Blast from the Past
What a nice surprise to see the feature article profiling Philip Hamilton '82 in the latest Midd magazine (summer 2005). During my senior year in high school,
I had the good fortune to meet up with a Middlebury student on a Greyhound bus from Boston to Middlebury. We enjoyed an animated conversation, ate a few slices of pizza, and listened to some music (I can still recall his enthusiasm for the harmonies in "Whenever I Call You Friend"). As we arrived in Vermont, the Middlebury student said something to the effect of, "Oh, yeah, you'll love it here."
I have often thought back on that trip, thankful for the opportunity to attend Middlebury and wondering about that really nice guy with the great voice. Now I know. Philip, thanks for the ride and the advice. You were right.
Tom Palmer '85
Wilmette, Illinois
Success Story
What a pleasure to see Philip Hamilton '82 on your cover, and to remember sharing the stage with him and a talented campus cast in a Midd production of the musical of Studs Terkel's Working, in Wright Theater (1981, I think). Philip played the Car Parker (solo part) and I the Female Executive (chorus). Dana Morosini Reeve '84 played the Housewife, another showcase role, and she also went on to a professional performing career, winning acclaim for her many theater roles.
Although I am proud to continue my singing in Manhattan's 92nd Street Y Broadway Community Chorus, I and most of my Working colleagues have remained strictly amateur, but it's great to know that Philip has hit the big time.
Based on my biased recollection, Working was a superb show with many strong performances: Perhaps there are other success stories out there?
Emma (Raleigh) Mayer '82
New York, New York
Disappointed
As an alumnus of Middlebury College, I was very shocked by the graduation day picture in the Middlebury Magazine, summer 2005 edition. Amongst the graduating class of 2005 were several graduates wearing red "handkerchiefs" over their mouths. I wholly respect their right to protest and disagree with the selection of the graduation speaker. However, I disagree with the author's viewpoint that "what protest there was was small and respectful." I believe that to do it in the manner they chose was disrespectful, immature, inappropriate, and selfish. Graduation day is supposed to be a time of rejoicing and celebration. I would ask those who wore the bandannas to take a good look at the picture in the magazine. Mixed in with the rest of the graduates are glaring "bandit-looking" individuals who seem more attired for a bank robbery. Their classmates look on and listen, happy to graduate from one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the nation, yet they are surrounded by those who do not have the courtesy and respect to save their protest for a more appropriate setting, hopefully done with less spite and juvenility, but rather with class and dignity! I am embarrassed and disappointed that educated, liberal-minded people would stoop to such a measure. Guys, you let your classmates down, and of all days—graduation day!
Robert F. Smilari '93
Miami Beach, Florida
Errata
I was pleased to note that The Red House, the new book by Sarah Messer '88, was being reviewed in the magazine I received today. It is embarrassing and regrettable that the reviewer, Regan Eberhart, was not more careful and that there was no fact-checking by editorial staff. Sarah's parents are Ronald and Pat "Scout," not Nina (who was Ron's first wife). It is hard to believe that Eberhart even read the book since Scout's picture is on page 27, and it is very clear throughout the book what Sarah's mother's name is. (I have not gone through page by page, but I would be very surprised if Nina's name even appears in print.) What makes this gaffe even worse is that Patricia Watrouse Messer is also a Midd alumna, class of 1960. Her classmates gathering for their recent reunion were thrilled to celebrate with Pat and Ron over Sarah's book and the much-deserved recognition it has received. You owe the Messer family a huge apology!
Nancy Mumford Mulvey '60
Andover, Massachusetts
Ed. We deeply regret the error. The incorrect name, taken from a list of family members that appears in the book, was inadvertently transposed with Patricia Watrouse Messer.
Submit the Evidence
President Ronald D. Liebowitz deserves credit for trying to impart a fresh twist to the stale rhetoric normally associated with addresses to graduating seniors ("Make for Yourself a Teacher," summer 2005). But his lavish assessment of the education that students received during their four years at Middlebury consists merely of claims. They're not supported by any evidence that would pass muster beyond campus.
This skeptical view takes on increasing importance in today's era of accountability in education. Today, the focus is exclusively on K–12. But two years ago when the Higher Education Act, which governs most federal student-aid programs, was up for renewal, Congress was considering the use of standardized tests to determine if students were learning what administrators were claiming.
At that time, the House Education and Workforce Committee visited selected college campuses across the country to gather data about instructional effectiveness. The justification then was that taxpayers were investing billions of dollars annually in higher education and were entitled to know what kind of return they were getting. In today's global economy, that question is even more pressing. President Liebowitz may be correct in what he says about the education that Middlebury students receive. But until he produces hard evidence to support his assertions, no one can be sure.
To maintain credibility, he owes all stakeholders in the process that much.
Walt Gardner '57
Los Angeles, California
It's About Time
As enthusiastic about American literature as many of the last issue's letter writers, I have to disagree with the alarming number of responses published that do not favor the merging of the Am Lit and English departments. This is not a recent or shortsighted debate. As a senior in 1995, I served as a student representative on a faculty committee that was debating this same shift. What impressed me then, as it still does today, is the astounding pride that professors of both departments take in their work—they are wonderful teachers who invest their lives in the instruction of literature. For some faculty members to suggest that this process was bullied through simply is not true.
It is also frustrating that the very professors who so adamantly cling to the traditional Am Lit model are long-tenured professors who refuse to teach the survey courses that form the significant foundation of the major. This leaves the tiny core of newer department members, whose field is American civilization, to teach these core courses over and over throughout their tenure at Midd. In 2004, there was only one Am Lit major crossing the stage at Commencement; in 2005, only a handful. I'd prefer a future department that is invested entirely in the instruction of literature. The core of the Am Lit major, including its wonderful survey courses, will continue to exist in the new Department of English and American Literatures. Students will have the same opportunity to concentrate their passions in American literature, but will have a wider range of qualified professors to teach them.
As a high school English teacher, I am grateful for the philosophical and literary foundation I received from the Am Lit department. I am also glad that I was encouraged by my adviser to stretch my course work beyond my major and into English for an even wider foundation that has prepared me for graduate school and teaching. In my 10 years as a teacher of literature and humanities, I have had the pleasure of teaching a survey course in Am Lit only once—I started three days ago—and it's a blast. Yet the core of the curricula has stretched across ancient to modern literature from all over the world. Such is the more global nature of English departments today—a significant evolution that allows for wider-than-American perspectives that I hope one day will filter not only into our high school English departments, but into our national politics.
I regret that the prospect of this merger has created such division, where once-intimate colleagues and alums have descended into name-calling Granger-fords and Shepherdsons. I hope more people who love this department and the College as much as I do will view this change as an opportunity for Middlebury professors to continue to improve and excel at what they do—the teaching of literature.
Jennifer Ryan Onken '95
M.A. English '05
York, Maine
Nonsense
I have just read—unfortunately, tardily but I hope not too late—the article "To Merge or Not to Merge" in the spring issue of Middlebury Magazine, and I have one simple question to those to whom it may concern: Have you taken leave of your senses?
Middlebury was a pioneer in recognizing American literature as a separate discipline and has every reason to be proud of—and to build on—this heritage. Incidentally, I was wrong. I have further questions, all corollary to the lunacy noted above. Do we not have Thoreau's copy of Walden? Was not Doc Cook a brilliant professor of American literature and a man of passion, dedication, and empathy, indeed, without exaggeration, nobility? Have we not forgotten the shy and remarkable Viola White, our own Partridge in a Swamp, whose Vermont Diary is a gem, an insightful and poignant memoir, a masterpiece of lapidary poetic prose? Have we forgotten the significant ties of Robert Frost to Middlebury and Bread Loaf?
To abolish the Department of American Literature and Civilization would be, in my view, to destroy one of the most glorious academic pillars of Middlebury. I realize we do not have money like the University of Texas, which can buy any literary collection it wants. But we can have unmatched excellence in scholarship. We can build on our trailblazing heritage in American literature so that the department becomes a magnet for the finest students, professors, and writers. I want the future shining lights in the field to be able to say proudly: "Yes, I went to Middlebury."
Constantine M. Broutsas '49
Brattleboro, Vermont
Why Not Three?
The division over "To Merge or Not to Merge" left me with two thoughts: What do the students want? Why can't there be a third major in the end, "American Literature"? With Middlebury's breadth of faculty and courses, surely extinction is not necessary if students wish the major!
Con Brosnan '69
San Diego, California
Points for Both Sides
After reading all of the letters on this subject, I was struck that none of the authors quite realized the complexity and difficulty of this question. Their tendency to avoid specific examples from the worlds of literature and teaching and their overemphasis on the political aspect of the question struck me as the wrong approach. There is much to be said on both sides of the argument.
When I majored in English at Middlebury, I found several of the professors (Paul Cubeta, David Littlefield, and Robert Pack) to be more sophisticated than their counterparts in the Am Lit department. They did not hesitate to bring in nonliterary disciplines and authors outside their department to place their subject matter in context. And this included American authors! Professor Pack sponsored a senior thesis on Theodore Roethke and introduced me to at least one poem by Frost not included in Am Lit survey. In contrast, the two Am Lit courses I took gave me the impression that the department was rather hidebound in approach, more concerned about the kind of binders papers were submitted in than, say, in comparing American Transcendentalism with British Romanticism. Horace Beck, in particular, was a clown who should not have been let within a mile of a survey course; his contribution on Henry James was to compare him to a bowl of zinnias!
I had a general sense that the department tended to shun many difficult authors within their own field (e.g., Gertrude Stein, Hart Crane, John Ashbery). The English department taught Ulysses—though, admittedly, not Finnegans Wake.
On the other hand, the arguments about the uniqueness of the experience of an Am Lit major at Middlebury are not to be taken lightly. Though I was not a major myself, the fact that the Am Lit department and major existed gave me a sense of the uniqueness, gravity, and value of this area of human endeavor. And if this was true 40 years ago, it's far more so today! Since I graduated, we have had Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Jorie Graham's The Errancy, to give three examples from thousands. Only Britain has produced as much great literature. Two courses in Am Lit would barely be scratching the surface; 20 would not do our literature justice.
My conclusion is that Middlebury should keep the Am Lit department separate but try to ensure that the members of the department possess the level of sophistication and flexibility characteristic of the best English professors from my day.
William P. Michaels '66
Hillsborough, New Jersey
Small Stakes
The overwrought letters dissecting the proposed merger of the English and American literature departments published in the summer 2005 issue of Middlebury Magazine brought to mind the wry comment of a former teacher of mine, "The reason academic politics are so bitter is that the stakes are so small." The College will be just fine, whatever the appellations of its departments, as long as faculty remain fully committed to:
1) the business of the classroom; and 2) scholarly inquiry. The business of the classroom is rigorous teaching, testing, and grading. Scholarship is demonstrated through authorship of peer-reviewed publications in high impact journals and with top-tier publishing houses. Academic collegiality, though always welcome, is not essential.
I disclose, happily, that I was an English major.
Ware Kuschner '85
Pacifica, California
Look at the Numbers
There has been much invective-hurling and aspersion-casting over the proposed changes in the teaching of American literature at Middlebury. Former students mourn the loss of childhood or divine sinister culture war motivations on the part of people they have likely never met. Senior professors try but fail to hide their feelings of personal and professional betrayal behind points of academic principle, parliamentary procedure, and warnings of apocalyptic consequences for the study of American letters. Alums are invariably fueled by nostalgia or paranoia, neither of which serves the needs of today's students. The dissenting professors, as much as I sympathize with their plight, offer lucid critiques of the process but no answers to the challenges that led to the proposed change.
There is much to regret in the loss of my department, on both a personal and philosophical level: professional relationships and long friendships severed, a department unique within the academy retired. Yet few critics seem to have thought much about the practical reasons or greater context for the realignment. Professor Millier has a phone.
How many angry, grieving alums talked to her before lighting their Molotov cocktails and hurling them in her direction via this magazine's letters column? Has it occurred to you that she might be sincerely doing what she can to maintain the significant study of American literature at the College? The minority bloc lost the departmental vote, but if this magazine is any indication, they have done a bang-up job of shaping the post-vote debate through their scorched-earth public relations campaign. While their righteous indignation has been loud and eloquent, that doesn't necessarily make it right. After all, Don Quixote threw himself at windmills with unmatched conviction. The senior members of the department may feel they have no other recourse, or nothing left to lose, but I believe they have generated enormous heat at the expense of precious light.
When I was an Am Lit major (1989–93), the department was robust, thanks in large part to the efforts of Professors McWilliams and Donadio. They deserve great credit for maintaining and improving the department I inherited. As my adviser and teacher, Professor McWilliams made me a better student and, I hope, a better person. However, the department that he, Donadio, and others so bitterly defend today has not existed in practice for some time. I graduated 12 years ago with a dozen fellow majors. In recent times, one could count the number of Am Lit majors in a given year on one's hand. Diplomas handed out in 2005 included just two inscribed with the words "American Literature."
As noble as it might be, the ideal of the Am Lit department requires a stream of students and faculty eager to participate. Be dismissive of "national trends," but those trends have real causes, and reality can't be denied forever. While Midd students continue to flock to Am Lit courses as electives, today's Midd Kids simply aren't buying the department. What's more, many of the College's current Am Lit/Am Civ professors, who were forged in very different fires than their departmental forebearers, can't be eager to sell a departmental curriculum firmly rooted in the worldviews of the 1920s. And why should they? McWilliams and Donadio plainly feel that they have been tricked by a younger generation of teachers more interested in cultural studies than Am Lit, but a loud "NO" is not a solution; it's a denial. Would they force the existing department to continue despite lack of interest? Replace the current faculty? Does a next generation of McWilliamses even exist? If Middlebury couldn't recruit them in the past 20 years, I think I know the answer. Blaming "the 1960s," identity politics, moral corruption, or intellectual fads might make some feel better, but such answers are lazy, self-aggrandizing cop-outs. They don't explain an Am Lit reading list virtually unchanged in 50 years. They don't acknowledge the possibility that academic movements evolve over time for valid reasons.
They don't come to terms with the plain fact that no other school followed Middlebury's lead in anything resembling a sustained way. The dissenters relentlessly complain that no incoming student will be required to read any specific American author, but they avoid the fact that students in the new major may choose two-thirds of their courses in American writers. That doesn't sound like the death of anything to me.
Millier said in this magazine that she wanted to protect the teaching of literature. As department chair in 2005, she must face realities that McWilliams and Donadio, from their self-imposed exile, are free to pretend don't exist or matter. Let's assume the American civilization professors strongly wanted their own department. If Millier doesn't take Am Lit over to the English department, where does it go? Should two teachers instruct two students and call it a department just to keep two other people happy?
Legend has it that our Am Lit department was birthed in personal turmoil and politics, as Reginald Cook threatened to leave and take Robert Frost with him unless he was given his own fiefdom. It is tragic that it must end in the same spirit of acrimony.
Cole Odell '93
Brattleboro, Vermont
Academic Wars
The vehemence of the protests in your summer issue of Middlebury Magazine to the merger of the American literature and English departments and the limited number of letters expressing support for the move surprised me. I was an American literature major who graduated from Middlebury in 1948. It was at that time a very popular major, whatever a student's professional goal might be. I studied under that unusual student of Emerson and Thoreau, Reginald Cook '24. But more important for me was the counsel of Howard Munford '34, who encouraged me to go on to graduate school in American studies.
I am one of the Am Lit alums who was contacted by the present faculty in American literature this past year to lend my voice to those objecting to the proposed curricular move. I well understood their concern, for it was a proposal that threatened the careers of some faculty and dared to suggest a change in something that ranked up there with Gamaliel Painter's cane as a symbol of Middlebury College. But I have to confess that I wrote back telling them that my experience as a veteran of many academic wars, I had problems with alumni, out of a fit of nostalgia, shaping a college's contemporary curriculum.
After attending the Bread Loaf School of English, I went on to the University of Pennsylvania to study in a graduate program the university called American Civilization. That program was a combination of American literature and American history. It was a fascinating course of study. But I also soon came to realize that it frankly lacked a central academic discipline or methodology. One either concentrated on literary criticism or literary history (which inevitably brought any student of American writing back to its roots in English literature), or one became a student of American social and cultural history and, at most, focused on the historical context of Cooper, Thoreau, Dreiser, et al. After one year at Penn, I made the momentous leap of moving over to a broad study of American history. As a consequence, I would never get to teach a course in literature, but would, in the process of spending the next 50 years of my career in a history department, fuse into my American history courses, where appropriate, the insights I gained from Professors Cook and Munford.
What is apparent in the magazine story is that today the central academic discipline or methodology for American studies is probably something closer to the cultural anthropologist's approach. One is led in American studies to study a nation's—or people's—culture (note that small "c") and/or its "high culture." Clearly, one sees here the rise of the behavioral sciences in academic circles. They were in evidence in my days at Penn, but their victory (if one can call it that) is now more complete in such areas as history and American studies.
I do not completely reject this. If one is to study American life in any depth, one has to have some kind of disciplinary approach. American studies is, after all, a state of mind, and it all depends on how the scholar chooses to approach it.
Middlebury is clearly a much different place than it was in those post-World War II years. Middlebury Magazine—and even a casual walk around that beautiful campus—makes that point very clear. But I think it has risen to its present heights by its continuing commitment to scholarship, to good teaching—and to change. May it ever be so.
Daniel R. Gilbert '48
Nazareth, Pennsylvania
The writer is a professor of history, emeritus, at Moravian College.
Am Lit Betrayed
One might hope the president, trustees, or committee of the faculty would step in and block the ill-conceived effort to abolish Middlebury's distinguished tradition of American literature and its long-valued major.
This destructive plan, and the shabby procedures to advance it, is an intellectual embarrassment. They are an offense to orderly college governance, as well. The surge of protesting letters to the magazine, and the striking testimony of Middlebury professors, make this abundantly clear.
That a quick twist of academic politics can suddenly, in effect, dismantle a major course of study, dissolve an accredited department, rebuff serious dissent, evade exposure, and then high-handedly and casually connive to divide the spoils as a sub-program elsewhere should concern everyone, including alumni and friends.
Are departments at Middlebury so vulnerable to aggrandizement and self-interest? Is this an acceptable way to initiate the profoundest "rearrangement of the College's curriculum in nearly a century"? What precedent is set? What standards for change? For truly serious review? Has Middlebury Magazine been any help—with its bland, glib, deceptively slanted presentation of a subject far more complicated than it permitted itself to study? (Articles in the undergraduate Campus have been more creditable and informing, in my opinion. A student vote, by the way, heavily favored the retention of American literature.)
The loss of Middlebury's unique comprehensive curriculum in American literature will sorely disappoint (and disturb the loyalty of) myriad alumni—especially the majors and nonmajors deeply influenced for their lifetime by the committed teaching of legendary professors Reginald Cook and Howard Munford, or of their successors John McWilliams and Stephen Donadio. Today, in contrast, American literature at Middlebury is betrayed and trivialized by faculty originally appointed to sustain it. These include even the present occupant of the "Reginald L. Cook Chair." The irony is devastating and disheartening. So is the level of bitter division and resentment among faculty and alumni.
At stake is the intellectual and administrative integrity of the College. What happens will indelibly brand the tenure of the new president. It will long affect the character of the College in the new century and the attitude of alumni toward it.
John H. Hicks '41
Carmel, California
The writer is the president emeritus of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation.
Facts of the Case
I write to provide some factual information to help Middlebury alumni understand the ongoing campus discussion about restructuring the study of literature in English at the College. Beginning with a proposal generated by the faculty in the Department of American Literature and Civilization in the spring of 2004, the two affected departments each voted overwhelmingly (7–2 and 11–3) to pursue these changes: the transformation of the English major and department into English and American Literatures; and the transformation of the current Department of American Literature and Civilization into a more fully interdisciplinary American Studies program. We all acknowledge the loss of the separate major in American literature, an honorable tradition at Middlebury which served the College and its students well for more than 60 years; but we also welcome the multiplication of contexts in which current students will be able to study American texts—among other literature in English in one department, and in cultural and historical context in the other.
I anticipate no significant reduction in the teaching of American literature at the College. We will continue to offer a two-semester survey of major texts in American literature every year, and we all welcome the chance to teach courses which offer American, British, and other Anglophone texts alongside one another. In addition, I wish to state clearly and unequivocally that the requirements of the proposed English and American literatures major will allow for the in-depth study of American literature. In the new department, students would be allowed (but not required) to take as many as six of their eleven major courses in American literary subjects.
I strongly believe that these proposed modifications to the curriculum will strengthen, not diminish, the study of American literature at Middlebury. The College's distinguished tradition in American literary studies will continue only as faculty gain opportunities to participate in the promising developments that characterize the field of American literature nationally. Certainly, unique fields of study can give a college's curriculum distinction, but not when, in the pursuit of uniqueness, accountability to national and international standards of scholarship and teaching is sacrificed. If the College is committed to maintaining its national reputation—if it wishes to attract nationally competitive faculty and students in the future—then we must ensure that our finest traditions, like the study of American literature, remain dynamic and living traditions. I and the vast majority of my colleagues support these proposed curricular changes in order to strengthen the tradition of teaching American literature at Middlebury.
Brett Millier
Cornwall, Vermont
The writer is the Reginald L. Cook Professor of American Literature and served asdepartment chair from 1992–2004
Merge Physics and Hockey
American literature was a focus of mine at Middlebury, although it was not my major. The passion demonstrated by professors Munford, Cook, and Beck for their subject matter was infectious and seductive and engendered in me a lifelong reading habit.
American literature comes out of—and is an expression of—American culture. It's the literature, in other words, of where we live and has no more to do with English literature than with anything else. Merging these two departments would be ridiculous. A modest proposal: merge physics and ice hockey; at least in that case there'd be a direct connection.
John Pindyck Miller '60
Brewster, New York
A Passionate Preference
As an Americanist, a former English department head, and the professor responsible for starting the American studies program at Oklahoma State University, I read with both understanding and trepidation your story in the spring 2005 Middlebury Magazine of the proposed merger of the American literature and English departments.
Because most universities and colleges continue to increase the variety and number of new "area" offerings required for graduation, students find it a logistic nightmare to schedule classes that meet graduation requirements in a timely fashion. Students drop classes on impulse, fail to recognize that departments cannot offer required courses on demand, and if they miss a required class because it is overenrolled or cancelled, they may find themselves waiting another two years for a class they need for graduation. Advisers substitute one class for another to solve the problem, but students end up with a watered-down plan of study.
On the other hand, while the pattern of a college world run by money moguls may make colleges look more successful and, therefore, a more attractive draw, Middlebury College has always prided itself on its image as sui generis. Because the American literature major is the only one of its kind, to destroy it for expediency is a mistake. While the chair supports the merger because she wants "literature to be read as literature," at the same time she argues that the "reasons for the creation of a separate major are being challenged in the national field, which is rapidly moving toward cultural studies" and then admits that her American literature colleagues are "more focused on the study of American culture."
Emerson would have shuddered. If the national move is toward a study of individual cultures, then why change the very focus of Middlebury's American literature department by merging it with English and reinventing American studies as apparently little more than a linguistic hiccup?
The virtue of an American literature department is that it provides students with an intensive study of American literature. When they graduate, they will know a lot about one area rather than a little about a lot of areas. We live in a watered-down world where our commitment to community service, quality workmanship, and knowledge for its own enjoyment no longer exists. To eliminate the American literature department at
Middlebury will discourage students from sharing in a spirit of disciplined commitment to our national literary culture, for which those at Middlebury have always shared, in Robert Frost's phrase, "a passionate preference."
Jeffrey Walker M.A., English '71
Stillwater, Oklahoma
The writer is a professor in the English department at Oklahoma State University.
In Protest
I wanted to take the time to respond to the article regarding the proposed elimination of the American literature department at Middlebury College. As I ponder my approach to this topic, I find myself reflecting on all of the job interviews and personal conversations in which I was able to proudly state that I was an American literature major at Middlebury College, the only college in the country to offer a separate major for this subject matter. It is with great sadness that I must write this letter to protest the decision to merge the American literature curriculum into the English department. Further, the realization that this recommendation came from within the American literature faculty is truly disheartening.
Struggling to direct my anger on this subject into a pointed perspective, I would like to focus on a quote from Brett Millier, chairman of the Department of American Literature and Civilization in which she states, "I admire and respect my colleagues in the department, but they are more focused on the study of American culture. I'm supporting the change because I want literature to be read as literature." While my memory of my studies nearly 25 years ago has faded somewhat, to say that my Am Lit professors were focused on the study of American culture would, at best, be only partially true. But more important, I wonder how the study of literature "as literature" can possibly be undertaken without a cultural framework for understanding. To separate the study of any literature from its cultural underpinnings would seem to me to be a futile exercise and one lacking in academic value. The thought of reading William Bradford, Herman Melville, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Joseph Heller, Saul Bellow, Jack Kerouac, or Ralph Ellison, to name but a few, without a strong cultural perspective would not only be a devastating development for any student of literature, but especially for those students seeking a comprehensive understanding of our own national body of literature. To think that a Middlebury professor of American literature, never mind the chairman of the department, believes that the study of literature without the study of culture is an appropriate means of educating students is just a little frightening.
While I was never the best writer at Middlebury, I hope I have succeeded in adequately expressing my views on this crucial topic. I firmly oppose the recommendation to gut one of the truly unique educational opportunities in all of college academia. It is without reservation that I support the position taken by both John McWilliams and Stephen Donadio. In my eight years of college education, I can think of no finer educators than these two gentlemen. Their dedication to the fight to continue forward with a unique and separate American literature department is inspiring. It is wonderful to think that their passion for the study of American literature as a body of work, instilled in me nearly 25 years ago, still burns as brightly now as it did then. I can only hope that come decision time, the Middlebury College faculty and administration give serious consideration to the implications of eliminating the comprehensive study of American literature at the finest college in America.
Alan Wagman '82
Wayne, New Jersey
An Unfair Exchange
I have been saddened to learn that Middlebury is planning to merge the Department of American Literature and Civilization into a Department of English and American Literatures.
During my undergraduate years, I had two opportunities to take courses in American literature, one taught by Timothy Spears and the other taught by John McWilliams. Both courses represented a unique blend of literature, history, and discussions about the meaning of American culture and society. I did not find this unique approach in either the history or English departments, notwithstanding the other strengths of their respected curricula. John McWilliams made Puritanism come to life and transported our class back into the world of 17th-century New England!
Around the country, departments of American studies typically do not encourage this pedagogical approach. Moreover, a Department of English and American literatures is not likely to continue this tradition over the long term.
I have always considered Middlebury's American Literature offerings to be something special within the world of modern academia. Why should the College exchange a unique and effective heritage for a new academic fashion that might prove less durable?
John G. Turner '96
Fort Collins, Colorado
The writer is a lecturer in history at Colorado State University.
Letters Policy
Letters addressing topics discussed in the magazine are given priority, though they may be edited for brevity or clarity. On any given subject we will print letters that address that subject, and then in the next issue, letters that respond to the first letters. After that, we will move on to new subjects. Send letters to:
Middlebury Magazine
Meeker House
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753
E-mail: middmag@middlebury.edu.