Academic Autobiography—Introduction

One year ago on Round and Square (21 September 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: The Close Talker

[a] Academia RF

Here we go again (I hear you cry). We have a perfectly fascinating topic like the personal narratives of people with full, busy lives (this would be the "autobiography" part of the series title)...only to be spoiled by an exasperating modifier. Why would I take something as interesting as memoir and suck the very life from it by investigating academics? 

Because that's what professors do.

Let me tell you a little story. While I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago in the early-1990s, I was struck by some of the changes brought by its new president, Hugo Sonnenschein (1993-2000). Just a click on his name should tell you that he accomplished a good deal for the university. I remember something else, though. I remember student protests in front of the library. 

[b] Chicago RF

Yes, you heard me right. Student protests.

They carried placards and shouted slogans. What was their cause? They were furious that President Sonnenschein had encouraged students to get out a little bit on weekends—let their hair down and party a little. He even went so far as to push a cutback in weekend hours at the Regenstein Library. 

This was more than they could endure. 

The college that had been called by A.J. Liebling "...the greatest concentration of adolescent neurotics since the childrens' crusades" was beside itself. It all can be summed up with this. At the very same time, in the University Bookstore, one of the best-selling maroon t-shirts bore the University of Chicago logo on the front and the following saying on the back:

The University of Chicago: 

Where Fun Comes to Die 

I resemble that remark, even though I was a graduate student then. There is one funny thing about all of this. A whole bunch of people just like us become professors. One of the biggest mistakes out there is the assumption that professors are liberal. No, the bigger issue, it seems to me, is that professors are boring. I know, at least, that I am.

There is one more thing. Professors really like to read about their own little worlds. Have you ever wondered why so many novels written by English professors are about...English departments? Some people write about what they know. If you are not running wolf teams on the Klondike, you probably need to write about life in the hallways of the humanities building. And you know what?

[c] Lake RF

Some of us love it.

When I was younger, I often wondered aloud when I saw what I now call an academic memoir. The first one I can remember seeing was the Penguin Classics edition of Edward Gibbon's autobiography. This man, who spent much of his life writing an enormous history of the end of the Roman empire, also wrote about his life. I wondered to myself what the book might be like. Did he just say "...and then on Tuesday I wrote four pages about Olybrius" or "writing the last volume was much harder than writing the first"—is that it?  

Boy, was I surprised when I finally read it. Good stuff, at least for my tastes. The old guy actually had a life, and then wrote about it. Who would have known? This is the thing about academic autobiography. It often shows a side of teachin'-and-writin' folks that cannot be seen in the classroom or on the pages of learned journals.

I mean, while this may not reach the level of soul-baring seen in Jean Jacques Rousseau's Confessions (or even St. Augustine's), it makes for much better reading than some of the hand-wringing drivel that is currently fueling the publishing industry. I'll take Claude Lévi-Strauss's Tristes Tropiques any day over A Million Little Pieces or Three Cups of Tea. This series will explore a little-appreciated corner of autobiography that I love.

As for the wider reading public, here is my pitch.

Academic autobiography: it's not as boring as you think!

Or something like that. Join me for this new series on Round and Square.

[d] Soul RF