that, Jacquie, from whom I have never since heard a word (though she's on my mailing list and has been receiving these Cambridge letters since the first), discovered what she hadn't noticed throughout her stay at Cambridge: that I was a madman.

Drawn at that point to examine my Shakespeare story, a full realization of the danger I represented finally dawned. And either Jacquie herself or her spluttering friends resolved that it was imperative that the school authorities be warned.

Did this warning reach Ormrod just moments after the conclusion of her first meeting with me, on Aug. 15? That would be rather funny. But that seems indeed to be what happened, given the timing of Ormrod's raising her wishes regarding urielw.com.

Ormrod and her damned student opinion surveys! Her obliviousness to inherent worth! Her philistine diligence in chasing down the urchins' whims so she could serve the customers -- exactly like her counterparts at Nike, Coca-Cola, Disney and Mattel!^[3]

I thought of Ormrod when I read New Yorker writer Ken Auletta's account of his interview with the embattled Los Angeles Times managing editor, Dean Baquet:

[H]e does not, he said, share the populist vision of editors giving readers whatever they demand. "It's not always our job to give readers what they want," Baquet told me. "What if they don't want war coverage or foreign coverage or to see poverty in their communities? Southern newspapers are still hanging their heads because generations ago they gave readers what they wanted-- no coverage of segregation and the civil-rights movement." The job of newspapers, Baquet added, was to help readers understand the world. "If we don't do that, who will?"

["Fault Line," The New Yorker, October 10, 2005, by Ken Auletta. Pdf here.]

Who will, indeed!

The sell-outs and ignoramuses of Cambridge would have a lot to learn from Dean Baquet.

These are not even real Cambridge teachers, Jacques had insisted.

Why would Cambridge need to resort to unreal teachers? I asked him. How hard was it, in Cambridge, to find plenty of perfectly qualified teachers who'd be glad to pick up some extra pay by spending a few summer weeks sharing their knowledge of literature -- a field they loved -- with interested students who'd travelled from as far as Canada for enlightenment?

I confess to an innocent view of literature scholars. As a computer science major decades ago at the University of Toronto, I personally had a strong interest in the subject. But crass career motives alone sufficed to draw people to the field who were devoid of any intellectual appreciation for the subject, and it's my impression that the proportion of such students grew as computer science became an increasingly obvious career ticket. (Certainly the software industry is teeming with people who should never be permitted to write code.) The study of literature, by contrast, seemed like a certificate of purity of motive. Unless one was rather confused, I've thought, one didn't pursue literature studies without genuine feeling for the subject. And I've been prone to assuming that literature scholars living in this vulgar world would tend to be eager to share their enthusiasm with folks who show interest.

Perhaps that's naive. And it ignores the enthusiasm-killing phenomenon of LitCrit. Regardless, Jacques's These are not even real Cambridge teachers seemed baseless. It'd surely be easy for Cambridge to get qualified teachers, I argued.

No no no no no! he retorted with high-pitched exasperation. That was how he argued.

Anyway, something about his adamancy that final night at Cambridge led me, on my return to Toronto, to review the question -- which in turn led me to get back in touch with some old friends at Cambridge:

From: Uriel Wittenberg
To: Ms. Ormrod and Dr. Parker
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 4:59 AM
Subject: Inconsistent info from Cambridge English Faculty

Dear Ms. Ormrod and Dr. Parker,

May I ask you to explain the response below from the Cambridge English faculty to my inquiry concerning Alison Hennegan, Alexander Lindsay and Stewart Eames? Each is described in the English lit summer school timetable handbook and elsewhere as "Member of the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge." Yet the Faculty of English seems to disagree. Is there a misunderstanding?

Regards,

Uriel

----- Original Message -----
From: Jen Pollard
To: Uriel Wittenberg
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 3:28 AM
Subject: Re: Incomplete English faculty list on website?

If these people were once members of the Faculty, they are no longer. Sorry I can't be more help.

--
Jen Pollard
Computer Officer
Faculty of English
University of Cambridge

----- Original Message -----
From: Uriel Wittenberg
To: ;
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 9:39 AM
Subject: Incomplete English faculty list on website?

Greetings. Could you please advise regarding several apparent omissions in the faculty list at http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/faculty/index.htm? Alison Hennegan, Alexander Lindsay and Stewart Eames are not listed, although I thought they are English faculty members.

Thanks in advance,

Uriel Wittenberg

Parker maintained an aloof silence. Ormrod replied with a scrambled heap of vague explanations suggesting any of the following, without being explicit:

• There'd been "changes of title" which they hadn't caught despite making "every effort to be accurate at time of going to press," and they would now "check all information in the current brochure to make sure it is up to date" (or to bring it up to date).

• Membership in a faculty was not a simple matter of being in or out. There were "many types" of membership.

• "[C]ertain categories of membership are not displayed on websites," though that was irrelevant since I hadn't relied on websites, but had obtained my information from a human at the English faculty.

• The teachers I'd named were unaware that their names had been removed during a "tidying" of membership lists, so "they - and we - were unaware of this when printing our material." But "the three lecturers whose names you cited are taking the matter up with the English Faculty, and I gather that two are already being restored to the list, with apology."

  That was over a month ago, however, and they still don't appear on the list at http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/faculty/index.htm.

I followed up. But Ormrod refused further discussion.

So the unfortunate denizens of the Cambridge electronic forum were made to endure a fresh disturbance: False Claims by Cambridge?

This was my opener:

The Cambridge English Faculty has advised me via email, with regard to three teachers I inquired about:

"If these people were once members of the Faculty, they are no longer."

However, each is described as a "Member of the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge" in various materials of the Cambridge summer English literature program, where they taught this summer. They are:

- Stewart Eames
- Alexander Lindsay
- Alison Hennegan

The "Member of the Faculty of English" claim for Alexander Lindsay, for example, can be seen at http://www.cont-ed.cam.ac.uk/IntSummer/sschools/EngLit/courses/hb4.htm.

The list of English Faculty Members (in which the three do not appear) is at http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/faculty/.

I've asked the director of the summer schools, Sarah Ormrod, to explain. She has refused to respond satisfactorily.

Can anyone here shed light on what's going on?

(Continued....)

[2]     letter #6, A Modern Argument

[3]     meeting with Ormrod described in letter #3, Polls versus Thought