10
20
5655
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a1cda09c74b208fcd49f05e76c4edc54.pdf
beb36743efa724d8b20543cf836a7398
PDF Text
Text
essay
Infinite Regress
ometime in the past few years, liberal arts college adminis
trators across America decided that they had had enough.
They wondered: what is the goal of a liberal arts education?
Why study English instead of “Marketing/Advertising”? They
could maneuver around aesthetic concerns (that dropping out
of life in order to study Plato was... distasteful) but remained
unable to surmount the issue of practicality. Nobody wanted
to say that a liberal arts education would get you a certain kind
of job that paid a certain kind of salary. And then all of a sud
den, everybody did.
You may have heard the phrase “critical thinking skills”
thrown around lately. Critical thinking skills . . . what are
those? Well, what seems to be certain is that C.T.S. are very
important for acquiring a job nowadays. Which kinds of jobs
these are seems less certain—and for what ends C.T.S. are
“necessary” even less so. The argument that follows from this
deduction is, of coiu-se, tenuous. (Mostly because is is not es
pecially coherent.) It is also intolerably middle-brow: exactly
the kind of statement your parents might pronounce to rela
tives during a family reunion at Olive Garden: “Johnny’s de
veloping criricuZ thinking skills because they’re so necessary for
today’s job market!” Such is the critical equation: that college
is foremost about money.
Critical thinking is good. The world has changed for the bet
ter because humans think critically. But at some point, maybe
in the past few years, this became insufficient—being a critical
thinker wasn’t just a necessary condition for being an educated
person. It became a prerequisite for employment, specifically
for a job carrying with it the kind of salary a college-educated
person might expect to earn. How did this happen? It does not
seem complicated. Over the years the job market has become
increasingly transparent. It is no longer as common as it once
ast year, gadfly coliunnist Michael Lacy made an astute was, perhaps up until the Nineties, when the Internet rose to
observation, which I’ve been mentally rehashing ever prominence, to gain employment by working for a friend or
since. “So much of what the gadfly was this year,” he said,
relative’s company. (This still happens, of course, but it is less
“was what ‘the gadfly’ was.”
acceptable.) And so a person could reasonably attend a liberal
This stuck "with me for a few reasons, but primarily because arts college, major in history, earn not even very good grades,
it revealed our self-involvement as a Staff, rather than a pub and then somehow—as if by magic—end up working the trad
lication. As a member of the Polity, when I picked up an is ing desk for a Chicago securities firm. There was a man behind
sue, I wanted to see a reflection of the St. John’s community. the curtain, and that man’s name was Dad.
Instead, I saw distinct fingerprints of The Staff and what we,
The education of a person and that person’s employment
rather than the Polity, created the paper to be.
were once two wholly separate things. This was an eflfect of
That being said, the true object of this Letter is to inform fairly ridiculous income stratification. (Income disparity also
our old and new readers of the existence of what we are now accounted for the now-unfathomably low price of college in
calling G: A SUPPLEMENT. In theory’, this will be our literary the twentieth century, which has since been corrected for,
supplement to the more news-oriented gadfly. And while now that people who are not wealthy aspire to go to college.)
I take up this space to encourage you to submit yoxir poems, Years ago, you didn’t expect a job due to your degree; you ex
translations, vignettes, comics, photographs, short stories, et pected one because of your social status. Nobody really need
cetera. I also encourage you to help us shape our new endeav ed to worry about the practicality of a liberal arts degree when
or, as it truly belongs to you.
economic injustice guaranteed every college graduate a high—Elizabeth Spagnoletti payingjob.
Along with a fervent extolling of C.T.S. comes a swift con
______________
The Gadfly
1 — For this issue. The “G” will be carrying what would nor
demnation of utilitarian degrees: programs of study like ra
mal appear in the gadfly.
diology or nursing or electrical engineering. (Or: massage
S
letter from the editor
Introducing “G”
L
�Aphasia, NY (Beyond the Zero)
Vandal propaganda on
The neighbor temple:
MEEK, smeared
Proud in David’s Star
Waging modest holy war
In this mumble drowned hamlet,
While the yoimg ones
Study stray voodoo.
Vast fatal papyrus, and
Deities that gather clouds in their wake.
»
A habitat under
Assault by disputed
Details of the
Wonder-drawn nightly
Fathoms, deep into the
Blue distant shores,
Vista speckled with
Foreign starlights.
A ceaseless argument of
Namely whom had been
Sewn lucid into the
Folds of that prayerscape, and the
Frequent invocations and
Conjurations of
Them imder strife.
Once happy hollows
Clove to their
Doomed horrors alleged, the
Judgment lain on those
Fallen fools, be it the
Core’s un-luminous furnace, or the
Vengeful wrath of the
Chthonic dominion below.
Upon those cleft of mortal thread.
Supplicants to the somber air.
Pleading, “whisper in my ear,”
But we don’t speak that Language
Since our towers fell.
—Carter Brown
therapy.) This is one of the few cogent parts of the argument
against specialization, against pre-professionalization. (One
may find a parallel in the medical commimity’s persistent con
troversy vis-a-vis specialization versus general care.) A liberal
arts education prepares you in a way a degree in video game
design never will for the exigencies and pain and uncertainties
of everyday living: for the monster of modernity. It makes you
fully alive. Since market corrections along with the continued
eradication of inequality made impossible the prior terms of
a college education, it wasn’t surprising that a lot of young
people in the past decade or so felt like they had to choose be
tween making money and a “life of the mind,’’ between being
comfortable and being free: between death and life.
So what to do with people for whom college is the means of
making more money? Tell them that a liberal arts education
doesn’t prepare you for a job but does develop C.T.S., which
will help you get a job, insofar as they develop you as a fully
functioning, highly capable hiunan being. There’s not a whole
lot wrong with this. But what is wrong is deadly. Why did we
cede that education is for profit-making? Degrees in engineer
ing, or computer science, or cosmetology: they are not the
problem. The difficulty is that market capitalism has success
fully encroached upon one of the last bits of sacred territory—
the liberal arts—hitherto protected as a means to abetter, more
democratic society. What do we have to show for it? Critical
thinking skills. It is terribly ironic that the institutions that
looked at the world and became determined to make it better
by educating people are now stuck defending themselves for
“practicality.” The revolution did not start in Accounting 101.
But this is where those college administrators, from Kenyon to
Swarthmore to Reed, have gone to console themselves.
titled this editorial with the intent of criticizing two things.
The first is that critical thinking skills, or the status associ
ated with them, are an inherently regressive concept, especial-
I
ly within the object of my second criticism, which is the terms
set by market capitalism, terms with which we have agreed to
follow. After all, you can’t think too critically, lest everything
fall down. Lest you be required to reconsider the world.
I don’t know why C.T.S. were appropriated for the ends of
capitalism. And I don’t know why liberal arts college admin
istrators were complicit in such theft. In the end, a liberal arts
education doesn’t give you much of anything at all except the
huge, great, life-giving ability to process, without breaking
down, the heady, outrageous stuff of living: the capacity to still
recognize life, and yourself, in the entropy. This is what you
came here for: not to get a job, but to be able to deal with hav
ing to do so.
—J. Keenan Trotter
books
Summer Reading
recommend the following four books that I read this sum
mer. They weren’t the only good ones I came across, but
these were the last of the bunch, read as the siunmer was
ending, and so imbued with that preemptive nostalgia which
marks the waning of a season.
1. Gypsy Rose Lee, The G String Murders, 1941. (The ety
mology of the “G” is, perhaps happily, unknown). Gypsy Rose
Lee, the famous stripper intellectual (striptease is a subclass
of burlesque; vaudeville is its snobbishly genteel relative)
lived for a while at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights.
Here W.H. Auden (with his lover Chester Kailman), Benjamin
Britten, Carson McCullers, Janet Flanner and a whole slew of
other celebrities, including Klaus Mann (Thomas’s son), dos
sed down or dug in to form a roiling commune composed of
I
brilliant talents and irregular existences. (I got the reference
to G String Murders out of a book by Sherrill Tippins, Febru
ary House, that tells this Brooklyn story; it was lent to me by
an Annapolis alumna, Cynthia Barry.) There Gypsy worked
on her first book with help from various members of the crew.
However, the thing is essentially her own, told in her own
name. It’s pretty racy, but a little too littered with characters
and strung together and, to me, a tad boring in the long run,
I didn’t read every page but looked to see who dunnit (my
hermeneutic method for reading mysteries). Yet you learn a
lot about the tough argot and the rough ways of a nearly by
gone form of entertainment. (That “Little Flower,” Fiorello
LaGuardia, New York’s kookily wonderful mayor in the for
ties—he used to read us kids the funnies on the radio during
newspaper strikes—shut down all the burlesque theaters in
the cause of family values.) Under the rubric Femmes Fatales
the book has been republished by Feminist Press, which takes
pride—imagine!—in the fact that women can write pulp fic
tion. (Since the genre is often sexually exploitative, this surely
isn’t quite kosher as feminism.) The work seems to be good of
its kind, and it’s certainly fascinating as anthropology. Any
how, it’s a phenomenon. She was a phenomenon who could do
something remarkable: raise vulgarity to wit. I think I’d have
liked her better in person than in her book, but then I got that
notion from her book.
Roadhead
Roadhead, the live-long monster of morning
sits in black platitudes waiting to sing
of all scrape scrapers and newborn winged Dongers
who with goggle mouths fly in the rain.
O roadhead, your mouth is a letter,
your arms are wrangle red nether.
So if I rise, and chuck you off
a cliff a biff, a whiff of the high air
think nothing, and fall down,
moonlight rich in your hair.
The Gammy Gaze I seldom shun
Especially when I’m on the run.
So enter wide enter.
Lay Down A Black Sneeze.
Come on sweet Lolly,
get on your knees.
You know Unckle and Aunt
they’re followers of the Floundoo Pipe
and Readiers of the Eagle:
It’s often that they fly along
on the wicked shore.
You know Rickie and Samantha
they’re better in the flesh,
if you can convince them to squirm
and spin the fucking bottle.
—Chris Johns
2. William Saroyan, The Human Comedy, 1943. A Santa Fe
alumnus, Laird Durley, gave me his copy, thinking quite right
ly that it would speak to me, since the book was published not
long after I’d arrived in Brooklyn, America, from Nazi Ger
many. Saroyan is as gently sweet as Gypsy is harshly raw. To
make it perfect, the two heroes, a four year old boy and his
teenage brother, are called Ulysses and Homer respectively.
It’s a lovely tear-jerker and remarkably right-minded. It ad
umbrates the social changes of the sixties but as yet without
ideology—rather as feelings of the American heart. It even has
one redeeming vice: the opinion, twice enforced, that women
aren’t supposed to go to work. This is the American small
town and its folks—all yet in the age of innocence. And if a
cynic wants to argue that Americans never were that innocent,
it would be a truth of hindsight only. In the forties, they felt
that way to themselves and looked that way to escapees from
Europe. Spend two and a half hours in lost Eden!
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night, 1934. Fitzgerald’s
Great Gatsby has long been one of my favorite novels, partly
because I love that “elegant roughneck,” Jay Gatsby—I’ve had
him in seminar. But Tender is the Night seems to me even more
accomplished. It has a slow and sure tragic inevitability—from
hopeful, halcyon Riviera days to declining, dingy North Euro
pean years—for a man who is willingly enslaved by loving duty
to his schizophrenic wife and insidiously seduced by his iner
tial ambition to depend on her relatives’ money. The wife is
a masterpiece of madness: the inextricable strands of wicked
egotism and woeful pathology. But what is most to be savored
is the writing itself: the pungent observations wrapped in fig
ures of speech that often seem tough to swallow, but when you
chew them over release their satisfying substance. This is a
great book, among the best American novels I’ve read, and it
needs more notice than a paragraph; if I ever get to do a pre
ceptorial again. I’ll propose it.
4. Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft, 2009. I
don’t like motorcycles; if I was somebody’s mother I’d hate
them What’s more, some sixty years ago I rode behind a
young madman, up and down the steep streets of the side of
Athens that runs up the slopes of Lycabettus, and it put my
back out for months. I do watch American Chopper, for its
mixture of gross manners and exquisite knowhow. It’s the
knowhow that Shop Class, a book that goes straight to my soul,
is about. The writer owns a cycle repair shop, and though he
is modest, he must be first-rate. He makes a detail-informed
case for the soul satisfaction to be gotten from becoming an
expert (or serious amateur) at some hands-on craft and offers
a restrainedly appalled critique of the “separation of thinking
from doing” that governs a great deal of contemporary work.
It’s as much a passionate how-to-live and what-to-shun book
as a cool sociological analysis of our condition, whose central
issue he diagnoses as—I think that’s right—“individual agen
cy.” Crawford studied political philosophy at Chicago, with
obvious benefit: like Socrates before him, he knows that, as
cleanliness is next to godliness, so craftsmanship is next to
philosophy. Compared to Shop Class as Soulcraft, its charm
ingly talkative predecessor, the cult classic of the seventies,
Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
(which makes irrelevant hay of Plato’s Phaedrus) seems about
ready for honorable retirement, except that it’s the more ju
venile of the two books. Some chapters of Shop Class would
�make a splendid guerilla seminar.
Afterthou^t: Who’d have imagined that a Ph.D. in Political
Philosophy could net you a best-seller?
Whoever wants to talk about any of these four, or, for that
matter, any others, is welcome to give me a call. I’m in the
Campus Directory.
—Eva Brann
Tutor
personal history
Arthur Mallamo
forty-year-old memory occurred to me this summer while
I was attending a lecture about the effects of alcohol on
the brain, presented by a professor of neurology from Johns
Hopkins University. As I listened to the lecture and took
notes, my mind drifted to my friendship with the legendary
Arthur Mallamo.
Mr. Mallamo was my 7th grade gym teacher. He was also
a poet, a philosopher, and a comedian. He had a command
ing presence and a pushed-in, twisted nose that led to much
speculation among us boys about how its unique shape was
acquired. Theories ranged from his being a professional wres
tler to a Mafia hit-man. The truth was even more remarkable:
he was a WWII bomber and fighter pilot who’d been shot
down not once, but twice, and eluded capture both times. His
misshapen nose was a reminder of his ordeals.
If Mr, Mallamo liked you, his way of showing it was to tease
you in front of the class. One cold November day he had us
running around the track, our thin gym uniforms providing
almost no protection from the icy winds. As Mr. Mallamo ex
horted us onward he bellowed, “Whoever comes in last has to
take Januszewski home for Thanksgiving dinner!” It was then
I knew we were getting along well.
He was also my health class teacher, which was where he
expounded on various life lessons. He’d speak earnestly to us
about living generously and about the value of dedicating your
life to service. “Gentlemen,” he’d say softly, “greed is a terrible
thing.”
One day a boy smuggled a very dead but otherwise intact
frog into the classroom. As soon as Mr. Mallamo’s back was
turned, the boy, in a display of boldness I will always remem
ber, laxmched the frog into the air like a grenade. It landed
with an inert thud on the teacher’s desk. All eyes were on Mr.
Mallamo as he turned, carefully examined the frog, held it
aloft and said, “Gentlemen. This... is a frog. Am I going too fast
for you Januszewski?” We howled with laughter and loved
him for that.
Another day in health class, Mr. Mallamo explained how
alcohol rendered brains cells less and less functional. To il
lustrate his point, he took the blackboard eraser in his huge
hand and dangled it at arm’s length. “Gentlemen... this is what
alcohol does to brain cells...” and he dropped the eraser onto
the desk surface, which sent a puff of chalk dust into the air. I
got the message: drink too much and your brain cells go poof.
This seemed plausible, but was it true?
This summer’s neurology lecture at Johns Hopkins jogged
A
Nuclear Physics is Interesting
im silence profond;
the wide deserted streets
hate the vanity of men.
I love without regret:
the majesty of human suffering,
the autumn,
a red hat to the west
Dedie aux Palmeri et Milligan
—Translated and arranged by Kelly Trop
my memory about Mr. Mallamo’s lessons. It turns out that yes,
alcohol, and drunkenness in particular, has a significant nega
tive impact on an aspect of brain development called myelina
tion.
Myelin is the material that forms a protective sheath around
nerve cells, or netnons, enabling them to communicate and be
social with each other. Proper myelination is vital for the ce
rebral cortex, the part of your brain that helps you do well in
college. Healthy myelination is very good for the grey matter:
it enhances crisp thinking and efficient recall in our mental
processes. Like people, neurons work well when they are well
connected with each other.
One reason drinking is such an effective way to get high is
that alcohol easily penetrates the myelin sheath to mess with
cell function. The more intense the drinking, the more de
structive the assault on the myelin sheath. If the myelination
process is impaired, intellectual activity is also impaired; neu
rons become more rigid, less fluid, more easily irritated. Poor
ly myelinated neurons work less efficiently, become poorer
communicators, and eventually die of loneliness.
In practical terms, impaired myelination makes it harder
to remember things, harder to concentrate, easier to be frus
trated with new information. You could say a well-myelinated
brain is better able to enjoy exercising its intellect, and a less
well-myelinated brain will struggle more.
Healthy myelination is important at all ages, but, according
to the Johns Hopkins neurologist, the cerebral cortex in the
human brain desires a myelination “growth spurt” in the 1821 age range. The worst way to drink, from a brain growth
perspective, is to binge drink in college. That’s high-impact
toxicity.
Once again, I tip my hat to my old gym teacher and friend,
Arthur Mallamo. While he. didn’t have access to all the sci
entific data, he was right to suggest that alcohol can diminish
brain power well after we’ve finished drinking. Since the life
of the mind is so highly valued at St. John’s College, it makes
sense to examine how our drinking pleasures influence our in
tellectual pleasures. If there was a conflict between the two,
which pleasure would take priority?
If you’re mindful of how much you desire your intellectual
powers to flourish and would like to limit your drinking, then
the next time you’re at a party and someone offers you a drink,
feel free to say, “No thanks. I’m myelinating today.”
—Jerry Januszewski
analysis
likely come down to the Guardians and Druids -with Popov
throvting the disc, and handball looks to be wide open. Linus
Feder and Marin Skokandic give the Guardians solid experi
ence on the soccer field, and on paper at least, the Guardians
look to be serious contenders to win the overall intramurals
he sophomore draft is over, and the fall intramurals sea championship.
son has finally begun. For the freshmen and anyone else
Green Waves In the Draft: After seeing Eric Shlifer light
who didn’t follow the draft (or for anyone who just likes readup
their B-team handball and basketball teams last year, the
ing about sports), here’s a recap of the first round of the draft Green Waves ensured that history would not repeat itself by
with some predictions of how each team is likely to fare in the taking him with the fourth pick in the draft. Shlifer will pro
coming year.
vide some much-needed scoring in both of those sports as well
Druids In the Draft: Trading away their top two draft as adding his forehand to a fidsbee team with no clear-cut han
picks in order to move up and get the first overall from the dlers.
—
Guardians, the Druids made David Campbell the number one
On the Field: The Green Waves look to be one of the most
overall selection in this year’s draft. Campbell, who played for balanced teams in the league after finishing second overall last
the Druids last year, should continue to anchor their basket year, despite failing to win any individual sports. They are the
ball and handball teams, giving them a proven scorer -with the clear favorites to win soccer this year with a deep roster fea
ability to take over a game. He’ll also bolster an already strong turing John Dusenberry and Acacia Pappas and should con
frisbee team, giving their talented throwers a big target in the tend in handball with strong play from Andrew Mize. The
end zone.
basketball team, anchored by the ageless Jerry Januszewski,
On the Field: The Druids soccer team has been decimated is solid as well. Frisbee continues to be a question mark for the
with the departure of Mikey Mowry, Taylor Reese, Corey Cas- Waves, but their depth should help them to a decent finish.
tellaw, and Eugene Samarin. After winning that title last year, With no glaring weaknesses, the Waves are definitely in the
the Druids will be hard-pressed to repeat last year’s success hunt for the championship.
and will rely heavily on Ezra Doucet. Basketball will also be
Hustlers In the Draft With the fifth pick in the draft, the
a challenge, especially without the alumni presence of other defending champions selected Dhidhat Vanichstian, a speedy
teams. On paper, frisbee looks to be their best sport, with a and remarkably complete athlete, who will be important in
large team and several good throwers, including Johnny Flem every sport. Dhidhat will provide extra offense in soccer and
ing. But after dropping the season opener to the Spartans, even continue to play A-team basketball and handball, contributing
that seems to be in doubt.
to a strong but potentially thin roster that needs new players
Spartans In the Draft: Ryan Eberlein, this year’s second in order to stay afloat.
overall pick, returns to the Spartans after taking a year off
On the Field: It is the beginning of a new era for the Hus
from St. John’s. Eberlein should provide solid play in goal for tlers after the graduation of J.P. Snyder, who anchored the
a soccer team that struggled at that position last year and will team in nearly every sport After going imdefeated in basket
make major contributions on the basketball court. Though his ball and handball last year (and losing only to the Green Waves
strong arm may be less important with Athenian reason ball in reason ball and soccer), the Hustlers may be in a rebuilding
reduced from an eight-game season to a tournament, it should phase. Luke Wakeen, Alton Lind, and Matt Gore are all very
help the Spartans end their two-year winless streak in hand good basketball players, but without Snyder, it will be difficult
ball.
for them to win by taking turns dominating the B -team half of
On the Field: Strong defensive play from Honore Hodgson games. Dhidhat and James Russell give them lots of goal-scor
should keep the Spartans in every soccer game. If they can ing potential in soccer, but to really compete in any sport they
find a way to start scoring goals, they could be very dangerous. will rely on alumni Noel Brockett, Luke Russell, and Tobias
Their frisbee team still looks solid, but handball has not been Russell to round out their squad. If that trio continues to show
kind to the Spartans in several years. Look for them to focus up consistently, the Hustlers could repeat as overall champs,
on basketball, where Doug Anderson should thrive in a league but if not, they may just be stretched too thin to compete in
that lost most of its other big men with last year’s graduating anything.
class.
Guardians In the Draft: Knowing how intent the Druids
inal Thoughts As always, the freshman allocation adds
and Spartans were on bringing back Campbell and Eberlein,
a variable to intramm-als that is impossible to account for
the Guardians were able to trade down from the first to third
when looking at a team’s likely strengths. Any player could be
pick and still get the player they wanted: Tommy Bonn. Likely the one to put a team over the top, and teams needs new re
the tallest student at St. John’s, Bonn’s basketball skills make cruits or they starve. Particularly in frisbee and soccer, which
the Guardians an early favorite to take home the title, though involve lots of players and lots of running, getting enough
his strong arm will also prove useful in both handball and fris people to have a bench is vital, so the teams that are able to
bee. The Guardians also snagged Daniel Popov with the first get players out have a distinct advantage. This year’s freshman
pick of the second round, last year’s frisbee MVP, and a poten class looks to be large and strong, which should make for an
tial soccer goalie.
exciting league. If you’re a freshman (or anyone else) thinking
On the Field: With the addition of Tommy Bonn to their all- about coming out for intramurals, give it a shot, and unleash
star roster of tutors and other alumni, the Guardians look to your inner Achilles.
have the strongest basketball team at the school. Frisbee will
—Gil Shank
The Draft
T
F
�Hard
Hard hard hard,
It’s so when the blowing winds backwash
and Orange Julias’s rule the night,
and lozenges gurgle up and down
in places where alleycats fuck other alleycats
to the sound of beautiful music.
I remember days when morning cartoons would play at night,
and in a symphony of smiles, flash flash flash,
I’d suck in, with pleasure, a lethal dose of the ordinary.
But never, in my most bogus dreams,
was I the living entre, spinning wide on a platter.
Like:
Gimme some money
Gimme some love
and if you like
do it with a leather glove.
Because in my bogus dreams,
I’m a slick alligator.
—Chris Johns
reading at large
The Seven Habits
Personally, I am quickly learning to differentiate between
a professional and an expert. A professional is someone who
does something for a living and then shares the tricks they
have learned to overcome whatever adversity that career of
fers. Many such tips can be applied to life in general. An ex
pert has a list of impressive degrees and paradoxically always
seems to have written at least one other book before the one
you are currently reading. Feel free to formulate your own
distinctions.
Personally, I was embarrassed to admit that I needed some
one else’s tips to improve my own productivity, but I was more
embarrassed at being an aspiring writer who had written pre
cisely nothing. If you share this problem, I recommend The
War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. I will not summarize the
book here, suflSce to say it is written by a man who has written
many cool things Qike Gates of Fire, a novel of Thermopylae)
and whose advice about overcoming resistance has helped me
immensely and will likely help anyone who struggles to fulfill
some creative endeavor. The trick, of course, is in being pro
fessional. So, while I will most likely continue to be distrustful
of books that talk about “optimizing my synergy,” I will keep
an eye out for books that offer insightful and applicable exper
tise. It’s less about self-help and more about just plain help
ful. And no, I will never read Seven Habits for Highly Effective
Teens: I’m just too old.
—Kyle Amann
Johns & Johnnies
Hanging Out
’ll never forget my mother’s push to get me to read The Sev
en Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey, a book
that easily belongs to the “self-help” category. Her motiva oh yes, it is time for the highly-anticipated return of Of Johns
tions for this were never clear to me; presumably, she heard and Johnnies.' You were anticipating it, right? Highly? A little?
somewhere that I would benefit from it. Without so much as Please?... Anyway, it’s the same deal as last year: you write me
skimming its content, I rejected the book and refused to even questions, I answer them as best I can. For those new to An
napolis, topics I wrote on last year included role-play in the bed
consider reading it.
My justification did not partake of anything identifiably room, what we talk about when we talk about sex, the meaning
rational, but relied instead on an inherent distrust of anyone of “queer,” and woman-friendly sex toy shops. This week’s ques
who at that time claimed to know more than I did about my tion is on the less-adventurous side of things, but it touches on
life. I cynically upheld my distrust as refusing to be “taken in” a lot of issues that come up time and time again in the Polity, so
by someone trying to make money off of a burgeoning market withoutjurther ado;
composed of naive and desperate people.
ear Emma,
While it still seems to me that many self-help books fall
somewhere between pop-mysticism and parapsychology, I re
I was wondering if you might be able to give me some ad
cently changed my mind about condemning the entire catego
ry. After all, once we sort through some complex philosophi vice concerning friendships and “hanging out’” here in gen
cal ramifications, what is Aristotle’s Ethics if not prescribed eral. My specific question: is there any good/nice way to ef
guidelines for positive human behavior? In today’s marketing fectively stop hanging out with someone that you really aren’t
centric society, it might well be called Mean Habits For An Eu- very interested in spending much time hanging out with (for
daimonian Man. (Memo to Mr. Sachs: Your proposed slogans whatever reason)?
—Mild-Mannered Misanthrope
are due for presentation to our focus groups by the tenth.)
The entire St. John’s experience is one that emphasizes self
MMM, you seem like a no-nonsense sort of person, so here’s
betterment throu^ extensive reading, and although some
texts are more open about their practical applications than the short answer to your question: no.
But since you asked nicely. I’ll flesh it out for you. There
others, there are life-lessons to be found everywhere from
are
two ways to botch this immediately. One is to simply stop
Herodotus to Shakespeare. (But for the love of God, go easy
picking
up your phone, cease making eye contact, and reso
on the Machiavelli.) So, it probably would not hurt to keep
lutely
ignore
their very existence. This is a fair amount of work
an open mind about modem authors who want to share their
to
execute,
and
it’s likely to leave the de-friended party con
personal maxims for your sake.
I
fused and seething, at best Plus, it gets awkward, fast—have
class together? Mutual friends? Yeah, not so much. Even if you
hate this person’s guts, you’re not going to accomplish a whole
lot by treating them rudely.
The second way is to tell him or her off, explaining every
reason why that person is undesirable as a friend, and get in
a gigantic fight. Again, you now have an indignant, pissed-off
person, you’ve introduced a whole lot of unnecessary awk
wardness into both your lives, you’ll probably feel guilty for
being petty, and... for what? Honestly, unless you think that
they are so screwed up that they absolutely need someone to
tell them this stuff—and you tliink that telling them will have
an impact on their Ufe other than thinking you to be heartless
and cruel—you’re better off keeping your trap shut.
There’s no good way to immediately cut short nascent
friendship, MMM. Don’t be afraid to say no to them if they
want to hang out; maybe you are going to spend some oneon-one time with another friend, maybe you’re going to study,
whatever. (It’s harder if you only hang out with one group
of friends and this person is in that group, but maybe this is
a good opportunity to branch out!) Avoid lying as much as
possible, and simply phase out spending time with them. Be
thoughtful. There’s no script for this sort of thing, but if you
do yoiur best to be considerate of others, you’ll be okay. In fact,
being considerate of others, especially if you don’t like said
others, will get you pretty far in life.
—Emma Gold
register
Freshman Bodies,
Freshman Souls
This reprinted article first appeared in the gadfly on Septem
ber 2,1982. It was re-submitted by our current athletic director,
Leo Pickens. We’re sure Mr. Pickens is willing to stand in for the
first person voice used in this article and answer any questions
you might have about our great athletic program. —The Editors
he reasons, both physical and metaphysical, why every
one ought to be apart of our sports program are many. I
list a few:
1. We have the best athletic program of any college in the
country.
2. Exercise is good for the body...unless you sprain an ankle
or something like that.
3. Most of us feel better, are more alert, and can get more
work done if our bodies are healthy and our souls are relaxed.
4. Friendly competition is one of the really fun things in life.
It is good for your soul.
5. Your circle of acquaintances will be greatly enlarged. This
is good for the soul, provided you can separate the wheat from
the chaff.
6. You will learn to accept, and bear with, thousands of splitsecond decisions from the officials, a few of which are wrong.
This is very good for the soul.
1. Do you like to strive for, and achieve, specific goals? If so,
consider our college blazers. They are much sought after, and
T
Courage
Tuck in your shirt,
or I’m going to make you.
Whether it’s a button down or a T,
I don’t care.
I want to see you tuck it in.
But you’re wearing sneakers?
Oh great. As if that matters.
Now go ahead and tuck it in.
But you’re not wearing a belt?
Yeah, well I have a black belt,
you son of a bitch. Tuck it in.
Take a cue from me, and whether
you want to or not,
take the shirt, unbutton your pants,
shove your shirt down your pants
and zip up again, so that the
shirt, is. Tucked, in.
—Chris Johns
the pathway is clearly laid out Striving for goals is good for
your soul.
8. It is probably true that the more pure fun occurs in the
athletic program than in any other area of the college. Fun is
good for your soul.
9. If you get involved in team sports and become a “good
team player,” you have realized that there are things in the
imiverse that are more important than your own ego. This is a
great good for your soul.
10. The benefits of exercise and friendly competition,
learned while one is yoimg, should be maintained for the rest
of your life. ..i.e, they should become habitual. For virtue, as the
Philosopher said, is a habit.
11. You will get to know numerous alumni, tutors, and staff
members who participate in the program. This is good for
your soul, or ought to be...provided that they are the proper
sort of role models.
12. Our showers are the best at the college; always plenty of
hot water.
13. Are you bothered by, or worried by, tobacco fumes in the
air? Come to the gym. The whole building is a nicotine-free
zone.
14. If you perform some sort of heroic deed on the athletic
field, your name will be mentioned in our weekly column. He
roes are always acclaimed. But do not be carried away by this.
Remember that “the paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
15. A high percentage of our best students are active partici
pants in our program.
16. Those who play, stay.
17. The gym is not particularly well-equipped, as gyms go.
But it has washers and dryers, and a Coke machine...and I will
explain to you, if you ask me, how you can get yourself in tip-
�top physical shape, without any equipment at all.
18. You can sit in an old-time barber’s chair in my office. You
can pump yourself up and down, and adjust the slope high or
low. Where else can you do that?
19. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
20. It is better to li^t a candle than to curse the darkness.
So there you have it...twenty good reasons why you should
participate in our athletic program. If you are not convinced
by all of this, come and talk to me...I can probably think of
some more good reasons. Or better yet, talk with the upperclassmen. They will tell you all sorts of strange, interesting,
and wondrous things.
—Bryce Jacobsen, Class of 1942 and
FORMER Athletic Director
etiquette
Speaking of Tutors
To All Our Students,
Many of you seem to be in some uncertainty about how to
handle greeting Tutors on campus.
The primary rule-of-thumb is this: you, the Student, are so
cially obliged to greet a Tutor first, unless it’s reasonably clear
that he or she is otherwise engaged. Failure to initiate such a
greeting, at least when it runs no evident risk of intrusion, is
rude or insulting. You may be forgiven for such a lapse, but
you should still be ashamed of it. Sometimes Tutors may greet
you first, but this makes no difference; although they’re free to
initiate, they’re not the ones obliged to do so.
Note that the polite default is not a rigid rule, binding in
every single case without regard to circumstance. There is,
of course, some tact involved in judging when your expected
greeting might be thought intrusive, an attentiveness and dis
crimination that’s worth cultivating.
I would counsel you all not to let the challenge or inconve
nience of having to make such a judgment lead you into im
politely ignoring your Tutors or foolishly pretending that you
haven’t seen them. Status-conscious social primates that we
all are, the latter tactic is remarkably transparent at almost any
angle or distance. I would also observe that a slight intrusion,
if there be one, will almost always be felt far less keenly by a
Tutor than the appearance of a snub.
—Carl Page
Tutor
MASTHEAD Elizabeth Spagnoletti & J. Keenan Trotter, Edi
tors; Marin Skokandic, Business Manager; Megan Faulkner,
Copy Editor; Chris Johns, Michael Lacy, Annika Schweibert,
Assistant Editors.
SUBMIT: GADFLY@SJCA.EDU
The photo above was taken by Rachel Ulrich.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
8 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
G: A Supplement [first issue]
Description
An account of the resource
First issue of G: A Supplement, September 12, 2010.
Several issues of this literary supplement to The Gadfly were published in the fall of 2010. None of the issues are dated or enumerated; the dates of publication are assumed based on dates printed on illustrations or, in the case of the first issue, Eva Brann's notes on a copy of her book review in her faculty file.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Spagnoletti, Elizabeth (Editor)
Trotter, J. Keenan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2010-09-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
College students' writings--Periodicals
College student newspapers and periodicals
St. John's College--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gadfly_G_1_2010-09-13
G: A Supplement
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a028246f9f6b773e23bb1a08b7060c26.pdf
be436da5c199a2bf9f4c283238552435
PDF Text
Text
1
Convocation Address
St. John’s College, Santa Fe
August 29, 2024
J. Walter Sterling, President
Good morning, again, on this beautiful day here, on our Santa Fe Campus of St. John’s College,
here over 7000 feet above sea level, in the foothills of Monte Sol and the Sangre de Cristo
mountains.
A beautiful day, and a significant day, ending one chapter, and opening a new one, for all of our
new students — beginning this evening for you freshmen, with the terrible beauty of the Iliad
and an opening question. Thus begins a new rhythm of life, as the bell rings, each Monday and
Thursday evening, and you enter seminar.
So, welcome to you freshmen, Class of 2028, and first semester graduate students. Welcome
family and friends joining us, the faculty of the college, all of our staff, and our returning
students. Welcome to low-residency graduate students and family members and others joining us
online. A special welcome to Katarina Wong, president of the St. John’s College Alumni
Association and member of our Board of Visitors and Governors.
My remarks will seem aimed at our freshmen. For our new graduate students, including lowresidency students, please know you are just as integral to our community of learning, and the
heart of all this is intended for you, too. What you are undertaking exemplifies, in its own
extraordinary way, the convictions and aspirations of our college.
I will explore two themes: First, to reflect with you a bit on what it means to join this
“community dedicated to liberal education.” — Our most foundational document, modestly
titled, “The Statement of the Program,” has long opened with the assertion that, “St. John’s
College is a community dedicated to liberal education.” — Second, I will propose four sources
of sustaining strength, for the journey you’ve begun.
“A community dedicated to liberal education.” Who is this community? Let’s begin with you 90
freshmen. You come from all over geographically, and from all varieties of backgrounds. From
25 states, and from 6 countries abroad — Albania, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Nepal. From
public, private, and homeschool educations. Some grew up right here in Santa Fe, some daring
few have entered the United States for the very first time to join us here. Within the U.S., some
have traveled very far: 3,500 miles from Palmer Alaska, 2,300 miles from Pownal, Maine.
You discovered St. John’s along various paths: from a deep love of books, or the advice of a
favorite teacher, from a Johnnie family member, or moved by the visit to campus or the Summer
Academy, some thrilled by the people they met here, or the conversations they joined, some
drawn to this bold vision of what a college education can be, some arriving after attending other
colleges or being out of school in the world of work for a season.
The community you join is small in a way — 400 undergraduates, 100, graduate students — but
it contains more varied backgrounds than many larger communities, and, because of the shared
�2
course of study, and the constant conversation together which you have already begun, you will
experience more diversity and empathize with and learn from this wide range of backgrounds,
beliefs, and perspectives more than is likely in the relative anonymity and dispersion of more
conventional colleges. We are also a campus community, including our staff and faculty who are
united by uncommon dedication to the program and to your and their own learning. Our constant
practice of shared inquiry requires, and fosters, mutual civility and respect, inclining naturally
toward empathy and friendship. Such civility and respect are modeled daily in the classroom by
our tutors. We do not seek facile agreement or hard-edged debate. We seek to reason together
and, as our Statement says, to learn from our differences and discover our shared humanity.
Radiating out from our campus, you now join the community of all Johnnie alumni, whose
education was shaped by the same program and community, if varying in details, over the years
and decades. And you now live in this remarkable city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a city in which
this college has found a home for 60 years.
To what are we dedicated? “Liberal education.” You know already you have chosen a college
that aims to offer as complete an undergraduate education as possible in the most important
respects, “a complete and generous education,” to borrow a phrase from Milton — that is, to go
as deep as possible into the fundamental questions, to the roots and foundations of things, and to
be as broad as possible in respect to the range of human faculties and fundamental domains of
knowledge and life. You will be required to, or given the opportunity to, translate Plato and
Sophocles from the original Greek, in which you will acquire basic competence, and you will be
asked to work through Einstein’s 1905 paper on special relativity, equation by equation. You will
sing and analyze music. You will draw flowers and conifers and dissect biological specimens and
observe light’s wave-particle duality. You will study the works of Adam Smith and of Karl Marx.
You will study Euclid’s Elements and the genesis of and techniques of calculus. You will begin
tonight with seminar conversations on Homer and then as seniors explore the works of George
Eliot, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison... and so much more!
You may be challenged by those who see in the phrase “liberal education” neglect of the
practicalities of life. But this is a mirage. Every college and university, all of what we call higher
education today cannot avoid balancing three aims, simply put: the pursuit of truth or knowledge
as an end in itself, preparation for citizenship or political life, and preparation for career or the
practicalities and necessities of our work-life. Liberal education properly pursued advances all
three aims, in a well-balanced way. The truth is that what distinguishes St. John’s is not that our
aims and values are unusual; it is that we are able to pursue certain widely shared values in a
more uncompromising way than most educational institutions. Most educators and academics,
when asked, would love to have smaller classes (like yours), discussion-driven classes (like
yours), and highly self-motivated and curious students (like you). They too believe all or most
students would benefit from much more time with great works of literature and philosophy, read
patiently and thoughtfully, and with deeper logical and mathematical study, and from many other
areas that are too often neglected. But they and their institutions, for many and varied reasons,
are not incentivized and not able to offer these things quite so well as we can. Most other
institutions have added aims and added constraints. They must strike a different balance or have
a necessarily narrowed focus.
�3
You may also be challenged to explain the relevance of studying so closely classics of the past. I
recall many years ago hearing our revered former dean Eva Brann answer a parent’s challenge to
that effect in this pithy way, as I recall it: “Our world is technology and democracy. Those are
Greek words, and to understand our world today you must ultimately understand its roots in
Greek thought.” — Properly interpreted, you could almost deduce our whole program from that
premise. We are not studying the past as past; we are studying the living roots or natural history
of our present world.
Liberal education, pursued in this broad and deep way, is not only relevant today, it is needed
seemingly now more than ever. It strengthens you, where current society is weak or faltering. It
cultivates the habits of mind and character that are needed now to face the dystopian trends of
our technological society and the polarization and loss of civility in our political life and
discourse. The remedy to these depends on and passes through a renewal of education, one that
points strongly toward the heart of what we quietly pursue at St. John’s. I am convinced that
there are more people today who see the need for that renewal than there were 10 or 20 or 30
years ago.
I offer those as some opening reflections on our community dedicated to liberal education.
Now, “Noble things are difficult.” So goes a Greek maxim you will translate. You arrive here, I
hope, eager and energized for the work ahead, curious, with senses sharpened. But you also
know it will be challenging. You came here not for something easy but for something substantial,
and therefore challenging. You will struggle at times.
Let me point to what I see as four sources of strength and sustenance that seem to me well-suited
to lift you up, to lift each of us up. My hope is that making them explicit can make them more
available.
The first, perhaps easiest for us to see on the surface, is not to lose sight of the seriousness or
grandeur of the work itself, its height or excellence, its depth or gravity. The works we
characterize as “great books,” and the kinds of questions you will pursue, are truly impressive,
often enigmatic, often dazzling and elevating. Do not let their difficulty eclipse that vision. When
the work of the day falters or becomes a grind, remind yourself that you really are doing that
hard work and persevering, in order to illuminate the most fundamental matters, to cultivate the
kind of soul that can dwell near and benefit from great wisdom and beauty and the works that
express them.
Second, you have, we have, one another: There is much in life that isolates us, and typically it is
when things seem darkest or most difficult that we feel most isolated. Here, you are closer to
many others who can offer empathy, understanding, and support, than most students out there
are. The small size of this community, your daily study and life together, the common
curriculum, the familiarity which your tutors have with what you are doing and with the
members of their classes, the staff who know well the character of this campus, the program, and
all the resources available for getting through times of difficulty, your friends, and your
classmates and room and hallmates. There are truly always more folks you can reach out to and
connect with, nearby, prepared to help — and likewise, you are there for them. Sometimes it’s
�4
hard to see that — here and in life — but I really believe it can be very true here, for each of you
— and you should be ready to reach out, open up, and rely on those around you.
Third, let yourself experience this place: the city of Santa Fe and our natural setting. For some of
you, this is familiar — home or like home — for many of you it may be unlike anywhere you
have lived. The geography, climate, culture, and history here are truly extraordinary, and you
would do well to cultivate actively an interest in and attachment to the place you are in. That is
true wherever we are, but there is so much here that invites and rewards the effort of active
attention and exploration.
The world-renowned author, and longtime friend and supporter of our college, Scott Momaday
— who passed away this January and whose Native peoples were of this land and its history —
was one of the great thinkers and writers of place and land. I have thought about him often since
his death. As he wrote, each of us, “ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I
believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from
as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he
touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it. He
ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to
recollect the glare of noon and all the colors of the dawn and dusk."
This place, which seems austere to some, rewards our care and attention. The evening sky at
sunset, the brightest stars most any of you will ever live among, the smell of the land after the
rain. Likewise, the art, music, and history open to us, just in a two-mile radius. If you can really
make this place part of what it means to be a Johnnie at this college, that alone will carry you
forward like a wave.
Finally, joy: Cultivate a spirit of joy. This does not mean carrying things lightly. What you do
here is serious, but not at all grim. Avoid the temptation often pressed on us by the loud voices in
the world, to dwell on what is melancholy in things, especially when facing hard work and
challenges. Find joy in what you do here, in playful fun, in the deep wonder of insight, in
exercising resilience in the face of adversity. Delight in the range of what you are undertaking
and in the many flashes of beauty in these works. Find joy in perplexity, knowing it’s a
precondition for learning. Find joy in cultivating your attention (against the great counterforces
of this age of distraction). Enjoy physical exertion and moving your body in this wonderful
setting. Delight in the landscape. Enjoy the company of your friends and companions.
Success at St. John’s involves a blend of humility and audacity, as does a worthwhile and
adventurous life. The program naturally elicits both, in different ways. If you can remain attuned
to sources like these that can strengthen you, that can invigorate you and pull you up and over,
through, or around the obstacles of the moment, each of you will, I am confident, flourish here.
I declare the college in session. CONVOCATUM EST.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Fe Convocation Addresses
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Meem Library
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Meem Library
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Word doc
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Fe Convocation Address, Fall 2024
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript of the convocation address given on August 29, 2024 by J. Walter Sterling in Santa Fe, NM.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sterling, J. Walter
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-08-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sterling, W. Convocation 2024-08-29
Convocation
Presidents
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e188ef7223c15d8d3988569b2b9fd950.pdf
cc6524226b152e5ea567b220e54df5dc
PDF Text
Text
Music:
The Representative Liberal Art
Dean's Lecture, Friday, September 2, 1988
Wendy Allanbrook - Eva Brann
I.
fn General (Eva Brann)
There is an old tradition concerning this, the first lecture of
the new year of learning.
It is supposed to be dedicated particularly
to the freshmen among us.
The others, upper-class students and
tutors, are not supposed to mind if they hear things not entirely
fresh to them.
This is an occasion for talking straight and being
explicit about what this community, which the freshmen r..ave newly
entered, is like.
Consider that phrase, "what St. John's is like."
It is part of
our pride and of our anxiety that this college is not like any other.
And yet we intend it to be like something, namely as much as possible
like the idea for teaching and learning it embodies,
the Program.
This program consists almost as much of what we staunchly don't do as
of what we do do.
So this lecture will be about the Program, about
what is in it and what is not.
But we have chosen to talk about the
program by means of an example.
It is what you will soon learn in
your Greek tutorial to call a paradigm:
how many things work.
one pattern which indicates
This paradigm is music.
However, we want not only to tell but to demonstrate how things
are intended to happen here.
We hope that as this lecture proceeds it
will show, practically, three things:
First, that although the program is a firm course of learning, it
is also full of live questions and problems which the faculty argues
1
�about.
One such current concern is precisely the standing of music
and its shadow effect, the absence of the visuai arts.
Obviously the
program that is will keep you very busy, but it is very likely to
rouse in you an occasional interest in the program that isn't and
might be.
Let me inject a preachment here:
Prepare to live a
schizophrenic life ("Schizophrenic'' is a Greek word meaning splitminded).
On the one hand trust the program to be a thoughtful and
experience-laden guide to the studies of your next four years.
other hand, hold everybody and everything responsible.
On the
Ask your
tutors now and then--not so often as to become pests who wreck the
daily process of learning--why you are doing what you are doing.
them respond.
Make
And reserve the highest respect for those tutors who
admit they have no pat answer and begin to think in front of and
together with you.
As the year goes on you will discover that there
is a presence that haunts this campus.
It is that of a man called
Socrates who said that to carry on in life without asking questions
about it is simply insupportable.
He will be, as it were, egging you
on.
The second thing we want to show you is that it is possible to
think together.
We've all heard a lot of talk about "thinking for
oneself," as if anyone could possibly think for us.
The miracle is
that we can think for ourselves together; it is that strange
possibility which makes this school a community of learning.--By the
way, I should say right now that such cooperation, too, will become
questionable.
You will read a text later on this year which will
claim that although the friendship of like interests is a wonderful
thing, to be totally happy is to be totally wrapped up in thought,
2
�absolutely self-sufficient.
But the soul of this school is
conversation, which is audible, cooperative thipking.
study is not only allowed.--It is encouraged.
And common
In the question period
we can talk--if you like--about the role of competition in this
scheme.
The third, dependent, effect we want to demonstrate is the really
important one.
It is that we can approach a subject on very different
levels and with very different preparation.
I will be talking about music in the widest sense.
Mrs.
Allanbrook will specify and make concrete some of my broad
indications.
Moreover, I am a, by now confirmed, amateur of music,
while she has a lot of musical learning.
My deficit will not, I hope,
keep me from making some sense nor will her expertise keep her from
reaching some fundamental questions.
I am now getting closer to the topic, music, and it is precisely
the matter of amateurism which brings me to it.
college of amateurs.
You have come to a
All your tutors will have some expertise, but
usually not in the classes in which they are guiding you.
In those
they will indeed be merely amateurs, which is just French for lovers-lovers of learning, of course.
I will tell you what my expertise was,
because it will be to the point later on.
I was an archaeologist,
which is to say, a kind of grass-roots art-historian.
I got to sort
out sherds of Greek pottery and to reconstruct the pictures on them,
often revealing dramatic and sometimes deliciously scandalous goingson.
Then I had to put a date to them, which takes close looking.
But in music I am an amateur, and thereby hangs a tale important
to the program.
This program stands under the aegis of an activity
called philosophy.
In a few weeks you will have learned enough Greek
3
�to know that the word philosophy means "the love of wisdom."
Now, the
reason it is possible to put a whole school under this aegis is that
to engage well in philosophy it is truly sufficient to love the
enterprise, just as the first and last entrance requirement for this
college is an ardent willingness to be here.
There
~.
sadly, some
people who care very much about philosophical questions and are just
not good at talking about them.
But they are very rare.
Philosophy
requires disposition more than talent.
It is otherwise with music.
It is possible to love music with
all one's soul, to live with it and by it and yet to have an
uneducated ear, an ear that hears the effects without discerning the
elements.
Music has this enormous and mysterious power:
Whereas one
must be literate to love, say, a great novel, it is possible to be
entirely enraptured by music and entirely illiterate iri it.
It is
because music can touch the soul by means of effects which are deeply
rational and may yet remain stubbornly unapprehended that music is the
hardest part of the Program to teach.
Why, then, should it be a part
of the Program at all?
A good way to begin is with the name.
Music is that which
belongs to the Muses, nine ancient divinities.--If you transfer to
Santa Fe sometime later on you will easily learn their names because
the dorms are called after them.
These goddesses are in charge of all
kinds of human cultivation, epic, lyric, tragic, comic poetry, miming,
dancing, even history.
astronomy.
The grandest of these is Urania, the muse of
This fact will figure later on.
daughters of Memory.
All the Muses are the
This fact yields a double inference:
arts come to human beings by divine inspiration.
4
First, the
And indeed, your
�first and second seminar books begin, or very nearly begin, with the
words:
"Sing, Goddess.
. . " and "Tell me, O Muse . . . "
arts come to us through tradition or through memory.
Note that a
third possibility, the one most familiar to us is missing:
arts are our own creation.
Second, the
that the
That possibility was not added until the
Renaissance, the start of modern times.
In the beginning, then, music embraced all the arts.
that
will
preoccupy
you in the middle
of
human cultivation is seen to have two aspects.
soul and gymnastics for the body.
the place where you go naked.
the
year,
In a book
Plato's Republic
There is music for the
"Gymnasium" is a Greek word meaning
So music is for the shapeliness of the
soul, and gymnastics is for the candor of the body.
However, it turns
out in that book, there are even greater things than psychic and
physical cultivation.
These higher studies are those which later come
to be called the liberal arts.
They are higher because they do not
just cultivate and shape you but because they put you into a relation
with the way things are, or, as you will soon learn to say, with
Being.
One cultivates the arts for pleasure and self-development, but
the liberal arts one pursues for the sake of truth.
Incidentally,
these arts are traditionally called "liberal'' for three reasons.
First because they are taught to the free children of politically free
parents, second because they liberate these youths from their dogmatic
opinion, and third because they are done freely, without money-making
in mind.
If you look at our college seal you will find there a little
ditty on this theme.
They are called arts because they are elementary approaches to
the elementary subject matters.
Today there is much talk about skills
vs. subject matter, process vs. product.
5
In the liberal arts there is
�no such distinction:
Studying the subject and learning the skill are
almost completely one.
Traditionally these arts, of which there are seven, have been
divided into two sets.
The lower, and basic, set of three is called
the trivium or "three-way."
speech:
These trivial arts are the arts of
grammar, logic, rhetoric.
of "trivial" in this school is:
Therefore the proper understanding
of absolutely fundamental importance.
The second set, the quadrivium, or "four-way," contains the arts
of reason in nature.
The Republic, the work I mentioned above, sets
out what these are and how they are to be studied.
The four arts--
they happen to be sciences, but sciences liberally learned happen in
turn to be arts--are these:
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and a
fourth I will mention in a moment.
I need not tell you that you have come to a liberal arts college,
indeed one of the few in the world where the liberal arts tradition is
taken quite literally.
Let me show you how much we mean it, how much
your day will be dominated by these arts:
Morning:
Here is the schedule:
Trivium, done in the Language Tutorial.
Lower
Quadrivium in the Mathematics tutorial.
Late morning and early afternoon:
Upper Quadrivium, done largely
in the Laboratory.
Late afternoon:
Cultivation of the body, done largely in the
Gymnasium.
Evening: -Let me backtrack here.
The Republic not only describes the quadrivium
but tells how to study it, namely liberally, philosophically, not for
practical purposes nor even as performances, but for the sake of
6
�reflection and insight.
there is philosophy.
Evening:
Beyond the liberal arts and all through them
So let me continue:
Conversation about books that reflect on the nature
of things, done in the Seminar.
Night:
Continued conversation.
On Fridays, a Lecture.
Possibly some sleep.
And once a week you will come together to sing in Chorus.
Now is the moment to come back to the topmost liberal art, in
Plato's
book,
the
one I had omitted just now.
It
is
called harmony.
The word itself means a fitting-together, a system, and in the
narrower sense those fitted tonal structures out of which music is
made.
For these are a paradigmatic system.
So we have come to music
as the coping stone of the liberal arts.
Why should this Greek author have put music, of all the arts, at
the top, with and above the study of the heavens?
reasons.
I can think of four
The first is complementary to the reason why the Greeks
assigned a muse, the aforementioned Urania, to astronomy.
It is that
they thought that the stationary heavens, being organized on the model
of a musical scale, were not only a rational but a beautiful system,
as they said, a "cosmos," meaning an ornament.
The second is that
they thought that each moving planet (the Greek word planet means
''wanderer") in its orbit sounds forth a lovely note as it revolves and
that all together these make a ravishing harmony.
The third has to do
with the fact I mentioned earlier on; that the conscious apprehension
of music involves the study of number, as the production of musical
instruments involves the study of geometry.
Leibniz, a philosopher
you will study as Juniors, says, that music is the soul's counting.
One might say that it is also the ear's measuring.
7
Indeed as you will
�d~s~over,
there are certain ever-fascinating problems in mathematics
to which we pay great attention, and which are spectacularly well
exemplified in music.
music.
The whole quadrivium appears to be assembled in
In fact, in a moment I shall claim that it coopts the trivium
too.
The fourth reason is closely bound to the third:
Music is not
only a kind of mathematics, but also a wonderfully peculiar kind.
might call it "qualitative mathematics."
Here is what I mean:
One
In
number theory one does not, on the whole, want to say that some number
relations are more agreeable than others.
some, very definite, number relations
They are called consonances.
In music it turns out that
~more
agreeable than others.
Others make you shudder.
For example,
the tone that sits exactly between the two C's of our major scale, F#
sounds so dreadful when sounded together with C that it is said to
belong to the devil.
Behind it there lies a simple but scandalous
mathematical fact, the fact of so-called irrationality.
I mean by qualitative mathematics.
mathematics.
That is what
You could even call it miracle
And that is also why we think that something is
necessary for studying music that we expect for no other tutorial:
some common prior experience.
It is . for this reason that you will be
going to Chorus in the year before the music tutorial--to have the
specific common experience of this rational magic.
But now I have committed a sin against logic.
I have explained
why music is the topmost liberal art without saying how this activity,
so specially named after the goddesses of the cultivating arts, comes
to be a liberal art at all.
and ask rather:
Let me attack this question in new terms
Why is music traditionally a liberal art when the
equally ingenious visual arts are not?
8
I can think of three answers--
�and a fourth, which is more a wonderful problem than an answer.
First there is simply more hard music theory than there is art
theory.
There is, for instance, a physics of music as there has never
been a physics of aesthetic color.
There is, to be sure, a science of
structured space which is analogous to the number theory of wellfi tted notes, namely perspective.
But perspective came late into the
visual arts and left soon.--It is not as
n~cessary
to painting as
structured numbers are to music (though in fact we used to have in the
Program a lovely sequence on perspective as a preliminary to the study
of optics).
I do not really know why there is more teachable theory
of music than there are principles of visual arts.
It must be
something like the same reason why there are many respectable Sunday
painters and very few bearable Sunday composers.
Moreover, space has
vastly more possibilities of being filled than does time, so that the
spatial arts are correspondingly less easily developed from basic
elements.
This is one of those great questions which I leave dangling
before you.
Secondly, music has always been known to have a potent influence
on bearing and character.
You will read several books this year, the
Republic among them, which will claim that music--and the dancing that
goes with it--is crucial in the shaping of citizens.
The ancients do
not think, as we tend to do, that music primarily expresses our souls,
but rather that it impresses them, stamps them with character.
Imagine an unlikely event which will drive the point home:
Suppose
all children in our democracy were to learn to dance the minuet in
kindergarten, to move every day for a year to a slow and stately music
in modestly connected couples.
Wouldn't America be a different
9
�country?
I cannot think of any visual work that would have such an
effect--if only because one can close one's eyes but not one's ears.
There is also another reason why the visual arts do not impress
themselves as directly on the soul as does music which I leave to
last.
I do, however, except architecture.
•
Architecture was,
incidentally, the one visual art which was at certain times a
candidate for being counted among the _liberal arts.
Third, music has just the reverse relation to words than have the
visual arts.
We rightly wince just a little at those people who can't
look at a painting in a museum until they have run to look at its
title.
But we think that is is a part of musical discernment to
listen as carefully to the words of a Passion or an Opera as to the
music.
Pictures displace words, but words and music are meant to go
together.
Now thinking takes place in words.
Consequently the
meaning of music must be somehow closer to our thought than the
meaning of a painting.
How music and words have meaning separately
and together is a confounding and enchanting question which you will
hear more about tonight.
Following my own advice to you earlier on, let me stop here to
tell you forthrightly what I think about the presence of music and the
absence of the visual arts from the . program.
I think that the Greeks,
who produced works of visual art, especially of sculpture and
architecture, which once very palpably pierced my soul, had deep
reasons for including music among the liberal arts while excluding
these visual glories.
And we in turn have good reason to stay with
the liberal arts and, in preserving our integrity, to exclude
something very wonderful--exclude it from the Program, I mean, of
course, not from the campus.
On the campus we should have, and do
10
�have, a lot of opportunities to do and see such art.
But even in the
Program itself there is sporadic room, for example, in Seminars,
Lectures, Study Groups and Preceptorials on the visual arts.
Particularly those Preceptorials, the small semi-elective study groups
which you will join in your last two years,• are a good place for
tutors to offer such studies.
the following title:
"Greek Temples, Gothic Cathedrals and Mid-
Western Grain Elevators."
of their own.
preaching:
I myself would like one day to offer
These last have a certain utilitarian glory
Here, incidentally, is the moment for yet another
Come to the question period!
For there you will hear with
what passion and reason the contrary argument can be made.
And there
you yourselves can join in this perennial conversation.
Finally, then, there is that fourth distinction between music and
the visual arts which I have left to the last because it is the
trickiest, most fascinating yet.
representative.
The visual arts are by and large
They re-present , or imitate, a visible object.
They
convey a likeness, a similarity, an imitation, in such a way that one
can find some sort of rough geometric relation--it is of the kind
called projective--between, say, a portrait and its sitter or a
landscape painting and its natural scene.
It is the representative
nature of the visual arts that accounts for · the effect I just
mentioned, that these arts go to the soul less directly than does
music:
They require an intermediate recognition. I must tell you that
the hottest and most crucial issue in modern esthetic theory is the
"representationality" of all the arts in general and the imitative
nature of painting in particular.
There are people who claim that a
cat in one painting and a cathedral in another are more like each
11
�other than a painted cat is like a live cat or a painted cathedral is
like a stone cathedral.
They think that imitation (or as you will
soon learn to say, mimesis) is no factor in what makes a painting a
painting.
I mention this to show how fascinatingly extreme the
arguments about representative art have become.
Music, however,
appears to have no such diverting problem; on the face of it, music
hardly appears to be representational in the projectivai way of
paintings.
Take your favorite symphonic movement and ask yourself and
your new roommate what it represents.
surmise.
It's an invitation to wild
And yet music seems to show so much and mean so much.
Here
lies a captivating problem, and so begins the specific demonstration .
Is music really in no way representational?
We will see how we can
think about particular pieces of music in the light of this large
questions.
I have talked about music as a liberal art, and now we
will be drawn into its actual and specific pursuit.
12
�II. In Particular (Wendy Allanbrook)
If I were again a student, seated in the audience tonight, the
question I would be askingis "Why should one want to say that music
is representational?
Isn't it precisely its non-representational
quality that gives music its glory?"
This was surely my opinion when
I was in college; I remember clearly the day I discovered a
learn~d
treatise that corroborated it, and spent hours in the stacks of the
college library fiercely underlining pregnant passages. I have since
lost my original copy of the treatise, a work by an eminent nineteenth-century music critic, Eduard Hanslick, entitled The Beautiful
in Music, but I have no difficulty guessing the formulations that
pleased me so: for instance, "The ideas which a composer expresses
are mainly and primarily of a purely musical nature." [23] or "[Music's] nature is specifically musical .... [Its] beauty is not contingent upon nor in need of any subject introduced from without but ... it
consists wholly of sounds artistically combined." [47]
It is no
longer clear why this notion of musical autonomy was so important to
me then, against what heresy I was defending the sweet art.
When,
later on in my education, I came up against those who would argue the
other way, I fought bitterly, and then fell.
Often one becomes most
passionately interested in pursuing the notions of which one once
thought the opposite; I appear before you tonight with the enthusiasm
of the converted.
I shouldn't play quite so dumb, of course; there is an obvious
enemy in question.
For example, music that attempts a one-to-one
correspondence with natural phenomena we often find ludicrous, and
often indeed it is meant to be gently comic; there is something
13
�delightfully fey about those sixteenth-century madrigals that imitate
cuckoos, and it is even more fun when, as was intended, you are
singing them yourself.
Another connection that gives musical repre-
sentation a bad name is the one Hanslick seems principally to have
been inveighing against:
the noti~n of "self-expression," which
leads to the vice of musical biography:
in this passage Beethoven
rails against his deafness, here Mozart mourns his father's passing.
These claims are unsupportable, if only because so often our biographical expectations are
frustrated.
Mozart wrote some of his
most sunny and popular music in the period just after the death of
his father.
Do we accuse him of lack of feeling on this account
(some have), or dismiss the connection altogether?
There seems to be a common agreement that music exists in another world than the fine arts and those that have to do with speech.
One of your tutors, Mr. White, recently gave a lecture in which he
discussed ways in which the fine arts and the poetic arts can be said
to imitate.
His point of departure was a well-known comparison, by
the eighteenth-century German critic, G. E. Lessing, between a Greek
statue and a passage in Vergil's Aeneid.
Both depict the violent
death of the Trojan priest Laokoon in the coils of a sea serpent, the
one work in stone and the other in metrical speech.
The statue,
because it must choose only one moment in time for its representation, avoids the harrowing death cry of the priest and depicts a
more restrained moment, prior to that of the greatest agony, in order
not to become merely ugly or grotesque. The poetry, because it moves
through time, can describe the terrible bellow of the priest, the
desperate distortion of his features, because one by one it can leave
14
�them all behind.
Music, too, is a temporal art, but can you imagine
any way of making it the third in this comparison?
no commonality at all.
man?
There seems to be
Where do you make out the monster, where the
How can we even specify what moment the composer has chosen?
Unless the music is explained by a companion text--and this is really
a special case--I see no way of talking about the three with the same
analytic language.
Unlike poems and paintings, the subject of a
musical composition cannot be translated into a meaningful
proposition.
But what do we gain by severing all the connections the art
bears to the human sphere?
In fact, it was only in the nineteenth
century that those who think about music decided to cast her thus
adrift.
And that came about largely as a development of that novel
notion Miss Brann mentioned, that the arts are our own creation.
If
they are, it is not a giant step to the conviction that they are
created anew by every artist, that every work is a personal statement
of a private seeing--or hearing--that the audience is privileged to
share. Music becomes pure feeling--the art of self-expression, the
inner mysteriously made outer, and although this has its attractions,
it is not an aesthetic that is supportable for long.
No wonder
Hanslick was in revolt; one begins to have some fellow-feeling for
him.
As a result of this legacy, modern philosophers make an extraordinarily vexed question of expression in music.
That they use the
word "expression'' is in itself indicative, for I suspect that were
they to free themselves from the notion of feelings as the sole
proper subject matter for music, they might not be so squeamish in
their discussions.
As one critic recently remarked, we go through
15
�such tortured arguments, and all we get is the freedom to attach the
predicate ''sad" to the slow movement of a Beeth6ven Symphony.
But
other formulations had guided thinking about music for the previous
millenia, formulations that more successfully made the connection
between human beings and the art of shaping sound in time.
Miss
Brann mentioned the ancients' belief that music can impress our
souls, give them shape.
Aristotle, in remarks in the Politics about
the importance of music to the education of a citizen, makes specific
claims for the depictive qualities of music in its relation to the
human soul:
Rhythms and melodies especially contain
to
the true natures of anger and
likenesses
gentleness,
and
further of courage and temperance, and of all their
opposites,
this
and
of the other moral qualities
is clear from its effects,
for when we
(and
hear
these things we are changed in our soul.)
Aristotle's claim is that music makes "likenesses" of human passions
and qualities, to which we naturally respond.
Elsewhere, in the
Poetics, he calls the poetic and musical arts all "modes of imitation"
(mimesis in the Greek)--modes of imitation of human beings in
act.
Imitation is another degraded word today, for it implies origi-
nals out there, of which the artist simply takes a copy, and it is
more modern to consider the artist both the origin and the original.
But if the original is the ways of human beings in the world, is the
whole of God's cosmos, and there are infinitely many ways of taking
that copy (I'll call these variations "style"), then the task of
imitation seems not degraded, but endless, various, and noble.
16
�The crucial question then becomes, how do we make these musical
copies?
The answer lies in the qualitative mathematics of which Miss
Brann spoke earlier.
How does the soul count, the
There are two principal ways, I would maintain:
~
measure?
the way that number
•
shapes time--we call that rhythm--and the way that number informs
pitch--it's harder to come up with a generic name for that.
I hope
not to be too provocatively simple when I say that in this counting
only two numbers count, namely 2 and 3 (some Renaissance theorists
counted to 6, and we could do that too, but for our purposes this
evening it isn't necessary).
I'll tell you briefly what those
numbers mean, and then move to exemplify them.
About rhythm I'll be
most brief, for you probably know that the available rhythms reduce
to counts of 2 and 3, or some combination thereof.
Think of 2, or
duple, as a march or simple alternation of left foot and right.
3, or triple, insert a hop on every left.
With
There are more elegant
ways of adorning a walk to get a triple; the minuet Miss Brann
mentioned goes to the count of 3.
But more of this later.
The 2's and 3's of pitch are rather more concealed, to the
extent that we commonly call by the name "5" what really ought to be
called "3."
Yet the phenomena are sufficiently important and dazz-
ling to have been credited to a discoverer, Pythagoras, and surrounded with their due mead of apochryphal stories about the circumstances of the discovery.
The note we designate as 5 in the string of
organized pitches we call a "scale" actually stands third in the
order of generation. Take a string, and divide it in two equal parts.
Pluck either half, and the resulting pitch will reduplicate the
original, but higher--that interval we call the octave, which orders
17
�tonal space by its regular recurrence over the entire series of
pitches. It puts the cap on our eight-note scale, which will sound
all too familiar to anyone who has ever had a piano lesson:
[Ex. 1] .
Next in this soul's counting divide the string in thirds, and you
have the fifth, so called from its position as number 5 in the
ascending scale.
It provides an intermediate resting-place in the
/
octave's span, dividing it almost, but not quite - (and this is crucial) in half.
You'll recognize it from the sound of this perennial
five-finger exercise:
reverse:
[Ex. 2].
By the way, the process works in
if I want to divide a taut string into perfect halves, all
I have to do is find the octave--our ear is indeed the measurer.
While the octave is other, it is still somehow the same as our primal
pitch, so the fifth is the first independent other; the octave is the
encloser, the fifth the first enclosed.
We will honor the order of
experience by calling this pitch 5, and the interval it forms with
our starting-place the fifth.
Never forget, however, that it stands
proudly third in order of generation, and that its generating number
is 3.
You will go more deeply into these miracles of embodied number
in the music tutorial sophomore year, counting at least as far as 6,
but for now this is all the theory you need to know.
I shall try to put these various 2's and 3's to the work of
imitation.
ways.
And I shall claim that they do this work in two important
It's hard to find proper names for them; we've learned to be
wary of the time-honored distinction between form and content in
almost all its applications, and in a temporal art like music I think
there is almost no defense for it.
I find myself, however, stuck
with modern names like "reference" and "process," or perhaps "reference" and "syntax" (I can't decide).
18
These duos take more explana-
�tion, but they don't halt and
freeze the persistent motion of the
tones the way "form and content" do.
If we wanted to be trendy, I
could point out that we are on the cutting edge of modernity here,
for our categories could be formalized into the modern pursuits of
semiotics, or the study of signs, and narratology, which is nothing
more than the study of beginnings, middles, and ends.
Actually, that
is - not such a bad description of what I want to talk about.
I shall
present you with three musical examples to illustrate these modes of
imitation.
In them the 2's and 3's of rhythm will intersect with the
2's and 3's of pitch to make dazzling imitative configurations.
Given the embarassment of riches in music history, I can only be
suggestive, not inclusive; I shall also be decidedly anti-chronological.
I shall begin where those who know my preoccupations could well
have predicted--with the music of Mozart. It was the music of Mozart
that I most wanted, early on, to defend as pure, and precisely the
same music I later found to be most delightfully contaminated with
reflections of human activities.
Furthermore, this particular work
of Mozart's, the piano sonata .in F major, K. 332, a favorite example
of mine, is precisely the kind of music the purists would argue is
the most autonomous music your money can buy--instrumental music.
Here there intrudes no voice uttering sounds that are signs of other
presences, and thus forcing a translation to mundane
can such music point beyond itself?
porary with Mozart gives
me~ning.
How
A French writer roughly contem-
us a hint of how this might be:
Michel Gui
de Chabanon, actually an advocate of music's integrity, perhaps
despite himself articulated one crucial way in which music can represent:
Imitation in music is not truly sensed unless its
19
�object
is music.
imitate
In songs one can
warlike fanfares,
melodies,
etc.
It
hunting
successfully
airs,
rustic
is only a question of giving
one song the character of another.
Art,
in that
case, does not suffer violence.
I'll translate this to our own purposes.
Once music has a history,
it can hardly fail to make reference to this past, - to provide its own
vocabulary of expression.
Miss Brann mentioned the educative value
of minuets, and that is apposite here.
Much of the art music you
know, the music played in symphony halls and on good-music stations,
pieces itself together from the more mundane music we use to accompany daily activities.
The tempting world of human motion is out there
to imitate, and some of our greatest composers have taken advantage
of it.
Love songs, lullabies, dances and marches, hymns, when are
lifted from their usual environment and placed in the frame of a
symphony or sonata, cannot help but point us back
to the particular
occasion that produced that humble popular gesture.
One of the most prominent identifying characteristics of these
gestures is rhythm.
The music of the minuet, a noble dance, is there
to assist the dancer in maintaining a noble posture--restraint,
control, refinement.
dignity.
Practicing it, we may over time learn grace and
Hearing it, we cannot help but think of these mobile vir-
tues; our body strains to move with them.
This smooth even count of
three is character-building and character-evoking--truly "qualitative
mathematics."
To help you count that three, let me play a minuet
part way into the first movement of the Mozart sonata.
It comes at a
crucial point in the piece, when a base has to be touched, a sense of
arrival created--not home plate, but, to use a further spatial meta20
�phor, diagonally opposite.
motion.
Sense the dignity and tranquility of the
When you hear what precedes it, you will feel it all the
more by contrast:
[Ex. 3].
This movement has a profusion of gestures; it might be described
by the question "How many qualities has 3?"
For it shows us 3 in
many lights, often reminding me of one of those magic sugar eggs with
the hole at one end, into which you look to marvel at the perfection
of the detail observed in its miniature world.
First we hear a
singer, her breast swelling as she reaches for her high note.
ber, this is all conveyed to us on the piano:
[Ex. 4]
Remem-
She should
continue, but instead her utterance is answered by two voices, not so
clearly vocal anymore, one following the other at a brief interval
and singing the same melody--imitative counterpoint is its proper
name, and to Mozart's audience it had a rather old-fashioned ring-pompous and over-serious:
[Ex. 5].
Another length, a simple unit of
minuet, moves to the close, so that our first "sentence'' has three
parts or clauses, of equal time but not necessarily equal weight.
The next sentence is devoted to the rhythms of a hybrid minuet--a
minuet crossed with hunting horns.
We recognize the horns because
the characteristic pitches of their calls in the field are imitated:
[Ex. 6] .
After a satisfying and discrete paragraph of this hunting
minuet, the movement "turns on a dime" to a dark, passionate music
often called "Storm and Stress," after the Romantic temper that
affected it.
Whole pieces were written in this style, but here it
becomes just one affect among many.
In its restlessness, however, it
serves the subversive function of undermining home base, and moving
us to that new place we must reach if we are to have any sense of
21
�having moved at all.
And--as you have guessed--at the end of this
so-called travelling music, we arrive at the well-shaped minuet you
heard before:
[Ex. 7].
The new arrival place marks the end of the
beginning and the beginning of the middle, and quite naturally this
new place is identified with 5 (3).
The drama of the
r~st
of the
piece will be the return to 1 via some cunningly shaped paths.
The
image of some sort of narrative does not seem to me to be far wrong,
much more apt than the formalist analysis.
Our delight in this
imitation is the delight in the reflections of
the many-wayed won-
ders of a close and ordered world, disposed to form the crucial nodes
of a well-wrought narration.
What is peculiarly musical about it is
that there is no real story in the sense we expect one, no proposition, no picture of Laocoon.
Yet in this passage-through-time we
sense an order, intuit a deep intent, and are deeply satisfied.
This Mozart example is an example of imitation in the most direct
and evocative fashion; I could show you many others.
like to offer an example of a different sort:
But now I would
first off, vocal music
(music with a text), sacred, not secular, and grand and special
rather than playful and habitual.
It is a piece those of you who
have completed the music tutorial will know well, the culminating
aria of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein."
It occurs after the Crucifixion, immediately following the moment
when Joseph of Arimathea claims Jesus' body from Pontius Pilate.
This scene follows the procedure of others in the Passion:
a passage
from the Gospel of Matthew narrating the scriptural event is set in
the simplest speech song, and then commented on by an observer outside the time of the narrative, in verses by an eighteenth-century
22
�poet.
The commentary itself usually has two parts--a discursive
passage in a free declamatory style, sometimes called arioso, and a
more summary, epigrammatic statement, set in the full panoply of . an
aria, a closed musical form.
This particular scene takes place in
the evening, and the arioso text ponders the theological meaning of
eventide:
In the cool of the evening, Adam's fall was manifest.
In the evening the Saviour casts him down.
In
the evening the dove returned,
and brought
the
olive
branch in its beak.
o beautiful time!
O Eventide!
The covenant of peace is now made with God,
for Jesus
has
completed his cross.
His body comes to rest.
Oh!
dear soul, ask, go, and let the dead Jesus be given
to you.
O salutory, o precious keepsake!
In this poetry the peace of the evening and the covenant of peace
become one:
Adam and Noah are fulfilled in Jesus, who has paid the
most memorable price for the sins of all.
Eventide becomes a sym-
bol--and I think I use that difficult word correctly--for the peace
of God that passes all understanding.
Symbols are the theological
way--the cross is paradigmatic--and the text of the Passion is suffused with them.
So is the music, sometimes in an abstract and
impalpable way, such as the reach up to B flat on the word "blood"
(German Blut) in the scene of the Last Supper. Others, like the aria
that follows this arioso, move us directly--musically--at the same
time that they undergo this translation to a deeper Christian mean23
�ing.
At the end of the arioso the singer (a male, a bass) addresses
his own soul, telling it to go receive the dead Jesus, and then, in
the most tender and moving aria in the Passion, enjoins his heart to
prepare itself for the corning of Christ.
Make yourself pure, my heart.
I want to bury Jesus himself.
The poetry of a second section, the music of which we will not
examine, amplifies the symbolism:
For
he
is henceforth to have his rest in
me
forever
and
ever.
World, get out, let Jesus in!
Bach suits actions to words. That's a conventional phrase
most
analysts like to fudge with, and given the text the composer has to
set here, that must seem to you exactly what I am doing.
not particularly fertile in musical ideas.
The text is
How do you draw a musical
picture of a heart purifying itself? of a believer burying Jesus in
himself (as the second part of the text suggests)?
The task seems
preposterous, perhaps even blasphemous. I'll suggest an absurdly
simple answer.
You write a cradle song, a lullaby.
Cradle songs
from time immemorial have used rhythmic 3's in groups of 2; that is,
each 3 is a rock of the cradle, with the extra odd beat catching the
pause of the cradle at the extreme of its swing, poised for return.
These 3's are then grouped in 2's:
the cradle rocks back and forth.
Let's hear the instrumental introduction to the aria, to concentrate
on the effect of the rhythm.
Notice that the bass sets up the rhythm
briefly before the melodic voices enter;
th~
about it that the singer merely shares:
[Ex.
24
motion has an eternality
8] .
�Perhaps I should explain further why I find this device so
wonderfully appropriate.
On the surface it would seem to satisfy
neither purification nor burial, the dual requirements of the text.
But remember that the arioso text made death into sleep, an image
that is important throughout the Passion.
The believer--our last
example was Joseph of Arimathea--holds the blessedly resting Jesus in
his arms; this- male figure universalizes the pieta, the figure of the
weeping mother holding Jesus in her arms after the descent from the
cross.
Mary holds a full-grown son who is beyond the solace of
rocking, but the symbolic believer is allowed a maternal lullaby.
It
is thus, the aria argues, that believers should receive the Christ.
In fact, the aria is an injunction to the believer to accept in full
serenity the final agony of Christ as the bringer of peace to the
world.
Thus to bury Him is to rock Him to sleep with a mother's
lullaby.
There is some final musical detail I cannot omit describing
before you actually hear the singer's voice.
I have tried to show
how Bach, in setting this seemingly unsuggestive piece of text,
manages to explode it into deeper meaning using a musical gesture
that becomes symbolic, moving the believer both physically and cognitively to a deeper Christianity.
Strikingly, Bach sacrifices the
text to the hypnosis of the eternal.
Syntax, prosody, all those
things that suggest human meanings in human time, are suspended, and
even that element that makes musical syntax, the 5 (our 3), disappears to some extent.
Musically the 1, the center of gravity, is
instead held up on top, and a scale descends against it with each
rock of the cradle:
[Ex. 9].
The singer's line is wholly unvocal; it
imitates a characteristic Baroque instrumental line where one instru25
�ment plays the parts of two, first high, then low.
further apart so you can hear the two:
[Ex. 10].
I'll split them
A further
distortion of our natural expectations is the actual setting of the
text, rhythmically and melodically.
"I want to bury Jesus myself"--
"Ich will Jesum selbst begraben"--"Ich will Je-- sum selbst begra-ben."
Je- and gra- are stressed unnaturally by the move to a melodic
peak on an offbeat:
this extraordinarily awkward vocal line does
violence to both melody and text in the service of the hypnotic
cradle song.
Singer, song, and syntax are dissolved in the cosmic
lullaby that is the rocking of Jesus to the sleep of sin.
All human
history focusses on the descent from the cross; that moment of time
must stand for eternity.
When syntax must reassert itself, at the
end of this musical section, we are wholly prepared for the vocal
awkwardness on the final "begraben"--"bury"--the deep leap down from
the 2 to the 1, the octave to the prime, precisely the kind of
musical tone-painting we have grown to scorn this evening.
Bach has
habituated us in the course of this aria to music become meaning; we
accept a musical barbarism as a convincing theological symbol:
[Ex. 11] .
There is other music I should have talked about, were there
time, for example, the repertoire of many-voiced sacred Renaissance
vocal compositions.
There dance is absent, and composers eschew any
obvious translation of textual images into musical ones.
Yet the
theorists of this music are most emphatic about its imitative quality.
The object of imitation is nothing less than "wondrous Nature,"
as their prime spokesman, Gioseffo Zarlino, a sixteenth-century composer and writer, states.
"Every composer ought to follow the beau26
�tiful order of nature, and he will be considered excellent in proportion to the resemblance of his procedures to those of nature."
Zar-
lino's "wondrous Nature" is a world informed by number, by our 2's
and 3's.
One of his cardinal principles is unity in variety, fol-
lowing nature, which, he says "does not produce identical individuals
in a species, but always somehow varied."
"Numbers and proportion
invite us to variety, for in them we do not find two similar proportions following one another."
Here he is speaking about the harmonic
proportion, a important number relation named after its embodiment in
music.
We have already heard the simplest form of that relation, in
lowest whole numbers--the dovetailing of the 2 and the 3, or the
octave and the fifth.
[PLAY] ·
Harmodzein, the Greek word for the
dovetailing of joints in carpentry (it also can mean to "set in
order," or "govern," and also to "betroth") describes the way the
octave and fifth lie harmoniously together, a concordance of dissimilar elements, giving their name to a number relation you will meet
elsewhere in the program. To
Zar~ino
this relation comes closest of
all musical relations to the sound of perfection, and so it must end
every composition; for, in his words, "Perfection is characteristic
of the end and not of the beginning of a thing."
[EXAMPLE 8]
A latet
music that calls itself harmony (the examples we have been listening
to this evening) will add another element to this dovetailing to fill
it in, to make it less perfect and hence more sensuous (one eccentric
modern theorist calls the fifth the "pre-sexual'' interval); this more
homogeneous entity we call a "chord."
But still the guiding relation
remains the same--the harmonic proportion, the miraculous blending of
the 2 and the 3.
27
�I have somewhat perversely tonight been giving you a music
history in reverse, and it would be remiss of me not to add a postlude that takes it back to origins, so to speak.
We have been
dealing all evening with compounds--more than one line at a time--and
now we will turn to simples.
But only in the sense that we are no
longer combining two pitches at a time; any implication that this
one-line music is simple in the se-nse of "primitive" is wholly alien
to my intention.
I have heard it said of the repertoire of Gregorian
chant that it is abstract, ethereal, above the world and its relations, out of time in its simple temporality.
I don't believe that
any example of this most human of arts can be like that, nor do I
think that we endow it with any greater dignity or spirituality in so
asserting.
The goal is to let a sacred text speak out as simply and
eloquently as possible, and again the 2's and 3's do the work.
The
text of the Latin hymn I have chosen, in unrhymed Latin verses, is
from the Easter Mass, and it is a meditation on the miracle of the
Resurrection.
Let
It reads, in part:
Christians
off er their thankful praises
to
the Paschal Victim.
The Lamb hath ransomed the sheep:
the sinless Christ
reconcileth sinners to the Father ....
Tell us, Mary; what did you see in your wayfaring?
I
saw
the tomb of the living
Christ,
and
the
from
the
glory of Him rising ....
We
know
that Christ has truly
risen
dead; have mercy on us, Victor King.
Amen.
At the center of this text is an act of human witness, at the conclu-
28
�sion one of human celebration.
At no time does the chant call atten-
tion to a particular phrase--it never makes "word pictures"--but the
whole is animated with human pulses and human breaths.
The rhythm of
the poetry is primarily trochaic--a stress on the first,
third,
syllable, etc--and the musical rhythm by and large follows this
grouping into 2's:
"Victi~
paschali laudes irnrnolent
Christi~ni."
The 2's and 3's of pitch- order the ebb and flow of the melody.
The
octave is the limit of rest, the fifth (our 3, remember) the limit of
tension. These seemingly narrow melodic limits set the theater for a
narration without a story, for a dramatic mimesis of the condition of
the human soul.
When we hear the third phrase begin on the 5 and
rise up to the octave above, our chests swell, our pulses race, at
this brave effort against the center of gravity, the 1.
On the
return we compose ourselves, fold our hands, reflect, always in
sympathy with the passion objectified in the music.
We haven't here
the histrionic swelling breast of the operatic soprano, but the
effect is only dissimilar in its restraint.
Above all chant is
singing: is breath and how long one can hold it, the tightening of
the vocal chords in order to attain a higher pitch:
[Ex. 12] .
posed this music is, and ordered, but inhuman it is not.
Corn-
For it is
never without passion, if passion can be defined as the suffering or
tolerating of the physical and emotional effects that devolve from
the exertion of our human equipment.
Hanslick, in his efforts to make mock of musical imitation,
turns one memorable phrase that might seem in its sarcasm to put an
end to the question altogether.
"The animal to which music is most
indebted," he says, "is not the nightingale but the sheep."
29
The song
�of the sheep is, of course, that of the gut, the taut string, and we
are being reminded to turn our attention away from frivolous thoughts
of connections between music and nature to the sober practicalities
of the making of pure musical sound.
But, as I've tried to say
tonight, I think his example contains in it the very image that is
•
his undoing, for it is the physics of the taut string that makes
Aristotla say the
There
musical
makes
following~
seems
to be
tunings
some
also in the Politics:
in
us
a sort of
(harmoniai) and
kinship
rhythms,
philosophers say that the
soul
to
which
is
a
tuning, others, that it possesses tuning.
I submit that this music is an imitation of "wondrous Nature," our
nature, as it uses musical number in the act of prayerful praise.
further submit that very little music is not like this in some way,
if we but look and listen.
30
I
�., Allanbrook Example-
t>
~
Example- 2
~-a
,,
? 0 - -0- 0
0
t
I.
-e- 0
0
() 6
Ii
II
ea
Exampl~s
-e-·
~
~0
l)
11
0 .g..
Examplt3
-·
.
"
.
A
~~-
?
I
a
:oi).._
-
r
I
~'
I
I
-
Exanrple 4
C~n 1:::1:: 1:;; I
Exampk 5
.
-~
-
I
.
-.......
~
I
I
--..-..
I
I
.....-
..
-
-
Example
Exan1ple 6
'~
r..r r .
I
7
-
-
�Examplt 8
· ~Aria
-
(Chorus I)
Exampl~
,
9
L
A
....
I
.....
-
I
l
m.2
--. ·, .,
1- I
'
Example to
m.2
.,
II
~
m.3
.-.
m.+
m.'1
�Examp~ II
00
Basso Cc:Jion• n
B..~~~~~~~~~
Ma. - che dich,mein Her - ze,
ben, _
ma-Che dicb,meinHeJ1.ze,rein,icb_ will Je- IWD selbat_ be- gra-ben, ich willJe-sum aelbst be- gra.-ben.
�Example-
12
Victimae paschali laudes Sequence for
the Solemn Mass of Easter Day
..
I
_.
7;· ~,i.~~..~~...~.~~,,~~.5.~.~~-~~·~·~.~~·~i-~.~-~11
5
Vic·ti·mae pa.·sch..li Lau·des •im·mo-lent Ch:i·sti • a·ni.
-& •
4
•
--
~
•
•
4
I
•
0
•
•
•
4
•
. .. ..
II
re-<on-ci ·Ii· a·Yit pec·c:a·to·res.
•
-
•
•
•
•
It
•
- ..
2. A-gnus red··e·mit .c-Yes: Chri·stus in·no-cns Pa·tri
J. Monet vi· ta du·eho con· ru · xe· re mi ·ran-do: dux Yi-tae mor-tu·us. re-gnat Yi·vus.
4.Dic
S.An
~y
..
•
"
no . bis
. se .
• " •
.
Ii
...
Ma
cos
..
• •:=:;
. ri . ••
te - stes,
•
quid
SU
.·I
f [6.
•
jl
Cre • den • dum est
1. s..; · mua Qui • stum
§
;a
.
Yi
da
.
.
4
•
0
ma • gis
511r •
iz
•
"
Ii
so •
xis • se
""'* "w •a;
•
Ms
•
..
~ re • sur • gen • tis:
·OS
•
.
•
vi . a?
. Ye • stes.
in
et
• • • • o:::Z
=•
pne·ce • det su
..
•
•
. sti
. um,
di
ri
• • •
•
" glo • ri • am
Yi • Yen • tis, et
a
Se-~ul·c:rum Oni • sti
Sm- n= • xit Cui • stus spes me • a:
&~
•
d
.
in Ga· Ii · Lae • am.
•
ri
ff
mor ·tu
Iii-;;
•
.
ve
.
is
•
ii
ra
Ye
.
.
"
ci
re:
•
Al - le • lu • ia.
II
�Victimae paschali
1.
Victimae paschali
laudes .
laudes immolent Christiani.
~angs
1. Ta the Paschal Victim let Christians offer
cf praise.
2.
Agnus
redemit oves:
pe•=•=atares.
2.
The Lamb
has
redeemed
the
sheep.
reconciled sinners to the Father.
3.
Mars
et vita duelo conflixere miranda:
regnat vi \ILts.
3.
Death and life have en~aged in miraculous combat.
of life is slain, <ye"t") liv.ing he reigns.
4.
nob is Mari a.,.
quid vidisti in via?
Die
vi vent.is, et gloriam vi di resLU-genti s:
4.
Tell LlS,
Mary, what YOLl saw on the way?
I saw the sepul 1.:hre
of the living Christ and the glory of his rising.
Christus innocens Patri
5. Angelicas testes, sudarium; et vestes.
mea:
praecedet sues in Galilae~m.
5.
Tt1e angel
is risen.
6.
i·=
reconciliavit
Sinless
has
Christ
dux vitae
mortuus,
The leader
Christi
Sepulc:rum
Surrexit Christus spes
'"'i tni::s:;;e ·: ~~ th(;: ·= hr-cud and v·e·'5tur•::. Christ ;ny
He will gc before his own into Galilee.
C1'-edend1_tm est mag .l. s
·:;cJl i
Mari ae ve1·-ac i
qua1u
.J1_1dae·~n..1m
l · ;;:Jp~
ti_tt-b.::<.e
fallac:i.•
6.
Mary
alone is more ta be
deceitful crowd cf Jews.
7.
S·=im1_:s Cl1ri ·: ;tum ·: ;urr···::?;<i ·:; ·:;i:-? a 111c1~t1_1i ·:; V•::?r•::?:
F:i?>: , mi st:ir· ere.
-r
I
~·~e
know
that Chr i ·;t has tr1_1l y r-i ·:;en f ram
conqueror and king, have mercy en us.
o
believed
th;?
than
vi ct;~r -
the
Je:ad.
1..\Ji pi::J •::f Bur-,dund\'
Celeve~~h
c~ntur y)
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
35 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Music: The Representative Liberal Art
Description
An account of the resource
Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 2, 1988, by Wye Allanbrook and Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brann, Eva T. H.
Allanbrook, Wye Jamison
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1988-09-02
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
Education, Humanistic
Music
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7970">Recording</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
lec Allanbrook 1988-09-02
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/ce0f82dc2f1d45c0048175d2f31da18f.mp3
58e3ccbff00e96ba0f7614ffe2920498
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:14:02
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Music: The Representative Liberal Art
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 2, 1988, by Wye Allanbrook and Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brann, Eva T. H.
Allanbrook, Wye Jamison
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1988-09-02
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Education, Humanistic
Music
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Allanbrook_Wye_1988-09-02_ac
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7971">Typescript</a>
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/8dbd4c4937cf731077be6088c7a01dec.mp3
41ce622b496843832bea04787665ffc2
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Speeches, presentations, and other lectures
Description
An account of the resource
Speeches, presentations, and other lectures given at St. John's College. These include convocation addresses delivered in both Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Speeches, presentations, and other lectures" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=15">Items in the Speeches, presentations, and other lectures Collection</a></strong> to <span>view and sort all items in the collection.</span>
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
speechespresentationsotherlectures
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
mp3
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:08:35
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Memorial Service for J. Winfree Smith
Description
An account of the resource
Memorial service for Annapolis tutor J. Winfree Smith, April 20, 1991. The service includes eulogies by John White, Eva Brann, William Darkey, Joseph Cohen, Francis Mason, Brother Robert, Curtis Wilson, and Douglas Allanbrook.
Please note that the recording quality is poor and some speakers are difficult to hear.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
White, John F., 1942-2020
Brann, Eva T. H.
Darkey, William A.
Cohen, Joseph
Mason, Francis
Smith, Robert, Brother
Wilson, Curtis
Allanbrook, Douglas
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1991--04-20
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Smith, J. Winfree
Eulogies
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tape_358
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/ce3a9ed332c90b715b71d14715c57c17.mp3
33745127913b97db28e96c3536e8231a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
audiocassette
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:58:28
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Leibniz's New Geometry
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered November 30, 2007, by Annapolis tutor Brendon Lasell as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lasell, Brendon
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2007-11-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716
Geometry--History
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Lasell_Brendon_2007-11-30
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/8ecefb87d028b8d993d42f15beab8dab.pdf
ae2f694b6263387e98b6f7ea35e47c3a
PDF Text
Text
Leibniz’s New Geometry
Brendon Lasell
July 26, 2007
In February of 1682, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz published a paper giving the
ratio between a circle and a circumscribed square. In fact, he claimed that (see
diagram) when the circumscribed square BC is 1, then the circle is equal to
1 1 1 1 1
− + − + etc.
1 3 5 7 9
The announcement appeared in the second issue of a new journal, the Acta
Eruditorum, the Acts of the Learned. The journal was intended to give learned
men a way to announce their new discoveries, and it was the first such journal
in Germany. Leibiniz’s paper does indeed present something new: nothing like
the equality he gives had never been seen before.
Leibniz’s paper thus serves to introduce readers to new mathematical knowledge. At the same time, the paper introduces its readers to its author. But the
paper is only an introduction. A reader struck by the novelty of its claims would
not be satisfied with what he can learn there about the new mathematics and
its new author. The paper neither gives a argument for its main assertion, nor
does it explain how the author came to it. Instead, he only gives an enunciation
of a theorem, seen from several points of view. Intrigued by the mathematics,
we may want to know something about the author who is boldly making such
claims; but here too we are frustrated. The author only gives his initials, G.
G. L., and if we investigate, we only find out that he is a relatively unknown
court historian for a Duke in northern Germany. He is a new man among the
learned just as his assertions are new in mathematical learning. In February
of 1682 we cannot let what we think about Leibniz guide our thinking about
Leibniz’s mathematics. Readers of Leibniz’s paper are thus left with no choice
but to begin by looking at the enunciation of his new theorem from the points
of view he gives us, neither looking ahead to a demonstration or analysis, nor
looking back to an established body of work by the same author.
Leibniz presents his new theorem above all from the point of view of tradition. His essays begins as follows:
Geometers have always tried to investigate the proportions of curvilinear figures to rectilinear figures, but even now, after applying
algebra, they still have not succeeded — at least with the methods they have published: for these problems cannot be reduced to
1
�algebraic equations, but they are beautifully useful, especially for
reducing mechanics to pure geometry.
Leibniz is doing what geometers have always done. He is trying to find the
proportion of a curvilinear figure, the circle, to a rectilinear figure, a square.
But geometers have not always succeeded at these tasks, even now in 1682, after
they have learned from Descartes to apply algebra to solve geometric problems.
Leibniz, however, succeeds at his task. Leibniz goes on to say more about
the problems that geometers have solved, about their aims in solving these
problems, and how his new solution satisfies these aims. Thus, when he gives us
the proportion between a circle and a square, he asks us to look first of all not
at circles or squares, or even at curvilinear and rectilinear figures in general, but
rather at what geometers have always tried to do. His own work belongs not so
much directly to geometry as to the history of geometry. It is a step forward in
the progress of geometry.
Now if we look at Leibniz’s new theorem as a solution to one of many problems that have been solved in the history of geometry, then it is natural to
ask what light this new solution sheds on the process by which one comes to
solve such problems in general. In an earlier letter where Leibniz presents the
same theorem on the proportion between a circle and a square, he writes that
“nothing is as important as seeing the origins of discoveries — they are worth
more than the discoveries themselves in my opinion.” In a much later essay, he
writes that seeing the origin of discoveries is important in that it helps “the art
of discovering.” From the point of view of the art of discovery, geometry is not
about circles or lines so much as about the general art of coming to new truths.
When we look at Leibniz’s claim that the ratio of a circle to a circumscribed
square is
1 1 1 1 1
− + − + etc.,
1 3 5 7 9
we should then think first about the general art of finding proportions between
curvilinear and rectilinear figures, and about the light this theorem sheds on that
art. This is the point of view from which we will look at Leibniz’s mathematical
work tonight. Starting from this new theorem about the ratio of a circle to
circumscribed square, we will look at how Leibniz presents the art of discovery
that is behind this theorem. We will begin by looking more closely at how
Leibniz presents the tradition that his discovery about the circle belongs to, a
tradition whose most prominent member is Archimedes, and how he breaks with
that tradition. Next we shall broaden our scope to look at some of Leibniz’s
later papers, where he presents more discoveries and lays out the method behind
them. Here it becomes clear that Leibniz defines his new contribution to the art
of discovery above all in opposition to Descartes. In particular, he introduces
new objects into geometry that Descartes could not deal with, and a new way
of representing these objects. Finally, we will return to the problem we started
with and sketch how Leibniz’s new understanding of geometry leads him to
discover the proportion between a circle and its circumscribed square.
2
�1
1.1
The tradition of the curved and the straight
Archimedes
Let us return to the opening sentence of Leibniz’s paper. There he writes
that the problems of finding the proportions between curvilinear and recitlinear figures are “beautifully useful, especially for reducing mechanics to terms of
pure geometry.” He continues, “Those who have looked more deeply into such
things know this; few have done so, but they are among the most outstanding mathematicians.” The only example Leibniz gives of a “most outstanding
mathematician” is Archimedes. Leibniz gives an example of a problem solved
by Archimedes. Archimedes found the proportions between a cone, a sphere,
and a cylinder constructed on the same circle. Here is a diagram. As Leibniz
points out, Archimedes showed that given a circle AB, a sphere with the same
diameter DC, touching the circle AB at the center C of AB, a cone ADB whose
base is AB and whose vertex is D, and a cylinder ABF E whose base is AB
and whose top EF touches the sphere DC at C, then the cone ADB is to the
sphere DC as 1 is to 2, and the sphere DC is to the cylinder ABF E as 2 is to
3.
Archimedes’ problem is an example of the kind of beautifully useful problem
that Leibniz himself intends to solve. Why are these problems beautifully useful
for Leibniz? It is easier to begin to see its beauty than its use. The beauty of
the problem is first of all visible in the diagram itself. It is a simple diagram:
only a few straight and curved lines traced on a sheet of paper. It is balanced
perfectly between left and right. Again, as we go up and down the diagram there
are repeated elements: the curved lines that are the circumferences of the circle
at the top and bottom of the cylinder, along with the equator of the sphere.
The straight vertical sides of the cylinder also add to our impression of vertical
symmetry. Yet the vertical symmetry is not perfect. It is sharply broken by
the straight diagonal sides of the cone, culminating in a point. The surface
simplicity of the diagram is broken in other ways as well. Our imagination
leads us beyond the simple plane surface of the drawing to a solid depth, and
the sphere, cylinder, and cone then come to life and separate from each other.
When we thus start to see the complexity behind the simplicity in the diagram,
we begin to perceive its beauty. It is not merely simple, but rather gradually
alludes to the complexity it is drawn out of. Our attention is drawn to the
diagram because of its striking emptiness and stays with the diagram because
its finitude offers little to distract us and its symmetry gives our attention a
way to move without leaving the diagram, circling over its surface; yet as our
attention is held fascinated by this surface it gradually opens up, leading us to
into depths that were not at first seen.
The theorem is, of course, more than simply a diagram. Archimedes proves
that the cone is to the sphere is to the cylinder as 1 is to 2 is to 3. When
we consider the statement of this theorem our attention is drawn away from
the diagram to the simple numerical ratios of 1 to 2 to 3. The simplicity here
is of a different kind. These numbers are not visible, and do not call on the
3
�imagination. While the cone, sphere, and cylinder are among the simplest things
in geometry, 1, 2, and 3 are the simplest things in arithmetic. In contrast to the
cone, sphere, and cylinder, these numbers are strikingly empty, and when we
turn our attention to them there is little to hold it in place. The only movement
we are led to follow is a movement onward: we go from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, and
continue to infinity. There is no natural circling of our attention back to where
it began at 1. The simplicity of 1, 2, and 3 togther is thus not a beautiful
simplicity.
When Archimedes then identifies the simple geometric relations between
the cone, sphere, and the cylinder together with the simple arithmetic relations
between 1, 2, and 3, we are astonished. We would not expect these two very
different kinds of relations to be identical. There is nothing about a sphere and a
cylinder as they present themselves to our imagination that would suggest that
they are to each other as the number 2 is to the number 3. But Archimedes
can prove this. Step by step, in a long argument, he takes us to a point where
we must admit the identity. This surprising identity, and its demonstration, are
beautiful. They are beautiful not only because of the beauty of the diagram, but
because as we follow the proof we move our attention back and forth between
arithmetic and geometric simplicity, and unexpected depth gradually emerges.
As the geometric diagram has a kind of beauty of its own, independent of any
connection with arithmetic, what happens is primarily a beautification of arithmetic. By being linked to an elegant geometric configuration, the numbers 1, 2,
and 3, which by themselves appear rather empty and uninteresting, acquire an
unexpected depth. We can now see the relation between 2 and 3 in the relation
between a sphere and a cylinder, and 2 and 3 thus become worth dwelling on
and wondering at in a way they were not before.
Following Leibniz’s lead, we have been looking how Archimedes discovery of
the ratios between a cone, sphere, and cylinder is beautiful. Now to see this
beauty well we would have to look not only at the enunciation of Archimedes’
theorem, but at its demonstration. Leibniz does not do this, and we do not have
time to do it tonight. But I hope we have seen enough to glimpse something
of the way Archimedes’ theorem spreads something of geometric beauty over
arithmetic.
Now Leibniz does not merely say that problems of finding proportions between curvilinear and recitlinear figures is beautiful, but that these problems
are beautifully useful. But it is hard to see what is useful about Archimedes’
theorem. Once we know what the ratios between a cone, a sphere, and a cylinder are, there is nothing obvious we can go and do with this knowledge. Leibniz
suggests that such problems are useful for “reducing mechanics to terms of pure
geometry,” that is, for reducing the study of machines to terms of pure geometry.
But this theorem hardly appears to lend itself to designing machines.
We might turn to Archimedes other works in hope of finding some clue to
the usefulness of the theorem Leibniz gives and others like it. But here again,
we would be disappointed. It is true that some of the techniques Archimedes
uses to find the ratio between a sphere and a cylinder do appear elsewhere in his
mathematical works, and perhaps he even uses this ratio as a step in another
4
�argument. But there is, I believe, little in his mathematical works to indicate
that he finds these kinds of problems useful.
But Leibniz may not only be thinking of the extant writing of Archimedes.
We know something of Archimedes not only through his writings, but also
through the writings of historians. Here we are told that Archimedes was in
fact a wonderful engineer. His mechanical ability plays a central role in one of
the most striking episodes of the story of the rise of the Roman Empire. Archimedes built machines that were able to drive a powerful Roman army from
his native city of Syracuse. The best telling of the story is in Plutarch’s life of
Marcellus. It is worth spending a few minutes here to try to bring Plutarch’s
telling of the story to life before us, so that we may see better how Leibniz’s
invocation of Archimedes’ name may shed light on the tradition he is taking up
in squaring the circle.
Archimedes appears in Plutarch’s life of the Roman general Marcellus. Marcellus was involved in three great wars, stretching from his youth to his old age.
The bulk of Plutarch’s life is concerned with the last of these three wars, a war
between Rome and Carthage. These two great cities fought each other to decide
who would be the dominant power in the known world. Rome, of course, eventually won, destroying Carthage completely about sixty years after Marcellus’
death. But during Marcellus’ lifetime the question was very much in doubt.
Carthaginian armies were moving through Italy, threatening the city of Rome
itself, and battles were also fought in Spain, Africa, and Greece. Not long after
this war with Carthage had broken out, Marcellus was in charge of a Roman
army in Sicily trying to defend Roman interests. Rome had come to rule Sicily
in a war during Marcellus’ youth, but the new war with Carthage had emboldened some Sicilian cities to try to break free of Rome. Syracuse, the largest
and wealthiest city in Sicily, was one of these cities. Just before Marcellus had
arrived, a Syracusan general, Hippocrates, had “gratified the Carthaginians and
acquired tyranny for himself by killing many Romans.” When the Roman army
came to Syracuse Hippocrates, by spreading lies about Roman cruelty among
the Syracusans, encouraged them to refuse to listen to Marcellus’ ambassadors.
Marcellus than attacked by both land and sea. Marcellus was confident of his
success,
relying on the size and splendour of his preparation and on his own
reputation. But to Archimedes and the machines of Archimedes all
this was of no account. This man did not set out to make these as
if they were worth being serious about; most of them were born as
byproducts of geometry at play, after Hiero the king had become
ambitious and had persuaded Archimedes to turn something of his
art from mental things to bodily things, and by mixing its reason
somehow or other through sense perception with use, to make this
reason more manifest to the many.
When the Roman army and fleet attack, Archimedes’ machines shot arrows,
cast heavy rocks at them, inflicting heavy damage. When the Roman ships
came up to the wall, the Syracusans used machines devised by Archimedes to
5
�grab hold of the ships with iron claws, lift them out of the water, and drop them
again. The Romans quickly retreated in fear, giving up a direct assault, and
settling into a siege that would last almost three years. Through Archimedes’ ingenuity alone the Syracusans had driven off Marcellus and the Roman army and
fleet. Marcellus compares Archimedes to Briareus, a mythical hundred handed
monster. According to Plutarch,“in reality, all the other Syracusans were a body
for the preparations of Archimedes, while the soul moving and turning everything was one.” In driving off the Romans and preserving Syracusan freedom
Archimedes has momentarily become a perfect tyrant over Syracuse. According
to Plutarch’s description, it seems that Archimedes is not simply the ruling soul
in Syracuse, but the only soul. Marcellus is right to find this situation both
mythical and monstrous.
Thus the geometry of Archimedes is wonderfully useful. It generates as a
byproduct an amazing array of machines that are capable of repelling a mighty
army. Even so, according to Plutarch, Archimedes held the art of making machines, mechanics, an art by which he had acquired a godlike reputation, in
contempt:
Archimedes possessed so great a spirit and depth of soul and such a
great wealth of theorems that he chose to leave behind no writings
about the things by which he had acquired the name and reputation
of having the understanding of a god rather than of a man; instead,
considering the business of mechanics and, in general, any art that
grasps at what is useful, to be ignoble and base, he directed his
love of honor to those things which have beauty and superfluity
unmixed with necessity, things incomparable with everything else,
and which furnish demonstration with a rivalry against matter, the
latter bringing size and beauty, the former precision and enormous
power; for it is not possible in geometry to grasp more difficult and
weightier hypotheses in simpler and purer terms.
Now remember that Leibniz, when speaking of the kind of problems Archimedes solved, calls them beatifully useful. They are both beautiful and useful.
Earlier I tried to point to some of the ways Archimedes finding of the ratio between a sphere and a cylinder may be beautiful. We later turned to Plutarch’s
life of Marcellus trying to find how Archimedes’ art might be useful. There we
indeed see that Archimedes’ succeeds in turning pure geometry to mechanics,
making his wonderful machines. But Leibniz not only attributes both beauty
and use to Archimedes’ art, but says that the uses themselves are beautiful. In
contrast, in Plutarch’s account, the mechanical uses of Archimedes’ geometry
are contemptible in comparison with the pure beauty of geometry indifferent
to use, to which alone he devoted his writings. Here then we begin to see a
way in which Leibniz has broken from the tradition he sets before us. Leibniz
suggests there is a harmony between beauty and use, while Archimedes (at least
Plutarch’s Archimedes) turns away from use towards a pure beauty belonging
to matter in a rivalry with demonstration.
6
�Before we finish with Archimedes, I should give the rest of Plutarch’s story.
After being repelled by Archimedes’ machines, the Romans retreated, but they
did not give up. They settled into a long siege, and after a few years found a
way to take the city by strategem, without a frontal assault. When Marcellus
had Syracuse in his power, he set his soldiers loose to plunder it. As the Roman
army ran through the streets taking everything they could get their hands on,
Archimedes was looking over a diagram, examining something by himself, and
failed to notice that the city had been taken. A Roman soldier came up to
Archimedes and ordered him to come with him. Archimedes did not want to
go before he had finished his problem and established its demonstration. The
Roman soldier became angry, drew his sword, and killed him.
1.2
Leibniz’s innovation
Let us return now to Leibniz’s paper on the ratio of a circle to its circumscribed
square. There, as we saw earlier, Archimedes appears as part of the geometric
tradition of finding proportions between curved and straight things. After mentioning Archimedes and his theorem, Leibniz goes on to give a series of more
modern proportions, found by nameless mathematicians, for other figures, and
then turns to the unsolved problem of finding the ratio between a circle and
a square. According to Leibniz, no one has yet been able to “bring the circle
under laws such laws.” Others have found approximations, including first of all
Archimedes, who showed that the ratio of a circle to a circumscribed square is
greater than 21 to 28 and less than 22 to 28. But approximations are not what
Leibniz is looking for; he is looking for an accurate expression.
Now according to Leibniz, “many have not fully understood what they are
looking for” when trying to find the quadrature of the circle, that is, the ratio
between a circle and a circumscribed square. To clarify the what would count as
a solution to the problem, Leibniz gives a classification of kinds of quadrature.
A quadrature can either be done by calculation or by construction, and in either
case it may be either accurate or not. There are therefore four different kinds
of quadratures: accurate calculations, approximate calculations, accurate constructions, and nearly accurate constructions. No one has yet given an accurate
calculation or construction for the quadrature of the circle, while Archimedes
gave an approximate calculation, and others have given nearly accurate constructions. Leibniz claims his own quadrature is an accurate calculation.
The simplest kind of accurate calculation would show that the ratio between
the circle and the square is the same as the ratio between two whole numbers,
just as Archimedes shows that the ratio between a sphere and a cylinder is the
same as the ratio of 2 to 3. Leibniz calculation is not that simple. As we saw
earlier, he shows that if the area of the square is 1, then the area of the circle
will be
1 1 1 1 1
− + − + etc.
1 3 5 7 9
Leibniz goes on to explain that this means that
in relation to the correct value for the area of the circle,
7
�1
1
1
1
1
1
1
will be
−
−
−
1
3
1
3
1
3
+
+
1
5
1
5
−
1
7
greater,
yet with an error less than
......
less,
..........................
......
greater,
..........................
......
less,
..........................
etc.
1
3
1
5
1
7
1
9
etc.
Therefore the whole series contains all the approximations or values
greater than or less than the correct one: for if it is continued far
enough the error will be less than a given fraction, and thus also
less than any given quantity. The whole series therefore expresses
the exact value. And although we cannot express the sum of this
series by one number, and the series may be produced indefinitely,
nevertheless, because this series keeps to a single law of progression,
we sufficiently perceive the whole with our minds.
Here Leibniz has done something very bold. In looking at the table he gives,
one might think he is only giving us more approximations. He gives us a series of
expressions that each give an approximate value for the area of the circle. Each
expression comes closer and closer than the last to being accurate, but none of
them ever is accurate. And each expression is more complex than the last, so
that we have to use long and complicated expressions to get a very accurate
value for the area of the circle. If, for example, we wanted to find the area of
1
the circle with an error less than 100
, we would have to take the sum
1
1 1 1 1
− + − + ... − .
1 3 5 7
99
If we added and subtracted all 50 terms in this sum, we would get something
equal to the correct value, plus or minus .01; we would therefore have a pretty
accurate approximation of the correct value, up to two decimal places. If we
wanted an approximation up to three decimal places, we could use a sum with
500 terms. Leibniz, however, sees more here than some rather laborious new
ways to calculate an approximate value of the area of the circle. He sees a
completely accurate calculation that gives the exact value of the area of the
circle.
This is the bold new leap Leibniz makes. To make it, he must see the series
as giving a single value, rather than infinitely many values. This value cannot
be contained in any individual sum of a finite number of terms; rather, it is
contained in the “law of progression” that guides the whole series. This law
tells us how to move from one sum to the next; it tells us, for example, how to
move from the second sum,
1 1
− ,
1 3
to the third,
1 1 1
− + ,
1 3 5
8
�and then how to move from this sum to the fourth,
1 1 1 1
− + − .
1 3 5 7
The law of progession is the same at every step; no matter how far we go in
the series, the way to move from one sum in the series to the next is the same.
If anyone gives us a sum that occurs in the series, we can easily find the next
sum by following the law. For Leibniz, we can therefore sufficiently perceive the
whole series of sums, and it is thus just as good as a single number. Because
the series gives us arbitrarily close approximations to the area of the circle, its
value must be identical to the value of the area of the circle. Leibniz has thus
given us a different kind of solution than we might have expected. When we
first posed the problem, we were looking for a number that gives the area of
the circle. But Leibniz tells us we did not understand the what we were really
looking for: we were in fact looking for a law. Leibniz thus replaces numbers
with laws. The primary mathematical object is a law.
Now any law, in mathematics or otherwise, is universally obligatory. Everyone should obey the law. To obey the law, everyone must first understand
what the law is. A law should therefore be something that is publicly declared
and can be grasped by everyone . Accordingly, Leibniz introduces the law of
progression of his series as a means by which we perceive the whole series. The
law of progression is manifest to everyone. It becomes manifest here because
Leibniz has presented it here in a table that makes us grasp it at a glance. By
laying out the series of sums in a table, with neatly aligned rows and columns,
we see just how we should move from one sum to the next, and how each new
sum relates to the circle. The law of progression is captured in the visible relation between one row and the next. We thus grasp as well as we need to what
is contained in the two “etc.”s at the bottom of the table, which contain the
infinitely many unwritten sums and errors.
Expressing the series of approximations in terms of words alone would not
have been as effective as Leibniz’s table in making clear what the law behind
the series is. In fact, any complicated mathematical truth is hard to grasp when
expressed in words alone. We see this all the time in reading ancient mathematics. Even in the relatively simple propositions in Euclid, it is sometimes hard
to understand what a proposition is about by reading the enunciation alone.
Only after we see it set out in terms of a diagram does it become clear. The
difficulty in understanding the bare enunciations becomes even greater in the
more complicated works of Apollonius and Archimedes. Yet in all these authors there is a stubborn insistence on formulating everything in plain Greek,
no matter how odd or unreadable the resulting sentences become. They do
not resort to symbolic shorthands to try to make it easier for us to grasp the
patterns behind what they are saying. In the resulting tension between the diagrams and the text in Greek mathematics we perhaps see the rivalry between
matter and demonstration that Plutarch speaks of. The diagram is a kind of
matter, lending beauty and size to the proposition, while the text is where the
demonstration is found, providing power and precision. Each keeps jealously
9
�to its own domain, the diagram not trying to become a symbolic text, and the
text not trying to become a picture. Leibniz collpses this tension. Text and
diagram coalesce in a table expressing an underlying law. The strife of ancient
mathematics disappears behind a new harmony.
When Plutarch first introduces Archimedes, he writes that his machines are
the result of King Hiero persuading him
to turn something of his art from mental things to bodily things, and
by mixing its reason somehow or other through sense perception with
use, to make this reason more manifest to the many.
When making his machines, Archimedes himself thus blurs the line between
reason and sense perception in trying to make his geometry useful. He blurs
this line in the interest of making his geometry manifest to the many, an interest
that Leibniz shares. But as we saw earlier, Archimedes appears to hold the
usefulness of his geometry in contempt. It is nothing compared to the beauty
of the geometry on its own. For Leibniz, I believe, the beauty of geometry
is not separable from its usefulness because he sees finding laws as its object.
The theorems of a Leibnizian geometer reveal laws, and these laws are by their
nature manifest to the many. These laws are naturally useful because they let
us easily grasp powerful universal truths. It is only a bad geometer who fails to
make himself perfectly clear, and only an idle pretence to suppose that there is
some independent realm of pure theorems high above the understanding of the
many.
2
Leibniz against Descartes
In considering how Leibniz’s paper in February of 1682 is new, we have so far
concentrated on how Leibniz’s solution moves beyond the work of Archimedes,
the first geometer he names as belonging to the tradition of finding proportions
between curvilinear and rectilinear figures. But this tradition has many later
members, and Leibniz refers to their work as well. To be truly new, Leibniz’s
solution has to go beyond not only Archimedes, but all previous modern mathematicians as well. Now in many places in his mathematical writings Leibniz
gives the names of his important predecessors and describes their work, and
it would be impossible here to give a complete picture of his understanding of
the tradition leading up to him. But there is one mathematician with whom
he contrasts himself more than any other: René Descartes. Descartes not only
made important contributions to geometry that Leibniz depends upon, but also
made some harmful errors that Leibniz tries to correct. In many of his published mathematical writings there are passages that point to these errors of
Descartes. In this part of the lecture we will try to sketch how Leibniz saw
himself as correcting the errors of Descartes.
10
�2.1
Descartes’ error
Leibniz criticizes Descartes in a paper titled “On Finding the Dimensions of
Figures” published in May of 1684, two years after his paper on the area of the
circle. This paper sets forth a general method Leibniz uses to find the areas of
figures. After briefly describing the method and some of the things it can do,
he writes:
I have many things of this kind by which Geometry is advanced
immeasurably far beyond the boundaries set down by Viète and
Descartes. For the ancients did not wish to use lines of higher degrees, and [they called] the solutions that were found by using them
Mechanical. Descartes blames them for this and receives into Geometry all curves whose nature may be expressed by some Algebraic
equation, that is, by an equation of a definite degree. He is right
to do this; but there are infinitely many other curves that nevertheless can still be accurately described, and Descartes erred no less
than the ancients when he excluded them from Geometry and called
them Mechanical, evidently because he was unable to reduce them
to equations and treat them by his rules.
This is a criticism that Leibniz returns to again and a again in his mathematical
papers. According to Leibniz, Descartes expanded the proper objects of geometry, including in it lines that the ancients rejected as mechanical. But Descartes
himself does not go far enough. He introduces a new criterion for judging if
a line is geometric, and his criterion is too narrow: he ends up rejecting some
lines that are just as geometric as the ones he accepts. Leibniz tries to correct
this error and include all lines that belong to geometry. As Mr. Burke puts it,
there is an analogy: as Descartes is to the ancients, Leibniz is to Descartes.
To understand better Leibniz’s criticism of Descartes, we will turn briefly
to the text where Descartes makes the statements Leibniz is criticizing, the
Geometry, which was published in 1637, about forty-five years before Leibniz’s
first mathematical papers. There Descartes gives a way to simplify “all the
problems of geometry,” by freely introducing “arithmetic terms into geometry,
in order to make [himself] more intelligible.” He uses, for example, the term
“multiplication” to describe finding a fourth proportional: if the line AB is a
unit, and we have to “multiply” BD by BC, then Descartes simply constructs
a fourth proportional BE for AB, BD, and BC, so that AB : BD :: BC : BE.
BE is called the “product” of BD and BC. Descartes’ new arithmetic language
enables him first to reduce all statements about geometry to statements about
straight lines, but he quickly notes that “often one does not need to trace these
lines on paper, and it suffices to designate them each by a single letter.” By
designating geometric lines by letters and interpreting geometric relations in
terms of arithmetic, he can use algebra to express geometric statements. For
those of you who have not read the Geometry, I would say that the result is
something like what you see in high school algebra, where geometric curves are
expressed by equations using systems of coordinates.
11
�Descartes claims that his new method was unknown to the ancients, who
seem to have been held back by their scruples about using arithmetic terms in
geometry because they did not see with sufficient clarity the relation between
these two subjects. To prove that his method is capable of going beyond the
ancients, Descartes solves a problem that the ancients could not solve, the socalled locus problem of Pappus. We do not have time to go into much detail
here, but in very general terms, this problem involves finding curves that satisfy
certain conditions. We are given some properties of an unknown curve, and we
have to find the curve that has these properties. The form of the problem is thus
the same as that of countless other ancient geometric problems: for example,
the problem of finding a square equal to a given polygon, or the problem of
finding a mean proportional between two given lines. What is unusual about
Pappus’ problem is that we do not know in advance what kind of curve line we
are looking for. When we try to solve the problem, we may therefore want to
understand what kind of curves line there are; that is, we may want to classify
curved lines in general. But ancient geometry never deals with curved lines in
general. It only gives us a handful of examples, such as the circle and the conic
sections. Pappus gives us a case where these well known curves are solutions
to his problem, but he does not have a way to describe the curved lines that
solve his problem in more general cases. According to Descartes, even in the
simple case where the solution is a conic section “he does not at all try to
determine or describe this curved line, any more than he tries to explain the
curves” that satisfy the problem in more complicated cases. Descartes claims
he can do all this, determining and describing the solution in the simple case
where Pappus only asserts what the solution is, and explaining the solution in
more complicated cases.
Now the key to Descartes’ general solution of the problem is a new understanding of what it means to find a curve. The ancients did not understand the
nature of curved lines, and therefore excluded lines that properly belonged to
geometry. Among the lines they excluded are precisely those that solve Pappus’
problem. By broadening what counts as a solution to the problem, Descartes
is able to solve it. His solution is thus a model for the type of solution which
Leibniz gives for the quadrature of the circle, where he broadens the definition
of number to find an accurate value of the area of the circle. According to
Descartes
one should no more exclude the complex curves than the simpler
curves, provided that one may imagine them to be described by
a continuous movement, or by many successive movements each of
which is entirely regulated by those which precede it.
Descartes is thus able to include within geometry lines described in our imagination by all sorts of complicated machines, lines that the ancients would have
rejected as mechanical. A little later Descartes gives a somewhat different formulation of which curves may be called geometric, identifying them with
those curves whose points necessarily have a some relation to all the
12
�points of a straight line, a relation which may be expressed by some
equation.
In what follows, Descartes makes it clear that he is thinking of an algebraic
equation, that is, an equation formed by adding, subtracting, multiplying and
dividing known and unknown quantities; for example, y = x2 or x3 −2xy+1 = y 2
are both equations of geometric curves for Descartes. The equation of a curve
determines what kind of kind of curve it is, and Descartes gives his solution to
Pappus’ problem by using equations.
It is this latter formulation of what counts as a geometric curve that Leibniz objects to. Leibniz sees no reason to limit ourselves to algebraic equations,
since equations can express relations other than those that come from adding,
subtracting, multiplying, and dividing known and unknown quantities. In addition to algebraic equations, Leibniz introduces new equations which he calls
transcendent. These new equations are expressed in a new symbolism, which he
calls a calculus. The curves corresponding to these equations are transcendent
curves. They are the curves that Descartes mistakenly casts out of geometry.
While Descartes was right to include all algebraic curves, and not just the few
simple ones the ancients used, the circle and the conic sections, he was wrong to
exclude transcendent curves. Just as by introducing algebraic curves Descartes
can solve a problem the ancients could not, so also by introducing transcendent
curves Leibniz can solve problems Descartes could not.
2.2
Leibniz’s new curves
Leibniz at first only mentions the new calculus used for describing the new
transcendent curves, without giving examples. It is only a few months later, in
a paper titled “A New Method for Maxima and Minima, as well as for Tangents,”
that he shows us the new calculus. By a “calculus” Leibniz seems to mean a
symbolic system, that is, a collection of symbols and rules for manipulating
them. Ordinary algebra is thus a kind of calculus for Leibniz. His new calculus
is based on the old algebraic calculus, but it includes one new symbol, the
letter d. Leibniz first introduces d using the diagram on your handout. We are
given a straight line AX, called the axis, a curved line passing through V , a
perpendicular V X from the curved line to the axis, called an ordinate and a
tangent V B to the curved line. Leibniz takes an arbitrary straight line and calls
it dx, and then defines dv to be the line such that
dv : dx :: V X : BX.
He calls dv the “difference of the vs.” Leibniz goes on to give the rules for
manipulating this new symbol. For example, he writes that if y = xv, then
dy = x dv + v dx.
He does not demonstrate these rules when he first introduces them in the “New
Method.” Instead, he gives some examples. As the full title of the paper suggests, the examples are concerned with finding maximum and minimum values
of quantities, and with finding tangents to curves.
13
�Leibniz’s presentation of the new calculus is at first perplexing. He throws
us into the middle of it without explaining why a new calculus is needed, what
it is supposed to represent, or why it works the way it does. Instead, he gives
us at least three ways to think about the new symbol d:
1. in terms of the proportion dv : dx :: V X : BX;
2. as something that represents “differences,” so that dv is the “difference of
the vs;”
3. as a letter that is manipulated according to certain rules when combined
with algebraic expressions.
Of these three ways of thinking of d, I believe the second, in terms of differences,
is the most fundamental. It can explain both the proportion Leibniz starts with,
and the rules the new symbol must obey. Moreover, thinking of the new calculus
in terms of differences most directly helps us understand why the new calculus
helps us solve new geometric problems that Descartes’ algebraic calculus cannot.
A few years earlier, in a letter to a friend, Leibniz writes of what he calls
the “method of differences.” This method is based on the same method introduced in the “New Method”, but in the earlier letter Leibniz uses “differential
figures.” According to Leibniz, a differential figure is one whose ”series of ordinates coincides with the series of differences from another series.” 1 The notion
of a series of differences contains, I believe, the fundamental insight behind the
new calculus. Consider again the figure in your handout. We could have taken
any point V on the curved line and drawn an ordinate V X to get new values
for both V X and AX, that is, for both v and x. There are therefore infinitely
many possible ordinates for the curve through V . So far we have done nothing
that the ancients did not do, as those of you who have read Apollonius know.
But what Leibniz does that the ancients do not is consider these ordinates as
a series; that is, he supposes that there is an ordered progression of ordinates,
where every ordinate has an ordinate that immediately follows it. For Leibniz,
after the ordinate V X there is a next ordinate V1 X1 . And immediately after
V1 X1 there is another ordinate, and so on. These ordinates form an infinite
series. It is in terms of this series that we can most easily see what Leibniz
means by d: dv is the difference V1 X1 − V X between consecutive ordinates.
Now Leibniz’s supposition is obviously absurd. There can be no next ordinate, because continuous magnitudes are infinitely divisible. Between any two
points V and V1 there is always another point from which we can draw an
ordinate, and therefore V1 X1 can never be the next ordinate. Leibniz is well
aware of the absurdity, but it does not stop him. He is willing to embrace a
way of thinking about geometry that he knows is false, in order to develop his
new method. And this absurdity, this geometrical falsehood, is not something
accidental to Leibniz’s new method. Leibniz indicates the centrality of thinking
of differences of ordinates by the notation itself: dv is a shorthand for “the difference of the ordinates. As he develops his new calculus and its applications,
1 Letter
to Tschirnhaus, p. 40
14
�both in the “New Method” and elsewhere, we see him again and again return
to thinking in terms of series of ordinates and their differences. This thought
is the engine that drives him to new discoveries, and we should try to follow
Leibniz in embracing this way of thinking. We should resist the temptation to
treat it straightaway as an error that needs to be corrected.
But how can we embrace what looks like an elementary mistake? The idea
of accepting false hypotheses in order to get at truth is not unknown in geometry. Every time we do a reductio proof we begin by setting down a false
hypothesis. We then go through the proof, using this false hypothesis to derive
in an orderly way other false statements until we come to something that is
manifestly absurd. We then throw away the false hypothesis and embrace the
contrary, true hypothesis once and for all. In Leibniz’s method, we also use the
false hypothesis to derive in an orderly way other statements and finally end
up with a true statement. But in Leibniz’s method, we do not throw away the
false hypothesis when we are done. Leibniz’s method is not a reductio method,
but in both methods we use false hypotheses in a carefully regulated way to
come to true conclusions. The use of these hypotheses is bound by rules: they
are not like Euclid’s definitions and common notions, or like the conclusions of
demonstrated theorems, which we can freely introduce in whatever context we
want. Rather, there are certain limited contexts in which reductio hypotheses
or Leibniz’s hypothesis about the series of ordinates can be used. In both cases
there are as it were laws to guide the way we incorporate false hypotheses in
our arguments. Leibniz new geometry thus depends on new laws for the logic
of geometry.
To see more clearly what the laws are that guide Leibniz’s hypothesis about
the series of ordinates, let us turn to a paper published a few months after the
“New Method.” There Leibniz gives what he calls the “general principle” from
which his method may may be deduced:
that a curvilinear figure should be considered as equivalent to a polygon with infinitely many sides; it follows that whatever can be demonstrated about such a Polygon — whether in such a way that we pay
no attention to the number of sides, or in such a way that it is more
and more verified the greater number of sides we take, so that the
error finally becomes less than any given number — can be declared
to be true about the curve.2
To return to our diagram, if we draw a straight line between V and V1 , the
points where consecutive ordinates meet the curve, and we do the same for
every ordinate in the series, then we will get a polygon meeting the curve at
the points V , V1 , etc. According to Leibniz, this polygon is equivalent to the
curve through V . Now this polygon is not simply a single, fixed, polygon; it
is a variable polygon that can have more and more sides. We can always take
a greater number of sides. And when we prove something that is true about
this variable polygon that becomes more and more true the more sides we take,
2 p.
62
15
�until it finally fails to be true by less than any given number, then we can say
that it is true about the curve. This is the basic law that guides Leibniz’s use
of the hypothesis that the curve is equivalent to a polygon.
Here is a simple example. Suppose we are given a circle. According to
Leibniz, we can assume this circle is a polygon with infinitely many sides. We
can use this assumption to prove that the area of the circle is half the product
of its perimeter and its radius. For if we take one of the triangles ACB making
up the polygon, and drop a perpendicular DC from AB to the center C, then
the area of the triangle is equal to half the product of AB and DC. If we sum
up all the triangles in the polygon, we will see that the total area of the polygon
is half the product of its perimeter and DC. This is true no matter how many
sides the polygon has. Moreover, the more sides the polygon has, the closer DC
comes to being equal to the radius AC. Therefore it becomes “more and more
true” that the area of the polygon is equal to half the product of its perimeter
and the radius of the circle. According to Leibniz’s principle, then, it follows
that the area of the circle is half the product of its perimeter and its radius.
There is a striking similarity between Leibniz’s treatment of a curve as equivalent to an infinitely sided polygon and his earlier treatment of an infinite series
of numbers as equivalent to a number. Recall that as we take more and more
terms in the infinite series
1 1 1 1
− + − + etc.,
1 3 5 7
it comes closer and closer to the area of the circle. One could say that the
equality between this series and the area of the circle becomes “more and more
verified the greater number of terms we take, so that the error finally becomes
less than any given number.” Leibniz argues that this series therefore expresses
a single value that is equal to the area of the circle. Likewise, the infinite series
of polygons that can be inscribed in a circle come closer and closer to the circle,
and statements we make about these polygons that are “more and more verified
the greater number of sides we take, so that the error finally becomes less than
any given number” are in fact true about the circle. Leibniz therefore concludes
that the circle is equivalent to a polygon with infinitely many sides. In the former
case, Leibniz argued that we perceive the whole infinite series as one number
because it keep to a single “law of progression.” The same argument would seem
to apply in the case of the infinite polygon: we sufficiently perceive the whole
infinite series of polygons as one figure because there is a law of progression that
takes us from one polygon to the next. This law of progression is equivalent to
the circle for Leibniz. Just as he earlier treated a law of progression as equivalent
to a number, so here he treats a law of progression as equivalent to a geometric
figure.
We turned to Leibniz’s general principle to clarify the assumptions behind his
introduction of the new calculus. The symbol d is supposed to mean differences
of, when we make the assumption that there is an infinite series of ordinates.
This assumption is obviously false. Yet it can be used to guide us to new truths
when we use it legally. The laws that guide the use of the assumption depend on
16
�a general principle that curvilinear areas are equivalent to infinite polygons. An
infinite polygon is in fact an infinite series of polygons, but it can be treated as a
single polygon because this series obeys a single law. This law in effect becomes
a mathematical object. There thus appear to be two kinds of new laws: the laws
that guide the arguments using the new hypotheses, and the laws that become
new geometric objects. But these laws are deeply entangled, and may in the end
amount to only one law. The progression from one polygon to the next in the
infinite series of polygons may be thought of as a series of steps in an argument.
Or the special kind of argument that uses the new assumption may be absorbed
within the object under consideration, so that Leibniz’s assumption is no longer
false in the new geometry: if by speaking of the “series of ordinates” Leibniz
simply means the law of progression for all finite series of ordinates, then there
is no need to restrict the assumption to special arguments. It would be as true
as any of Euclid’s postulates.
Leibniz, fortunately, does dwell on these deep and difficult questions. Instead
he simply introduces his new notation, tells us what the rules are, and moves on
to solving problems. Consider again the diagram from the “New Method.” If we
apply Leibniz’s general principle to the curve there, we can assume that there
is a series of ordinates, so that V X and V1 X1 are consecutive ordinates, but
only in the context of a certain kind of argument. We may treat the ordinates
as if they form a finite series in order to prove statements about them that “are
verified more and more” the more ordinates we take.
Here is an example of the kind of argument we can make. Let V X and V1 X1
be consecutive ordinates of the curve through V . Then as we take more and
more finely grained series of ordinates, the points V and V1 become closer and
closer together, and the line through V and V1 becomes closer and closer to a
tangent V B to the original curve. Therefore, according to Leibniz’s principle,
the line through V and V1 is tangent to the curve.
Leibniz gives his “general principle” in classical geometric terms, without
any new symbols, and we have given our examples geometrically. But he is
in fact following Descartes in trying to express the nature of curved lines with
symbols. His new symbol d is precisely what is required to express as a curve
symbolically as an infinite polygon. If we drop a perpendicular V T from V to
V1 X1 , then V1 T will equal dv and V T will equal dx. If we are given dv and dx,
we are given the infinitely small triangle V V1 T , and therefore the side V V1 of
the polygon. Leibniz calls this triangle the characteristic triangle; it expresses
the nature of the curve as an infinite polygon. To find dv and dx is to find the
curve as an infinite polygon. As we saw earlier, Leibniz gives rules for finding
dv in terms of dx, given the relationship between v and x. In other words, he
gives rules for finding the curve as an infinite polygon, given the relationship
between its ordinates and abscissas.
Leibniz’s new calculus is a powerful new tool for solving geometric problems. Anything that can be expressed in terms of an infinite polygon can be
expressed in terms of it. Since, as we saw earlier, both tangents and areas can
be expressed in terms of an infinite polygon, they can also be expressed in terms
of the calculus. Leibniz’s calculus can be used to square the circle, and Leibniz
17
�and those who came after him used his calculus to solve many new problems
involving tangents and areas. The new calculus helps us solve these problems
because it gives us a way of much more concisely expressing just the relevant
relations for these kind of problems. More importantly, it gives us a way to
express curves that we never would have been able to express before. Just as
algebra let us write down equations for curves that we would never have had
simple geometric expressions for, so Leibniz’s new calculus lets us write down
equation for curves that would never have had simple algebraic expressions.
These are the transcendent curves that he faults Descartes for excluding. They
are the curves that can only be thought of as infinite polygons.
3
Conclusion
Leibniz’s geometry is new because he has a new understanding of law in geometry. In contrast to Archimedes and the other ancients, Leibniz sees geometry
as aiming at what is useful, and accordingly tries to find the most clear and
concise way to express its underlying laws. With Descartes Leibniz shares the
view that geometry aims at the useful and that one should try to introduce new
symbols to make the underlying reasons as clear as possible. But in contrast
with Descartes, Leibniz explicitly makes laws an object of geometry, and therefore is able to see a broader range of laws that might be clearly expressed by new
symbols. Because Descartes was too attached to the symbols of algebra, he set
up too narrow boundaries for what counts as a geometric curve. Descartes has
no way to express the laws that curves give to the infinite polygons inscribed in
them, and therefore rejects the transcendent curves that can only be expressed
by these laws.
In paper published in 1686, Leibniz offers some harsh criticism of Descartes
and his followers. After giving a brief demonstration of an error Descartes made,
Leibniz writes the following.
Since nothing is simpler than our proof it is surprising that it did
not occur to Descartes or the Cartesians, who are most learned men.
But too much trust in genius led them astray: the former trusted
his own genius, the latter another’s. For Descartes, having the usual
vice of great men, finally became a little too confident. And I fear
that not a few Cartesians are gradually beginning to imitate the
many Peripatetics whom they mock; that is, I fear that they may
be getting accustomed to consult the books of their teacher rather
than right reason and the nature of things.
Descartes’ text has become a dead authority to his followers. It is this dead
authority that Leibniz frees himself from with his new geometry. Descartes’
geometry, like his physics, is prone to become rigid and lifeless, losing its connection to the original discoveries it made. The algebraic tools of Descartes’
geometry can come to seem too important on their own, and their function as
18
�expressing something is lost. Leibniz brings life back to geometry by once again
letting its laws express themselves.
19
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
19 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Leibniz's New Geometry
Description
An account of the resource
Typescript of a lecture delivered November 30, 2007, by Annapolis tutor Brendon Lasell as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lasell, Brendon
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2007-11-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716
Geometry--History
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Lasell_Brendon_2007-11-30
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/7968">Recording</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2a14f15c8c401de9c4e7e9dfb41e6874.mp3
519988d94f8d86832489e267240ba0b5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:47:28
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
What Is a Book?
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on August 30, 1991, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brann, Eva T. H.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1991-08-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Books and reading
Books
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tape 377
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/919b797fbec913b540c0cbb393fe57a5.mp3
910da86aedefbdc513062b556798fb1d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:03:09
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Perfections of Jane Austen
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on January 31, 1975, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brann, Eva T. H.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1975-01-31
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Austen, Jane, 1775-1817
English prose literature
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tape 262
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2ca40af5b4fbf2171fba64d5e88e7185.mp3
d5d8686a0624d3e4cb12dff3d7aa2031
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:57:57
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Plato's Theory of Ideas
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 14, 1979, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series. <br /><br />The quality of the recording ranges from poor to very poor. Written versions of the lecture are available <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1239">in the Formal Lecture Series collection</a> and in the <a href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/5146">St. John's Review (July 1980)</a>.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brann, Eva T. H.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1979-09-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Plato
Philosophy, Ancient
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tape 445
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/096998978c1ebc399778fba8572840d8.mp4
a1990f58ca45220f3a93dfb481d52fbd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
mp4
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:00:00
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Science & Nature of Dogs: From Umwelt to Pet
Description
An account of the resource
Video Recording of a lecture delivered on February 16, 2024, by Alexandra Horowitz as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Prof. Horowitz is the Senior Research Fellow in the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College in New York, and is also an Associate Professor in Psychology and English. Along with being a dog-cognition expert, she is the author of many academic journal articles and several books including, The Year of the Puppy – How Dogs Become Themselves (Viking, 2022) and Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know (Scribner’s, 2009). In addition to writing books, she hosts a podcast Off Leash on the Freakonomics Radio Network.
This lecture is also part of the Steiner Lecture Series. The Andrew Steiner Memorial Lecture fund was created by the family and friends of Mr. Steiner, an alumnus (class of 1963) of St. John’s College, Annapolis. It was established to attract scholars from different disciplines and worlds, recognizing Andrew’s great intellectual versatility.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Horowitz, Alexandra
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-02-16
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp4
Subject
The topic of the resource
Dogs
Cognition in animals
Dogs--Psychology
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Horowitz_Alexandra_2024-02-16_ac
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online."
Friday night lecture
Steiner lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d873901677f671f74b082d6120d31dc3.mp3
0b9d2f17515c254ce8bd02453e1e2836
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:03:51
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Declaration of Independence
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 30, 1976, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brann, Eva T. H.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1976-04-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
United States. Declaration of Independence
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Tape 292
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a5e353c1f1f70e7e355a4bb12d2653ec.pdf
1c88700236281615e14da8849c6b9046
PDF Text
Text
T H E
C A M P A I G N
F O R
S T .
J O H N ’ S
C O L L E G E
A COLLEGE
UNIQUE AND
UNIVERSAL
EVA BRANN
�{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
A COLLEGE
UNIQUE AND
UNIVERSAL
E VA B R A N N
}
�3
Eva Brann has been a tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis since
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
Contents
1957, serving as dean from 1990-97. A Jewish immigrant from Berlin,
Miss Brann went to Brooklyn College and later earned her master’s
in classics and a doctoral degree in archaeology at Yale University.
At St. John’s, she is one of the college’s longest-serving and most
respected tutors; she has been a mentor to students and tutors alike,
1.
Unique and universal?
•
page 6
2. We have one Program; do we have one expertise?
3.
•
page 13
Is the “how” of our teaching connected to the “what”?
•
page 16
and a model for the “examined life” the St. John’s Program encourages. Miss Brann has written many books, including Open Secrets /
4. How do we choose and evaluate our tutors?
Inward Prospects: Reflections on World and Soul; Homeric Moments:
5.
•
page 26
How do we select and monitor our students? What is their life like?
•
Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad; The Music
6. What are the relations between tutors and students?
•
page 37
of the Republic: Essays on Socrates’ Conversations and Plato’s
Writings; The World of the Imagination; What Then, Is Time?; and
7.
What’s wrong with us?
The Ways of Naysaying: No, Not, Nothing, and Nonbeing. Miss
8.
What kind of institution does our Program require?
•
page 40
•
page 43
Brann’s many honors include her selection as a 2005 recipient of the
National Endowment for the Humanities’ prestigious award, the
National Humanities Medal.
9. What are the essential features of our Program?
•
page 48
10. What is the St. John’s Seminar, the center of the Program?
11. What do we do in the tutorials?
•
page 58
•
page 65
a. the Language Tutorial
b. the Mathematics Tutorial
c. the Music Tutorial
12. How does the laboratory fit in?
13. What do we want from and for our students?
•
14. What do we wish for – and see in – our alumni?
Illustrations by David Johnson
page 67
•
15. Postscript: A small college and those that love it.
page 70
•
page 72
•
page 52
page 31
}
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
4
Introduction
5
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
prospective students, inquiring teachers, and close friends, for example – and alumni.
These are the same issues sometimes seized upon by critics of St. John’s: the choices
In this essay, the college’s longest-serving tutor, Eva Brann, explains what
on our reading list, our requirement that tutors teach across the curriculum, and a
St. John’s College is and why what we do is important. She describes the college as,
practice of not including in our classroom discussions the historical, cultural, and
paradoxically, “unique and universal,” because St. John’s persists with its singular
social background of the texts we read.
and distinctive academic program while holding to an ideal of education that is meant
to apply to all humankind and has, in fact, resonated throughout the world.
These questions grant us the opportunity to reflect upon the integrity and wholeness of the Program. We believe that the best way to learn is to confront the texts of
In no way is the college perfect, Miss Brann acknowledges. Many aspects of the
the greatest minds of our civilization, with nothing between us and the work, not even
college, for instance, the breadth and depth of the reading list, represent both our
tutors. Yet, we recognize how important it is to have tutors who bring both intellect
greatest strengths and our most daunting challenges. And yet St. John’s continues to
and imagination to their discussions, and who understand how to frame a question
attract international attention, welcomes scores of visitors to its two campuses, and is
that will open a world of ideas from a simple passage.
called upon to offer seminars to many different groups outside our college. What we
Our books and our program demand more of us than, in truth, we are capable of
consider a very simple and natural way to teach – cultivating in an individual the
achieving. It is this stretch in our search for truth, however, that allows us, as a
ability to formulate questions and begin the search for answers – intrigues many who
community of learners, tutors helping students, students helping each other, to
come to know St. John’s because of the intellectual honesty of our endeavor. We don’t
achieve some measure of greatness. That all of us at the college continue to have faith
pretend to be something we’re not. On the other hand, our ways are not easily
in this endeavor is perhaps to be celebrated above all.
adapted for just any college or university, nor do we have a “method” that can be
defined in pedagogical terms.
As we launch a campaign to strengthen and secure St. John’s College, we are
thankful for this clear vision of what liberal education is.
In answering fourteen questions that get to the very heart of the college, Miss
Brann explores issues that are interesting to both curious observers of the Program –
Christopher B. Nelson (SF70)
President, Annapolis
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
1.
}
6
Unique and univ ersal?
7
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
When people first hear of what we do they can scarcely believe their ears. We
invite them to come and see. The campus is always swarming with prospective stu-
How can a college be one of a kind in reality and nonetheless a possible
dents and curious visitors. If they are familiar with other institutions of education,
model for higher education in its conception? – because that is how we at St. John’s do
here are the main differences they will observe:
indeed think of ourselves. We are a distinctive community very much shaped by particular people and places, yet we have faith that our way is broadly applicable to other
institutions of learning.
All small institutions – colleges particularly – rightly think of themselves as
1. We go back behind the modern departmental division between humanities and
sciences to an older ordering: authors and arts.
2. The Program is all-required and non-specialized; thus there are no departments
at all and practically no electives.
unique. All professors cherish their special qualifications along with their students’
3. Every faculty member teaches all or almost all the parts of the Program. Conse-
budding individualities, and the far, dry winds of Kansas blow differently over a cam-
quently, we are amateurs rather than professionals, and we mark this fact by calling
pus than the close, moist breezes of South Carolina. Uniqueness is, oddly enough,
ourselves “tutors” rather than “professors.”
what they all have in common – from Chicago to Colorado Springs, from Poughkeepsie
This country used to be a boiling pot of curricular reform and innovation. Most of
to Santa Cruz – all sixteen hundred or so, belonging to that distinctively American
the “alternative” curricula of the last century have come and gone. They were con-
species, the small independent school. Each has its own variation on the standard
ceived as experiments with the possibility of failing – and they did fail.
university plan of departmental offerings, arranged broadly under humanities and
sciences, from which students elect their courses.
The St. John’s Program was never thought of as experimental. Young souls are not
meant to be the subjects of try-outs. From its founding in 1937, its teachers had faith
St. John’s College is differently different. We too have our gallery of faculty char-
in the Program as the best way known to them to educate young Americans in partic-
acters; an English friend says that visiting the college is like stepping into an English
ular and all human beings in general; the Program was universal in conception. In fact
novel. We even have two uniquely beautiful campuses under different skies. But we
it has resonated in the wide world. When I was dean I received inquiries and visitors
differ seriously from the conventional variations of other schools in having one single
from Madrid to Tbilisi and beyond. So rather than watch the curriculum fail with
plan of education, our Program. Whereas other colleges’ uniqueness consists of their
personal regret but intellectual equanimity, we would think that some central pivot of
internal variety, ours derives from a coherent curriculum.
civilization had been lost, should the college disappear – and it won’t, now.
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
8
I have often wondered what we had that other remarkable schools didn’t – Black
Mountain College in North Carolina for instance, or the Experimental Program in
Berkeley, California. I think what we had was the Program: Our community was from
the first built not on assertive personalities and unstable curricular notions but on a
strongly grounded plan of learning, pretty nearly the same that we still follow.
In an educational world in which commonality is regarded as oppressive, we are
sometimes chided for having the confidence, not to say nerve, to submit ourselves and
our students to a set study plan. But we think it is a faculty’s responsibility to devise an
integrated curriculum for its students’ learning rather than to engage in turf battles in
favor of departmental specialties. Moreover, anyone who has lived in a working community knows that it can’t survive without some healthy egocentricity, some sense of
being at the center of the world. Who would devote a life to anything less? Our more
sober colleagues do continually warn against the notion that we are the world – and
they are half-right, for there are many good things we are not, and many other places
in this country about which the world also revolves.
The brute reality is that we have in fact remained one of a kind. There is, to my
knowledge, only one other four-year college devoted to a Program in part modeled on
ours, but with a significant difference: Thomas Aquinas College in California has a
strongly Catholic integrated curriculum, while St. John’s College has been from its chartering in 1784 (a wonderful date, the first year after the Revolution) a school not enforcing on its students “any religious or civil test, or urging their attendance upon any
particular religious worship”; we are now in fact completely secular. And as Madison
CHARLES
DARWIN
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
10
11
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
so rightly predicted for freedom of religion, religious interest of every sort flourishes
the product of long hours of faculty deliberation, all designed to protect the free
at the college. How we read religious books will be worth a paragraph (see p. 70).
engagement of our intellects and imaginations – and, of course, our hearts. The real
Why have we, who think of our Program as a model of liberal learning which is especially at home in America, remained all but unique in this country? The United States,
motion, the real freshness, in this school comes not in doing new things but in doing
the old things better. For our founding ways are inexhaustible in their possibilities.
as former dean Robert Goldwin has written, was the result of an almost miraculous con-
Undoubtedly we are an establishment, an institution. An establishment of learn-
fluence of streams of luck. This college, too, needed a lucky concurrence of events to
ing is something of a contradiction in terms, since real learning is a radically disestab-
come about: a pair of founders, one, Scott Buchanan, well versed in the whole liberal
lishing activity. Strange as it may seem, it is that untrammeled inquiry we are trying to
arts tradition, the other, Stringfellow Barr, possessed of administrative talent; a cam-
protect with our multitude of established practices. But in the course of maturing we
pus on offer; a general spirit of revival for liberal education as exemplified in Alexander
have become more and more our unique self. So how can we serve as a model for other
Meiklejohn; and finally a European emigration which brought people like Jacob Klein,
communities of learning, especially when in our hearts we believe that numbers are
who fell in love with the intelligent naiveté of America’s young and brought the learned
nothing and what really counts is that here and now one young (or old) soul should see
depth with which to effect a second founding, placing under the inspiredly practical
something that makes life worth living?
Program a philosophical grounding. There was, moreover, the opportune return of the
Well, we have obligations to the country that allows us to function, and the public
World War II veterans, who were superbly serious students, and above all, a faculty will-
that supports us, and to our own two cities, Annapolis and Santa Fe. And we feel an
ing to conform themselves to a plan, not the plan to themselves. And this Program they
obligation, born of our sense that we know something worth knowing about learning,
committed themselves to had an aim and an apex: the ardent pursuit of knowledge and
to American education. So we engage in lots of outreach: give free access and help to
truth, or as the Greeks say, philosophia, “the love of wisdom.”
visitors who want to see us at work, advise prospective founders of schools all over the
By now the “New Program” of this old college is itself quite venerable. At seventy
world, help committees with curricular reforms, aid teachers with planning courses,
years it and its faculty can be said to be mature. We fine-tune it continually, and some-
send out reading lists and manuals, explain the Program to people writing disserta-
times even make what seem to us world-shaking changes, but viewed, as philosophers
tions and books, and go anywhere to lead all sorts of seminars: for high school stu-
say, sub specie aeternitatis, “under the aspect of eternity,” they look minuscule.
dents (though I once did one with four-year-olds, two of whom had crawled under the
Around the stable curriculum have developed zillions of traditions and practices, each
table whence they gave enchanting exegeses of a poem on sunflowers), for business
�13
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
and community leaders, and of course for our alumni, whose appetite for reading
books together is lifelong. In fact, our principle is to do everything we can do without
spreading our substance too thin.
2.
A LBERT
E INSTEIN
We h av e o n e P r o g r a m ;
d o w e h av e o n e e x p e r t i s e ?
It is a question worth asking because, as I will explain, our way of teaching
requires that we be and remain, deliberately and purposefully, amateurs. (We keep in
mind that the word means “lovers.”) As I said, we call ourselves “tutors”; it is our
single academic rank and the title is meant to replace “professor,” which means a
professional who has special expertise and the authority that comes with it. All of us
arrive with graduate training, but we must let our particular interests go to learn the
Program. (I myself, for example, was trained as a Greek archaeologist, yet I haven’t
looked at an antiquity – pots were my specialty – in scholarly earnest for half a century.)
There is, however, something we all get to be good at, perhaps even specially
good: asking questions. The questions we learn to ask – it is one criterion for being a
tutor – are not so-called teacher’s questions, such as a pedagogue asks pupils to see if
they’ve studied up: “What was Achilles’ mother’s name and where did she live?” – to
which the meek answer is “Thetis, in the ocean,” but the spirited answer is: “Why ask
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
14
15
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
me, since you already know?” Nor are they information questions like “What time is
believe that the impetus behind the question is the hope of an answer, as a possible
it?” to which Yogi Berra’s immortal reply was “You mean now?” Nor “yes or no” ques-
answer draws and shapes the question. In fact St. John’s differs from very nearly all
tions, like “Tell me true, is there or is there not Truth and Beauty?,” which could be
secular schools in having a faculty that either believes in the real possibility of truth or
the ultimate conversation-stopper.
in the pedagogical value of not foreclosing that possibility. Another way to put this is
Our questions are the expression of a genuine desire to find something out by proposing it for a common inquiry, the kind of question tutors might ask themselves when
that you will find no easy relativism among us; our relativists are hard-thinking and
fiercely honest.
they study by themselves. Such a question is a kind of empty envelope, a vacant grasp,
It should go without saying that to believe in the possibility of truth-seeking is
the concave outside of the convex inside, an undeveloped negative, a receptive open-
the very opposite of having the truth or propagating it. We never tell our students
ing. All these metaphors circumscribe a good question, a searching question. In a dia-
what to think. In fact, then it wouldn’t be thinking. We don’t even drive them to
logue by Plato called the Meno, which many of us regard as the scripture on question-
question their beliefs, for “questioning” in the aggressive sense isn’t question-asking.
asking, Meno poses the question of questions: However can we ask after truth? If we
Our questions are intended to incite thought, which might result in putting stronger
have it we needn’t ask, and if we don’t have it we won’t recognize it when it turns up.
grounds under the faith students come with or indeed, sometimes, in exposing a belief
Meno means to stymie Socrates’ inquiry; Socrates has two defenses at once. One is:
as ill-grounded.
Never mind, just go ahead and search. The other is: Question-asking and answering is
In the same spirit of non-coercive openness, there is frequent discussion among
the most characteristically human activity there is, and we must continually consider
tutors about the kind of question that is best for a seminar discussion: Should it be
not only how to do it well but also what in us makes it possible. Here is in germ what mil-
based on a tutor’s interpretation of the book carefully worked out in private (with the
lennia later will come to dominate philosophy and cognitive science as “epistemology.”
perhaps not so unintended consequence of pushing students in that direction), or
This is the kind of problem tutors think about and the kind of questions – questions
should it express a current perplexity on the tutor’s part (with the likely, perhaps even
in search of truth – they are, I think it is not boastful to say, unusually good at asking;
it is something like our local expertise.
Some of our friendly critics claim that we are too good at it – that our students come
ignorant and leave confused. But it is not so. I don’t know any teacher who doesn’t
desirable, result that students will be a bit at sea)?
The central venue for questions is the seminar, of which more later (see p. 52).
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
3.
}
16
17
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
Is the “how” of our teaching
want to talk together about what they’ve learned in private; by nature, the young, if
connected to the “what”?
not spoiled, like to grapple with what is hard but great.
Our business is to get out of the way without giving up our responsibility. Of
St. John’s does seem to have two aspects: the way we teach and learn, and
course we teach; even Socrates is talking hyperbole, for his companions in fact
the matter we set out for ourselves and our students. Both of these are distinctive.
think they’re being taught. But – I’m looking for the right word – we do it cannily and
Friendly explainers of the Program often refer to our use of the “Socratic method”
tactfully. We try to keep students focused and spontaneous, both. It’s tricky and
and to our list of “Great Books.” Members of the community cringe a little on both
absorbing. I think every tutor, even those who’ve taught here a half century, has stage
counts. Here is why.
fright before every class, largely because we’re not in complete control, and yet we’re
completely responsible.
a. How we teach:
One obvious concomitant of our way is that we are very reticent with our opinions
Whatever it is we do, it’s not according to any method. A method is, properly, a rule-
– at least in class. Outside of class I, for one, will pontificate if a student wants it. I recall,
governed process, and we adhere to none such. And it isn’t Socratic, not only because
when I was dean, three woman students making an urgent appointment with me about
Socrates claimed to have been no one’s teacher but because the Socrates we know
an important matter. The matter turned out to be what I, personally, thought about
occasionally drives people into a corner with his questions – which we never do, at
God. We had a candid conversation – for me a real workout. Thus reticence expresses
least not without feeling sorry. Yet he is in some respects our model: in rarely telling
itself in being sparing with talk in class and conversationally open outside.
but often asking, in valuing acknowledged perplexity as the starting point of learning,
in having utter faith in the possibility of truth.
The reason our teaching is not a method is that it’s just a bit of nature. We do what
comes naturally: encourage thinking by asking (everyone here knows that you can’t
A number of ways to approach a book require lecturing. One is for the teacher to
produce a critical theory into which the book is fitted. It is not entirely unfair to say
that this is sometimes the art of making the difficult unintelligible, because academic
theoretical language is often willfully abstruse. We don’t do that.
“teach people to think”; such taught thinking is just that simulacrum of thought,
The other, more common, method is “backgrounding” or “contextualizing.” In
rule-driven reason). By nature, people, if not corrupted, like to rouse themselves to
this approach the teacher “introduces” the student to the book by telling how the
communicative expression; by nature, people want to hear each other; by nature, they
book can be understood according to the author’s historical and social background.
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
18
We particularly don’t do that, for at least two reasons. It does require lengthy lecturing, by the end of which the students’ minds are so remote from the text that little a
teacher says next can recall them, and to paint even a somewhat plausible historical
setting requires enormous knowledge on the part of the professor – always supposing
that the discovery of historical truth is a finite endeavor at all. But even if an author’s
epoch were accurately definable, how would it help to understand the book? Many of
our writers are overtly or covertly embattled with current opinion and think with
rebellious originality about the human condition. So talk of “Greek” or “Medieval”
or “American” thought is grossly unilluminating: How can a people or an epoch
think? Persons think.
I spent a part of my youth studying the Attic pottery of the late eighth and seventh
century B.C., the richest evidence we have of Homer’s time – and I have no non-speculative idea what it was that any or all of these people thought about anything at this
generative time when the Western tradition was born. Abridged, not to say canned,
introductions are mostly compendia of current preoccupations and brave attempts to
bring a book closer to students by drawing it into their supposed circle of interest. But
this is counterproductive: What arouses interest in students is not currency but
authenticity – if it is allowed to reveal itself.
So we tutors at St. John’s believe – all of us most of the time – in directness and
immediacy; we put nothing between ourselves and the reading and behave as if every
one of our books was indeed an open book to our students. I call this the “a cat may
look at a king” principle – these royal books were written for us, the willing laity.
JANE
AUSTEN
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
20
21
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
I think that this way of ours works in many settings and for many subjects. It is, as
and ourselves to consciousness – by reading them not as historical documents but
the term goes, transferable – an approach we can tell about and demonstrate to
as living presences that made us who we are and taught us to talk as we do. We are
teachers anywhere.
convinced that these Great Books contain a live wisdom necessary for thinking out
our current lives, for living awarely. Those who read these books – or study texts of
b. What we teach:
symbols or scores of notes or canvases of paint – in our way often experience the
But this way of dealing directly and immediately with texts works most naturally for
disciplined magic of these revivals.
the so-called Great Books, well over a hundred of which we read with our students
through their four years.
Some colleagues are embarrassed by that appellation; it sounds too pat. But in
I think it is hard to get away from the Great Books designation for the simple
reason that “greatness” has real significance for us. It is the criterion by which we
have chosen our hundred-plus works – based in part on these millennia-old lists.
truth, Great Books lists have been labored over for millennia. Ours represents a kind of
Here are some of these criteria: Greatness shows up as inexhaustibility. Some of us
Western consensus of the ages. In Santa Fe’s Graduate Institute there is a Master’s
have read and reread our books for ourselves or in preparation for class over scores of
degree program in which the Eastern Classics are studied, just as they ought to be –
years; there is always more to discover. A bored tutor is rare; a bored student is, more
with serious language learning. With our undergraduates, however, we stay in our
often than not, just prey to one of the endemic dis-eases of late adolescence, among
West: “One thing at a time” and “Know thyself” are the guiding principles, especially
which is complex sloth.
the latter; for knowing ourselves, how we came by the terms we live with, seems to be
the first condition for a knowledgeable appreciation of other traditions.
This point of view, that to know ourselves we need to know our tradition, is, I
Second, these works are pretty self-sufficient. Writers of stature strive to be as
context-independent as they can be. They tell you what you need to know to understand them. Good editions with pertinent notes will do the rest.
hasten to say, different from “historicism,” the notion that we are the products of
Third, and most telling, these books are original in two senses. They are often the
impersonal historical forces, the blindly determinist effects of a dead past. We want
earliest version of something new that will sweep the world, when it was still close to its
nothing to do with what is dead and bygone. When we speak of our “tradition” we mean
roots in common experience and accessible to lay people. And they are original in the
individual works by thinking authors that have, to be sure, shaped contemporary life in
sense of being characteristic, of bearing the stamp of their author’s personality – not only
ways of which we are largely unconscious. But we can bring these works back to life –
their personal crotchets and idiosyncrasies, but their peculiar ways of reaching depths.
�23
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
Fourth, these works are infinitely artful, bold and subtle, beautiful by design or
ugly on purpose. These authors are masters of the liberal arts that are a large part of
our Program.
F YODOR
D OSTOEVSKY
Fifth and finally for present purposes, the works, though their message may sometimes be dismal and dark, are not themselves dreary or depressing but grand and
redemptive. We have a sense that this four-year gift of semi-adult freedom that parents
make to their children should not be spent on mediocre documents of societal problems and their academic solutions – the world will soon teach all that – but on the deepest, most exhilarating exemplars of human achievement. The principle here is: First
have acquaintance with the best, then face the worst.
In this adherence to Great Books we are somewhat out of sync with the universities – less so as the pendulum of opinion swings back. In the last part of the last century there arose a movement sometimes called the Canon wars. “Canon” with one n,
nota bene; it is a Greek word meaning a rule or standard and now used most generally
to refer to Great Books lists. An attack on the Canon was mounted for these reasons:
that no work is to be privileged as great; all writings are essentially mere documents
composed to confirm an elite in its dominance, be it one gender, one class, one continent. Moreover these screeds really have no individual author, being the product of
their time, of history.
Those of us who followed this debate and had actually studied some of the canonical
works were amazed. First of all, they seem to be highly individual products; secondly,
they seem to be far more radical in their attacks on each other and their society than
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
24
25
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
these contemporary critics. But above all, our way of reading is naturally expressed in
First, it takes real mastery of facts and theories to teach these disciplines, and the
the question: What does the author intend? And I, for one, would not know how to
teacher has naturally to assume the part of an authority. We could not be the perpetu-
address an authorless book, for how could I penetrate its words except on the assump-
al amateurs we need to be to teach in the whole Program nor could our classes be con-
tion that they were written for me by a being I was like, in kind if not in degree?
sistently carried on by students if we taught academic disciplines. We could not fulfill
St. John’s was not much touched by these battles; we and our students were simply
our ideal of being exemplary learners rather than authoritative teachers.
too much engaged in actual study, too much captivated by this miraculous inheri-
Second, the academic disciplines are not elementary in the sense we require (most
tance. One might say that we conceded the elitism of the tradition and practiced the
of these fields, about one hundred thirty of them, were, incidentally, inventoried
egalitarianism of its readers. But we did think harder about our commitments.
by Francis Bacon as early as 1620, in his “Catalogue of Natural and Experimental
In particular, we needed to be clear about the feature, or non-feature, of the
Histories”, for example: “History of Venus, as a species of Touch”, that is, the physi-
Program that both academic and lay visitors notice with surprise: the absence of any
ology of sex). By “elementary” in this context I mean having the property of elements
disciplinary fields – no history, sociology, anthropology, literary theory, history of
that are fairly natural beginnings, as language learning usually begins with the parts
philosophy, etc. Our students might incidentally gather some information on these
of speech, their syntax and vocabulary, the study of music begins with the mathematical
fields (in the case of history of philosophy, of science, and of mathematics more than
construction of the diatonic scale by compounding interval ratios, and mathematics
almost any other group of American undergraduates).
begins with definitions and axioms. Introductions to the field disciplines are usually
But generally we ask them to read individual books as unassigned to any discipline
brief outlines of a huge body of research results whose shape depends very much on
and to practice on them the basic skills of learning. Our reasons for circumventing
the presenter’s theories. It is hard to undertake such studies together in a way natural
academic fields are less theoretical than practical and pedagogical. (Our students do,
and accessible to all. Euclid’s Elements, on the other hand, begins with the sentence:
in any case, go on to disciplinary studies in graduate school. And though they go there
“A point is that which has no parts.” It is our model. Here our students start their four
nearly completely unacquainted with the “isms,” concepts, methods, that their col-
years of mathematics. You can’t begin more minimally or more discussably: What – in
leagues from other institutions have been trained in, they seem to find their footing
the world or out – is an object that has no part?
pretty quickly – and sometimes to stand out for the freshness of their approach.)
Here are some of these reasons.
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
4.
}
26
27
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
H o w d o w e c h o o s e a n d e va l u a t e
trained as a cartographer specializing in Chinese maps, who captivated us by showing
our tutors?
on the blackboard how to draw large meaning from a little Chinese character, and who
told us that he was preoccupied with the question whether Confucius’ writing was
I have never visited an institution whose life depended so much on a faculty
well fitted to its curriculum as St. John’s. Nothing is more important to our internal
well-being than our choice and assimilation of tutors.
applicable to American life. And he seemed to have far more in store than on display.
Our hope is that once appointed a tutor will stay with us. We do what we can –
never enough – to help new tutors. In particular, beginning tutors’ seminar partners
It has always seemed remarkable to me that we – a school that prides itself on
are chosen from more experienced colleagues to serve as their helper, critiquer-in-
putting students’ learning first – should have as our first criterion for permanent
chief and advocate. But there are many other kinds of help, as new tutors engage in the
appointment not teaching but distinction of mind defined as excellence of intellect
arduous task of working their way into the Program: phone calls requesting help to
and imagination. Nor is teaching second, but rather competence in the Program and
tutors who know the material, the regular weekly meetings, led by a more knowledge-
increasing understanding of the questions raised by its books. For us these are not
able tutor, in which anything that pertains to a particular class is discussed,
simply formalisms but vivid conceptions against which tutors are appraised. Compe-
meetings with the dean, and above all, if there is time, sitting in on experienced
tence is not so hard to gauge, nor is good teaching in our spirit, the third criterion that
colleagues’ classes.
we look to. The first demand, however, though crucial and not vague, is harder to
But just because we want tutors to stay, the review process, conducted by the dean
apply: It describes a tutor who is able to open up large vistas in a small piece of text,
and the Instruction Committee, is severe. Letters are written for each appointment up
who can see the whole through its parts and illuminate a detail by the entirety, who
to tenure which are more specifically critical the greater our hopes for the tutor are. I
can put two and two together and on occasion get, gloriously and rightly, five. We
recall all too well, on the other hand, what contortions of ominous vacuousness I had
think of good teaching as the natural fallout of these and similar abilities.
to engage in as dean to warn people – as tactfully as possible – that they fell short of the
Thus this order of desirables fits our notion of the tutor as learner-in-chief, and as
teaching more by example than by a technique. I think that if you are full of focused
first criterion (distinction of mind). For while all the other standards could be met by
willingness and trying, there isn’t much to be done about natural endowments.
enthusiasm (a lovely Greek word, meaning “having the god within”) you’ll be with us all
Two criteria for tenure prevalent through the whole academic world that we don’t
your life. To give an example: I recall the appointment interview of a present colleague
employ are publishing and classroom “performance.” Some of us write books, but
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
28
more because we can’t help it than because our careers require it. (In fact, no one at
St. John’s has a “career” since there are no academic ranks, and becoming dean is
more an act of penitential love than a career move; besides, when our term is up we
happily go back into the teaching community that has been our care.) Academic publishing depends largely on specialized disciplinary research, and tutors learning the
Program don’t have much time for it. You will not hear talk of “my own work” among
tutors. We do each have our special pursuit, but it is no more our own than a great
book is a private possession.
As for teaching as a performance, it doesn’t fit us: Neither brilliant lecturers nor
disciple-making guruship fit our way.
What’s a tutor’s life like? Jacob Klein, a former dean and one of our grand old
men, used to outline with a gesture of his hand a wave with many crests, a roller-coaster track. It’s an alternation of exhilaration and despair, as classes go well or ill, as we
ourselves feel a sense of having gotten something or being confounded. That teacher’s
wave train is amplified by our aforementioned sense of responsibility without the
power to compel by grades, by badgering, or by lectures.
A tutor’s life is without question arduous; by spring when formal obligations mount
up (all our classes last the whole year) some of my colleagues look like the walking dead.
Two nights a week are given to evening seminars, Friday night lecture imposes a sort of
obligation to be a model of attendance for students. Family life suffers some; spouses
bear the brunt. Besides paper conferences, advising, committee obligations, there is
the fact that, since we are usually teaching outside of our original training, we need a
W.E.B.
DU B OIS
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
30
lot of time for adequate preparation. Everything is always new or just begun – a boon
insofar as we don’t often get jaded, a trouble insofar as we often get worn out.
31
{
5.
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
H ow d o w e s e l e c t a n d m o n i t o r
our students? What is their life lik e?
It’s not that we work harder than anyone else in the professions or in business. It’s
that to perform our mission well we are supposed to think things out, ruminate,
What kinds of students do we want? Since in recent years our increasing
meditate, talk at leisure. We and our students know that the very word “school” is
applications actually allow us to be, as they say, “selective” – a badge of prestige – we
derived from the Greek word for leisure, scholé, and that’s just what this school
have an important decision to work out, as we always do, by consultation and discus-
doesn’t have enough of, especially for newer and younger tutors. I recall that when
sion. Our policy has been, within financial and timing constraints, to approve applica-
years ago we were invited by our neighbor, the Naval Academy, to show some of their
tions as they roll in, applying certain minimal criteria: Does this student read with fair
faculty, military and civilian, how we lead seminars, a brief discussion arose: Which of
facility, write with some literacy and possess a minimum of mathematical training – in
our two schools is more like permissive Athens, which more like martial Sparta? The
sum, can the student be expected to cope with the Program? For the rest, we were as
wonderful conclusion was that in point of faculty discipline and student requirements
close to having a self-selected student body as a college can be. We took wild chances
we were taut Sparta and the Academy was liberal Athens – except for one aspect: The
on a wild or rebellious or eccentric kid and sometimes lucked out and often lost.
officers thought that the pressure of a tight pace was good for developing quick
At this point I’ll speak for myself, well knowing that my colleagues on the other
decision-making in future officers, while we were sure that continual busyness was
side have arguments both principled and practical. I think that “selectivity,” far from
bad for thoughtfulness in future citizens. The intellect continually in harness loses its
being a school’s mark of excellence, is a sign of curricular and pedagogic failure. A
spontaneous leaps, and the imagination continually pressed for time contracts its
good undergraduate educational plan should be inclusive in design and well enough
embracing visions.
taught to bring together future fellow citizens of all sorts of abilities. Wanting to be a
I should add that there are now on both campuses numerous tutor study groups,
member of that community of learning should be the main criterion of admission.
funded and unfunded, that broaden our learning while drawing us together, animat-
Desire trumps brilliance any time when it comes to learning. At St. John’s, tutors must
ing both campuses all year long. Although they occupy time, they are nonetheless felt
have some distinction of mind to be appointed; students should need none to be
as a recreation.
admitted. They may come undistinguished but they don’t leave that way.
Do we look for a representative student population? I think most of us know from
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
32
33
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
years of teaching that the distinctiveness of individuals being themselves is the ulti-
an hour take turns appraising their work; then the students take their turn to
mate diversity. Nonetheless, insofar as some of us have a sneaking conviction that this
respond. Don rags should be candid and precise but not hurtful, though there is
is the curriculum for all human beings who want to understand the roots of their
sometimes some weeping for the sins of the term or from sheer nervousness. Great
modernity and for Americans in particular, we want very much to be teaching students
pleasure is taken in praising a student precisely, and great pains are taken to give
of every describable kind.
clear, accurate, concise reports, and helpful advice. The don rag is not the place for
Our monitoring and evaluation of students has won public commendation,
crypto-grading or psychologizing, though of course that happens. A written report of
although it uses few of the conventional tools, such as essay or short-answer exams,
tutors’ comments and the don rag committee’s recommendation for the student’s
quizzes, graded papers, frequent hands-up in class, absence records. To be sure, we
future goes to the dean.
too have an absence policy and a fairly fierce one, since there is no making up a lost
The “enabling” procedure occurs at the end of the sophomore year. All the students’
conversation and since students’ non-presence is a dereliction of duty not only toward
records are reviewed individually in a meeting of all the tutors who have taught them.
themselves but also toward their classmates. When there is memory work to be done,
Comments are made in the hearing of the dean and the Instruction Committee, who
especially in language, tutors do give diagnostic quizzes. But we have no official exam
decide whether each student is able to continue. The chief factor in the decision is our
period. “Hitting the books” just before examinations is futile here, papers are never
judgment that the candidate is likely to continue to learn and to help others in their
graded but critiqued, and hardly any Johnny is even capable of the short answer to a
learning. Less than five percent are asked to leave and several of those return on appeal.
good question; these machine-graded tests are notoriously designed to be unforgiving
Also, sometime earlier every student must have passed a test in the simple algebraic
of reflection.
operations necessary to the mathematics and physics of the last two and a half years.
Since we are with our classes all year long and since they are small and since class
For the first three years students are orally examined by their seminar leaders on
participation is demanded, we get to know our students well. Twice a year we report
their reading in fall and on their annual essay in spring; at their best these are lively
on their performance and their progress in the “don rag” (a whimsical term come down
conversations. But the oral of orals is the culmination of each student’s account-
to us out of our hoary past from our founders’ experience at an English university; the
giving; it is the public examination all seniors undergo on their senior essay. It takes
“dons,” that is, masters, “rag,” that is, torment, the students). All the students meet,
place in full academic regalia and consists of a searching, hour-long conversation on
one at a time, with all their current tutors together, who in the course of a quarter of
the essay between the student and three tutors. Friends and sometimes family are
�35
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
present, and at the end they congregate around the now-candidate for the degree
of Bachelor of Arts for congratulations. Just before graduation all the seniors’ records
are reviewed by the faculty, and seniors found sufficient are recommended to the
Board for the degree.
We are a talking college, and these oral examinations fit us well, but there is also
plenty of paper-writing and these papers, though not letter-graded, are evaluated.
This is a well-monitored student body. Everyone knows who works hard and who goofs
off, who’s deeply serious and who’s a smart-aleck. Certainly the students know it;
what they don’t always know is that we know it too.
What are our students’ lives like? The Program is very demanding. Moreover we
A RISTOTLE
hope that the curriculum will expand and meld into extracurricular activity, that
common study and casual conversation will continue classroom discussion – and the
converse. The scores of activities that enliven the campuses, from Santa Fe’s Search
and Rescue team to Annapolis sailing and rowing crews, from fencing to photography,
from the art studio to the gymnasium, all these teams and clubs stand more or less
under the aegis of the Program. Our directors of athletics and student activities have
known how to make our varied sports and outdoor activities support and express our
learning; Mens sana in corpore sano, say the Romans, “A sound mind in a sound
body”, and in this school, at least, the body works out so that the mind may be better
exercised. Well, at least in part – also for friendship and fun and for something else: In
a community of learning that discourages competition in the classroom, athletics
offers an outlet for energetic but regulated rivalry.
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
36
37
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
All over the campuses, in the coffee shops and unused classrooms, you will see
Seminars, when all the classes are mingled for seminars selected and led by students.
students preparing for class together, sometimes in twosomes (they have the taste,
The same committee also mounts forums on issues of student life, recently a series –
lost in maturity, for dual-purpose togetherness, such as studying their electricity and
remarkable for its searching seriousness, as it seemed to me – on the Student
magnetism manual while experiencing similar phenomena in a less formal mode),
Handbook’s requirements for conduct conducive to a community of learning.
often in larger groups, or in lively conversation. This devotion sometimes, wonderfully,
assumes the aspect of the higher kookiness: Last year two young gentleman in
Annapolis invited me to tea (bags in mugs) to show me their beautiful new dormitory.
They told me that they had continued a recent tradition of reading Homer’s whole
Iliad in one day; they decided that such a work must not be interrupted, so that when
6.
What are the relations between
tutors and students?
answering calls of nature they went together – one reciting, one not.
Students are in seminar Monday and Thursday night; they are supposed to be at
Our tutors’ way of teaching and our students’ way of learning naturally
lecture on Friday night. They have six tutorials and two or three laboratories a week
make for a strong bond between them. One might say that it is too close to be intimate.
during the day. Each class demands long and often challenging preparation. It would
Put another way: Our common work is too serious for too personal an involvement.
be doable, except that too many students work at jobs more hours than are officially
The fierce intellectuality and the common commitment to truth – as a goal, not a
permitted, in order to make money. When I was dean, students complaining of loss of
possession – help to ensure this closeness-with-proper-distance. (There are, it bears
zest for their studies and mild depression were often simply overworked – analogously
repeating, very few teaching faculties in this country today who will own up to truth as
to new tutors. That being said, by and large our students can be counted on to share
an aim of education. Our tutors do – at least as a pedagogical practice; of course some
our love for the work we do together. Only let, say, an unsympathetic visitor question
of my colleagues are deep-dyed skeptics, but for them too their conviction is a
their occupation and the wagons circle.
philosophy – a way of loving wisdom.)
Some students are, nonetheless, insatiable: Throughout the year they form study
The faculty has resolved that intimacies between tutors and students are wrong.
groups, often with tutors, and mount “guerrilla seminars” on non-Program books.
This is, to be sure, what the law and professionalism require. But for us it is a conse-
Twice a year the Student Committee on Instruction organizes the All-College
quence of our “tutorial” – literally, our “guardian” mode. We see ourselves as acting
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
38
within an old tradition first set out in a Platonic dialogue, the Symposium, where a
young worshiper of Socrates reports that his offer of sexual favors was quietly and
firmly rejected in favor of a finer possibility.
Although in seminar discussions we are expected to assume no seniority but to
support our claims just like the students, we do, after all, evaluate them, and they are
in that sense not our equals; our classroom equality involves a certain degree of benevolent hypocrisy. These are not the conditions of bona fide friendships. Those arise
when in that sweet moment on commencement day, we, who have addressed them as
Mr. or Ms. for four years, call our new-minted alumni by their first name for the first
time. Then often a lifelong friendship is started. Yet we often have the devil of a ridiculous time trying to get graduates to break through their decorous distance and to be
casual toward us: This faculty gets a touching lot of respect. But of course as we grow
older together we get closer in age, and so we grow more intimate as well.
Mutual respect is the norm, and, in addition, though we don’t generally speak of
“my student,” we do often grow closer to certain people who seek us out or who
attract our fond interest. An example going way back to 1958 comes to mind. I was a
freshman tutor then living in a room in one of the few seventeenth-century houses in
Annapolis. Near midnight the phone rang and the agitated voice of one of my freshmen came through: “Oh, Miss Brann, I need help with Eros!” I was young enough
then to need it myself, but I understood his particular requirements and got him started on his annual essay about the dialogue mentioned above. He’s a lawyer now, deeply
concerned with the service aspect of his profession, and we talk pretty regularly.
M ICHEL DE
M ONTAIGNE
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
40
41
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
There are a few students – sad exceptions – who don’t establish special relationships
Then there are the inherent limitations of the Program, the obverses of its
with a tutor they particularly trust; opportunity is surely not lacking since each student
strengths, which have to be acknowledged. The Program is a small island in the sea of
has about twenty year-long tutors over four years, and it is part of our regular day to be
our ignorance; to list all the worthwhile knowables our students don’t learn would be
available to all students – not just the ones we happen to have in class – for help,
tantamount to producing almost all the catalogues of all the libraries in the world.
advice, or just conversation, beyond paper conferences and other required “contacts”
Most things to be known are not known by us, and our students leave us vastly ignorant.
(horrible word). You will see tutors and students deep in conversation in the dining
Moreover, most tutors know less about any one subject than any particular professor
room – we have a “take-a-tutor-to-lunch” plan – or in restaurants off-campus. It’s how
at a university (where the universe of learning is indeed supposed to be collected), whose
we learn of the interests, particularly the curious kinds of connoisseurship our stu-
knowledge, in turn, covers only a tiny territory in the vast field of some specialty. The
dents pursue. How many fantasy books have I read because a student ingeniously
Program is a highly restricted plan of study that provides us with elemental skills of
proved to me that they were works of liberal art?
learning and exemplary cases of knowledge, no more.
Even so, it is largely beyond our capacities. Our books demand that we be linguis-
7.
tically acute, mathematically quick, and philosophically deep every day. Of course we
aren’t up to it, although we help each other as best we can – tutors students and often
students tutors. We give and take help with the solution of technical problems, with
What’s wrong with us?
the construing of sentences, with the interpretation of a line of poetry.
Often we need to compromise, to read too quickly, to leave difficulties unresolved,
Well, almost everything that’s right. So distinctive a community will pay
to let ourselves and our students get away with less than satisfactory work – especially the
the penalty for being itself. Visitors do sometimes speak of us as an educational utopia
students, who are after all, never allowed to play only to their own particular strengths.
– but recall that “utopia” is Greek for “no-place.” We have to remain plausible to
I recall vividly an example from the days of my deanship. A fine, well-respected student
ourselves and to others, and so an occasional inventory of flaws is in order.
simply could not achieve the satisfactory grades we require – only in the senior year – for
I have already mentioned that we are perpetually time-starved with deleterious
consequences to tutors and students.
graduation. The failing class was our demanding senior laboratory, and her tutor came
to see me. “Can’t you do something for her?” I asked. He said, “Do you want me to
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
42
prostitute myself?” “Yes, please,” I said, and he did, and he was right to do it.
There are darker things. Life here is so intense that it sometimes just falls apart.
43
{
8.
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
What kind of institution
does our Progr am r equir e?
Students don’t prepare, classes go badly. There have been times in my life when I
coasted and withdrew, as happens to most tutors from time to time. Students have to
The Program holds us together intellectually, but our Polity provides the
think about money too much; some carry a debt burden that constricts their future.
practical condition for a stable communal life. The role it plays within the college is
They experience crises of faith and entanglements of love and other pressure-cooker
similar to that of the Constitution in this country: We certainly don’t think of it all the
effects. Here the possibility of escape to the other campus, Santa Fe or Annapolis, is a
time, but all our procedures follow from it.
saving grace. Our students come from the world and bring its corruptions along, and
The Polity gives us an institutional form, developed over many years of revision, a
whatever troubles American society has, we have, though, I think in a mitigated degree.
form that contains our educational purpose pretty adequately. Like the Program
Consequently our students aren’t exactly angels out of class – more the opposite,
itself, the Polity is at once unusual and exemplary. I shall mention only the provisions
though there are times when the demons do turn into cherubs. A particular occasion
that are particularly concerned with the Program, and these in broad strokes.
for such a transformation comes at the end of the year, when the freshmen, who are all
We are a truly national college – a rare thing – one college with campuses in
required to sing in the freshman chorus, give a concert. In Annapolis it’s in our Great
Maryland and New Mexico. We have, with small local variations, the same Program,
Hall. We stand in the gallery listening to them sing Palestrina or Mozart and are in
and the Polity protects both the expressions of local life and the unity of the Program.
heaven with the angels – for the moment.
It first defines the responsibilities of the Board of Visitors and Governors (whose
This section could be much longer, and actually it all needs to be said, at least
among ourselves. Few things are as harmful to a community as terminal idealism.
members, besides governing, do actually visit the campuses to familiarize themselves
with their life). It then goes on to detail the functions of the faculty. What is vital here
is that the two presidents of the campuses are listed as first among faculty members.
Our presidents are officially tutors who often teach and always learn within the
Program; their responsibilities reach deep into the community. There are two deans
chosen from the faculty who – and this is unique as far as I know – sit on the Board ex
officio, so the faculty in turn reaches into the Board. The deans chair their part of the
�45
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
Instruction Committee, with which the presidents in turn sit ex officio. This committee of faculty members, six each, elected on each campus, has, together with the
deans, responsibility for the Program of Instruction, including the formulation of
changes and recommendations of tutorial appointments to the respective president.
One might say it was a powerful committee, but we avoid such language: It is a respected and responsible committee, and a hard-working one. To complete the picture of
integration, it should be said that the associates, the professionals who run our administration, are also faculty members and sometimes teach. The deans, on the other hand,
coming from the faculty, are just what they were as tutors: amateurs. In fact we avoid
the administrative ambiance as best we can, and each dean ministers to the community in a new way. My own style was to try to be some version of a universal grandmother.
The Polity specifies scores of committees, charges, and procedures, but the aim is
to have a structure as receptive as possible to the mission of the college, a form totally
F LANNERY
O’C ONNOR
friendly to the function. The Polity represents a pretty successful attempt to overcome
the paradoxical fact, already noted, that an “institution of learning” is a contradiction
in terms. For nothing is less amenable to institutionalization than a young – or old –
soul in development. And yet what is an intellectual paradox is a worldly necessity.
In this attempt our governance structure reflects the Program: Both are full of
prescriptions designed to protect freedom.
Here is the place to add that the students too have a Polity and a student government
that disburses the quite considerable funds for student activities. One of this Polity’s
chief provisions is a sleep-study rule designed to keep the dorms safe for learning – a
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
46
47
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
rule not always effective because of a besetting student sin of tolerance for each
lar reform when he said: “The birthing mountains heaved and a ridiculous mouse was
other’s disruptive habits. There is also the aforementioned Student Committee on
born.” We’re better off always first trying to do better what we’re already doing.
Instruction which mounts discussions on the Program and whose recommendations
the college’s Instruction Committee take very seriously.
The Polity includes our Graduate Institute, which I must not fail to mention
although this account is mostly concerned with the undergraduate college. The Grad-
Most organizations have a double aspect: Some members are responsible for its
uate Institute is meant to give people who have missed out on it a belated chance at the
existence, others for its essence. At St. John’s, the Board and the presidents labor to
kind of liberal learning offered at St. John’s. Its content is derived from the undergrad-
keep us in being, while the deans, the Instruction Committee, and the whole faculty
uate Program but the ordering is by subject segments lasting a semester: Literature,
work to keep us being who we were meant to be. And both parties are well intertwined.
Politics and Society, Mathematics and Natural Science, Philosophy and Theology,
How does it work in practice, particularly with respect to the two campuses? Santa
History. The completion of four of these leads to a Master’s degree in liberal arts. In
Fe (founded in 1964) has long since outgrown its beginnings as an Annapolitan colony.
Santa Fe, the Graduate Institute also includes a program on the Eastern Classics; stu-
One of the delights of visiting either campus, coming from the other, is that in the
dents tackle the Great Books of China, India, and Japan.
most different of settings – the spacious skies and mountains of the Southwest against
What the Graduate Insitute students, who are generally older, might lack in the
the confined vistas and coastal waters of Annapolis – the conversations turn about the
skills the undergraduates practice through four years and in the continuity of their
same universal questions; the coffee shop blackboard bears the same mangled Greek
reading, they make up in maturity and appreciativeness. Many tutors love to teach the
and the same lovingly drawn geometric diagrams. Of course where there’s two of any-
same books to students fully engaged in practical life. Our G.I.’s, as they are called, in
thing there will be inventively invidious comparisons: Annapolis is supposed to be
turn thrive when they realize that tutors will help but won’t dominate their learning,
teutonically earnest, Santa Fe fecklessly laid-back. But our students transfer back and
that they are encouraged to reflect on their studies in the light of their experience.
forth in droves and are the better for it.
It is true that having to gain consent on both campuses for major Program changes
(as required by the Polity) and preserving the possibility of student transfer acts as a
brake on curricular innovations, college-wide or local. But I’ve sat through enough of
those at other colleges to know that the Latin poet Horace might have meant curricu-
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
9.
}
48
What are the essential features
of our Progr am?
49
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
What matters even more is that under this all-required Program, which comprises about sixteen year-long classes over the four years, all the students in the same year
are doing the same thing. Hence they can – and do – talk to each other; a senior might
It’s time to come to the Program itself. The first feature that surprises the
be seen helping a freshman with an astronomical diagram. Nothing contributes more
public is that it is almost entirely prescriptive and what is more, prescriptive not only
to making us into a working community than our common curriculum.
for the students but also for the teachers: four years of non-elective, non-departmental, non-specialized study for students and tutors alike.
But the thought behind all others is that there are elemental skills and crucial
books with which every inhabitant of modernity should have experience, and that it is
We really mean it. The same Program our students commit themselves to is
a faculty’s responsibility to establish these learning matters and to have faith in them.
learned and taught by us, though of course more slowly, over many years. After all, if
Students tend to have faith in their teachers’ faith: Although our students are given to
they can learn all its parts so, presumably, can we.
raising questions about everything, there is remarkably little resistance engendered
What we lose by this perhaps startlingly unconventional approach is, as so often at
the college, also what we gain. We are, as I said, perpetual amateurs and often ourselves
by the Program, hard taskmaster though it be. (To be sure, our students chose this curriculum, but what student was ever prevented from complaining by that little fact?)
at sea. But these deficiencies also make us better teachers – more sympathetic, fresher
We find that the conventional elective system has too many pedagogically dubious
(no yellowed lecture notes for us), more alive to students’ difficulties. Intellectual dar-
aspects: How can a student make a knowledgeable educational choice before being
ing – the willingness to plunge into new material, unabashed candor – the willingness
educated? Should students really follow their bent or shouldn’t they rather submit
to admit ignorance, and bald directness – the readiness to do without scholarly camou-
themselves to expansive diversity? Is it good for them to fill up on gut courses or
flage – these are the virtues this approach requires, and we think that such non-author-
unplanned alternatives when their preferred course is full? There is much to be said
itative teaching does our students good. Since advancing in the Program by teaching it
for giving up passing preferences in favor of a liberating experience, and capricious
is the main project of the tutor’s life, especially in the first ten years, the dean, who is
choice in favor of a coherent study plan. For we make every effort to keep the curricu-
responsible for the teaching slate, contravenes the rules of seniority observed at most
lum not only excellent in its matter but also coherent in its ordering.
institutions. Newer tutors are more apt to get the classes they ask for as they plan their
own learning schedule; the more experienced faculty is not favored.
The first essential feature of the Program is, then, its prescriptiveness for students
and tutors alike. An all-required program must, of practical necessity, be elementary.
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
50
No high levels of sophistication can be reached by non-specialists. We welcome the
necessity because “elementary” need not mean “introductory” or “simple-minded.”
To us it rather signifies “deep and radical,” in the sense of delving into the foundations of world and soul and asking questions that go to their roots. For us it is not a
shame to be always at the beginning (which the Greeks called arché, the governing
source of things) but rather the evidence of our ever-fresh wonder. Still, the Program
is, albeit basic, pretty demanding.
The second feature is that there are three kinds of classes: seminars, tutorials, and
laboratories. In a very old division of liberal learning into Authors and Arts, the
seminar corresponds to Authors; the largest part of our Great Books list is assigned
for the seminar and discussed there (see p. 52). The Liberal Arts, the arts of language,
mathematics, and music, are practiced in the three tutorials (see p. 58). The laboratory
updates the medieval liberal arts tradition; the idea that the inquiry into nature
requires working on stuff with instruments – “laboratory” literally means “workplace”
– is quintessentially modern; here students do bench work (see p. 65).
Our catalogue – its title is “Statement of the St. John’s Program” – gives an accurate
overview of the study plan. It is not a repository for hopeful projects or defunct courses
but a regularly revised, detailed description of the material studied and the approach
used in these classes in each year. It is our primary document.
The third feature is negative: the absence of textbooks and secondary reading. Of
course, tutors and students are free to seek help from whatever quarter they can; my
own shelves are full of algebra and calculus and physics textbooks. But textbooks are
F RIEDRICH
N IETZSCHE
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
52
53
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
conveniently canned wisdom, and we prefer to use, wherever possible, original works,
young than for their elders) that intelligent loquacity is at its peak at night. Some run
because they are usually closer to the foundational questions. Where we want to
way past the allotted two hours, but experience teaches, as has been said of a hanging,
achieve some usable competence quickly we try to employ manuals written by tutors
that a predictable cut-off time wonderfully concentrates the mind.
for the Program. They range from our Greek manual, which manages to teach intro-
Seminar begins with a question posed by one of the seminar leaders, who sit at
ductory Greek in a reflective way, to a number of mathematics and physics manuals
opposite sides of the oblong table. There are normally two tutors leading the seminar.
often containing annotations to accompanying original papers.
The point is to prevent students from talking to the teacher, to inhibit a tutor’s domi-
To my knowledge we never assign secondary literature (that is, scholarly treatments
nating the conversation, and, now and then, to treat students to a collegial difference
of a primary work) to students though we may recommend some to them and to each
of opinion. Newer tutors are, as I said, paired with more experienced ones, and this is
other. Annotations and commentaries explaining difficulties in texts are, I suppose,
often their most effective initiation into our ways of teaching. We find that this appar-
gratefully resorted to by all tutors as they prepare for class or engage in private study
ently profligate arrangement is of the essence; two-leader seminars really go better by
– which, of course, often comes to fruition in the community.
our criteria: students talking and listening to each other.
There are, grossly speaking, two seminar styles. Some tutors, like spirits silently
10.
brooding upon the waters, utter hardly a word and make things go merely by their
attentive presence. I’ve heard students say: “He’s a wonderful leader, he’s almost
What is the St. John’s Seminar ,
silent.” In the same vein, when I was dean, I listened often to the complaint: “He
the center of the progr am?
dominates” – evidently a major tutorial transgression for students who take our
promises seriously.
The seminar is the center in so far as all the liberal learning of the Program
Other tutors regard themselves as full-fledged members of the conversation
is meant to come to fruition here. A seminar in our sense is just a conversation among
who will have their say, though, of course, on the same terms as the students. Both
a score or fewer people focused by – and mostly on – a book (or musical score or paint-
styles can work.
ing) that the members have read (or heard or looked at) beforehand. The regular sem-
But the main duty of the leaders is to keep things moving, ask new questions,
inars of the Program happen in the evening, on the hypothesis (truer, alas, for the
recall members from tangents – though some flights from the texts are too interesting
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
54
55
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
to rein in quickly. In any case, we are in seminar not only to attempt to understand
writers frequently absorb or take issue with each other. Thus they form each other’s
what our author for the night is saying but also to decide for ourselves whether there
context and relieve us from fabricating introductions.
is truth in the book and how it might affect our lives. Living engagement is the soul of
One way to put our approach to the Great Books is that we see in them not history
the seminar, and often spurts of witty banter or gusts of delighted laughter are
but tradition, history being what has passed and is no longer, while tradition – literally
testimonial to the spontaneity of the conversation. Playfulness is the style of live as
“what has been handed over” to us – is what is ours, now. Many of us are history buffs
opposed to dead seriousness. But the bread-and-butter mood of the seminar is candor,
privately, but no school was ever less interested in bygones than ours. Nonetheless,
straightforwardness, responsiveness, and the conciseness that comes from thinking
over the 256 seminars of their four years our students do accumulate some knowledge
before speaking – though we don’t want members to inhibit their contributions with
that might be called historical. But they remain blessedly ignorant of conventional
too much circumspection.
classifications: epochs of history, schools of thought, academic subjects. You might,
Students who have been in seminar together become memorable to each other. An
for example, ask a junior, who has just read it, what the subject of Newton’s
alumna of three decades will say: “Oh yes, Ms. X., she always used to...” (Our students
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica really was and receive a wondering
are strictly held to formal address to preserve civility even in the heat of topics that
answer: Theology? Philosophy? Mathematics? Mechanics? Dynamics? Astronomy?
touch them nearly.) We do, however, try to keep ourselves and our students from
Cosmology?
assuming hallmark positions, and we would like contributions to be at once impromptu and to the point. That’s the art of seminar participation in a nutshell.
Where does the seminar list come from? Such lists were made and kept being
made from antiquity on. Our list came largely from the “best books” lists compiled for
Students are expected to do their readings, which may vary from thirty to a hundred
workmen’s education classes in England and for honors courses in America, begin-
thirty pages, well ahead of time and twice if possible. When I see a student in the coffee
ning in the late nineteenth century. It is revised for titles and fine-tuned for selections
shop late on Monday afternoon with the book open on page ten, I shudder.
regularly, but it is essentially stable; the judgment of the reading community diverges
Our set seminar list looks chronological. But we are not exemplifying a historical
at the edges but unifies about the core. We know very well that every central book has
development; each book stands on its own. We read our authors largely in the order in
about it a penumbra of fine authors and that these come front and center as they are
which they wrote, because that is the null hypothesis which relieves us from imposing
discovered by enthusiastic advocates. Nonetheless I never cease to marvel at the pal-
subject groupings or schools of thought on our assignments, and because these
pable difference between great and good; the latter pass by, the former you live with
�57
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
perpetually. Those are the ones we want our students to experience.
Associated with the seminar is the preceptorial, a two months’ break in the junior
and senior seminars during which the students study a chosen subject, book, or
author, along with a tutor. The subject might be a text from within or beyond the
Program, be it fiction or philosophy, poetry or music, or a theme, say thermodynam-
J ONATHAN
S WIFT
ics or economics. These breaks are felt to be a kind of festival of the mind for students
and tutors alike, for the classes are smaller, the pace of study is more leisurely and the
penetration deeper.
The annual essay, a much longer piece than is required of students in tutorials, is
written for and examined by the seminar leaders. For their writing of the senior essay,
which is to be the fruit of their four years and which must be acceptable if they are to
graduate, seniors are given a free month. This essay is not supposed to be a product of
research but of disciplined, well-expressed reflection on a book or topic. It must be
found acceptable by a committee of tutors formed for the purpose. Some essays are
mediocre, but many are purely wonderful. The bond between essay-writing senior and
essay-advising tutor often lasts a lifetime.
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
11.
}
58
What do we do
in the tutorials?
59
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
for the Great Books.
Thus we have a language, a mathematics and a music tutorial.
In the tutorials we ply the liberal arts, the skills of the intellect. The
a. The language tutorial lasts through all four years. The language learned in the first
tutorials are recitation classes led by one tutor who directs the students’ translations
two years is ancient Greek, in the last two French. Students sometimes refer to the
and demonstrations and helps them work out difficulties. The arts here practiced are
“Greek” or “French” tutorial, but that is not our intention. In fact, except for a few
not learned as bare rules or as processes privileged over products; they are not mere
students, the language competence isn’t, mildly speaking, very high; our students
techniques. They have always had powerful matters of their own in which they are set
come to us, after all, largely from average American high schools. These are language
out and exemplified, as a Euclidean proposition is at once a lesson in formal thinking
tutorials, and though we obviously can’t talk about language without linguistic exam-
and a piece of substantial geometry.
ples, a very moderate (laboriously acquired) knowledge of the elements will suffice for
In fact our tutorials still follow the traditional list of the liberal arts. First come
our purpose, which is to reflect on the ways of human speech: What are the “parts of
the arts of language, thinking and expression, the trivium or “three-way”: grammar,
speech” and how are they connected to thinking, that is, how is grammar related to
logic, rhetoric. Then come the arts of formal structures in time and space, the
logic? What does it take to say the same thing in two languages, that is, to translate?
quadrivium or “four-way”: mathematics starting with the unit and the counting
What makes some speech “rhetorical,” that is, especially persuasive?
numbers of arithmetic and ascending dimensionally from the partless point to the
Why ancient Greek, a dead language? Well, it isn’t dead to us and it’s beautiful; it’s
plane and to the geometric solid, proceeding with the application of mathematics to
the language in which most of our freshman books are written; it’s philosophically
visible nature in physics, particularly in astronomy, and culminating in passion-
fundamental and etymologically helpful to the semantics of English. And it’s just suf-
inducing sound in music, above all, the music of the spheres. (I am told that in the
ficiently different in syntax from English to make comparisons possible and prof-
slightly overwrought early days of the Program, the books on natural science in our
itable. In my experience Greek is the least complained-of subject in the Program.
library were accordingly cataloged under “Music.”) The rules, structures, and
Why French? Many years ago there was a grand debate to decide between German
formalisms of these arts, together with their exemplary applications, form the
and French. As I recall, French won primarily on the grounds of “sensibility”: We
matter of the tutorials. And of course, they are also the elements of and models
didn’t have enough sheer elegance in the Program. Perhaps it was also that French was
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
60
61
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
a little easier? In any case, our students read and translate, line by line, fine examples
Our four years are elegantly framed by two kinds of geometry, Euclidean and non-
of the verbal arts, among them Greek and French plays and a lot of poetry. These serve
Euclidean, studied in freshman and senior year respectively. One is the geometry of
as exercises in rhetorical analysis, to be sure, but also as enrichments of the imagina-
the natural imagination and the other is a geometry that, though logically consistent,
tion. There is, besides the study of the elementary grammars of both languages, also
is imaginable only on a model within our basic Euclidean world.
a sequence in logic. And rhetoric is practiced in a number of short papers, some of
One reason mathematics is eminently learnable is that it has few, well-ordered
which are critiqued at paper conferences. We are of two minds here: whether, time
elements: definitions, axioms, postulates (whereas language begins everywhere at
being limited, to indulge our natural pleasure in carrying on a conversation about the
once and has complex elements: morphology, syntax, vocabulary). These are the
student’s intended content or to do our bounden duty to correct misplaced commas
elements that Euclid organized in his classical compendium of that name, the book
and skewed syntax while preaching the gospel of meaningful discourse.
we study in the freshman year. It is a tiny change in one of his postulates that produces
the mind-bogglingly strange new geometry of the senior year, which, for example, has
b. The mathematics tutorial, which also runs through all four years, is generally agreed
no similar figures (figures, that is, of the same shape but of different size) and which
to be the easiest to teach. That’s inherent in the Greek word “mathematics,” which
we study from the work of its originator, Lobachevsky.
means “what pertains to learning.” Our mathematics, to many a student’s surprise, is
In between we study one mathematical revolution after another: the diagrams
most satisfyingly learnable, and, to exaggerate only a little, practically teaches itself.
used by Ptolemy to “save the phenomena,” that is, to give a rational foundation to the
Hence we don’t acknowledge mathematics blocks, and so we don’t have any. Partly, of
appearances of an earth-centered cosmos and their conversion by Copernicus to a
course, that follows from the fact that our students have chosen to study in this
sun-centered universe; the geometric conic sections of Apollonius and their transfor-
Program, but it is also because we regard mathematics not as a difficult impersonal
mation into the loci generated by algebraic equations (by some accounts the one sin-
technique but as a liberal humane art. We wish our students to be easy with the
gle conceptual innovation most explanatory of modernity); the advance from the
thought that mathematics might be close to the roots of human nature, for example,
static mathematics of the ancients to a mathematics of motion as formalized in the cal-
our root capacity for recognizing units and counting them and our mysterious ability
culus; the expansion of counting numbers to include zero, negatives, rationals, and
to picture the inherently invisible such as points without parts, lines without breadth,
finally irrationals as conceived by Dedekind; the turn of mind that allows us to think
solids without matter.
of infinity not as an indefinite progress but as an actual transfinite magnitude; and
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
62
Einstein’s theory, which overturns our ingrained assurance that this moment here is
the same “now” throughout space.
We ask our students to study these high moments in actual mathematical detail
not simply as evidence of human progress, for at every turning point we ask also what
was lost in dropping an earlier restraint. Nor do we study them as history of science,
for we value each discovery for its intrinsic beauty (a word now proscribed by estheticians but fully active among mathematicians). We do, however, want students to carry
away not a secondhand but a direct knowledge of the intellectual effort that went into
the making of their world.
c. The music tutorial happens in the sophomore year, just when most of our theology
is read in the seminar – not by chance, for music is not only traditionally the apex of
the liberal arts but, in Luther’s words, “stands close to theology.”
As a liberal art music has learnable elements out of which it is composed, a kind of
qualitative mathematics: small number ratios which, when realized by plucking
strings of various lengths stretched over a sounding board, produce the consonances
and when compounded yield the diatonic scale, the circle of fifths which displays the
keys, and so on to the traditional rules of meter, melody and harmony and their
inspired breaching by composers. Perhaps in no other liberal art are the elements so
immediately also the building blocks of its works.
Our students study these and then analyze musical compositions, score in hand.
They pay attention, especially in sacred music, to the relation of words to notes; they
A DAM
S MITH
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
64
consider the relations of parts to wholes; they learn to hear subtleties and recognize
large designs. In sum, they reflect on the phenomenon of incarnate, impassioned
65
{
12.
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
H ow d o e s t h e
labor atory fit in?
mathematics in general and on the new effects obtained by stylistic innovations in
particular. There is, of course, a repertory of superlative examples.
The laboratory is, finally, the newcomer to the liberal arts, though there is
Truth to tell, not all tutors trust themselves to teach the music tutorial, which
for us no question that it belongs with them. For what Francis Bacon calls – surely the
seems to be the only class requiring some special talent and prior training. I haven’t
allusion is intended – “the inquisition of nature,” meant to force her secrets from her,
myself, though I’ve attended it. And we do always seem to find people who have the
is a human concern no less than any of the humanities as now understood: the human-
daring to do it.
centered studies such as, say, literature.
As I’ve mentioned, as freshmen all our students sing together. When the alumni
In the three-year laboratory, then, we subject the bodies and motions of nature to
return for Homecoming some of them again sing together, pieces from their freshmen
controlled conditions, from Galileo’s inclined plane to Millikan’s oil drop chamber,
chorus manual. Altogether, this school is full of music.
and apply instruments of observation and measurement to them. Although original
I might add here that a decade or so ago we had a great debate about the role that
accounts of discoveries are read and discussed and tutor-written manuals are studied,
the visual arts, not traditionally included in the liberal arts, should play within the
the main activity is hands-on benchwork, experimentation in the sense of subjecting
Program. On the Santa Fe campus a painting segment was tried out; it is gone now. My
stuff to procedures. Our laboratory equipment is not generally sophisticated, and we
guess is that the visual arts – which are certainly vigorously plied extracurricularly in
don’t expect our students to make new discoveries. Instead we replicate numerous
our studios and appreciated through exhibitions in our campus art galleries – don’t
crucial experiments and get an elementary notion of the kind of ingenuity and
quite fit into our Program because the teachable elements are hard to marshal into a
patience required to make a science of nature’s ways. I don’t remember in my years of
common curriculum, and there is in them nothing quite equivalent to making music
learning to be a laboratory tutor ever hearing the “scientific method” even mentioned;
together; so music appears to be the art most in accord with a community of learning.
it never seemed that anything so jigged as one scientific protocol could apply to all
these great moments. Probably our students could nevertheless give a pretty good
account of what it means to define a problem, to devise an experimental setup, to
subject phenomena to measurement, to record data and gauge their value.
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
66
The freshman year begins with observational biology, with the tricky problem of
classification: Is outside appearance or inside structure more revealing? The labora-
67
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
far the pervasive application to human affairs of these well-defined terms of physics –
including, of course, relativity – is legitimate.
tory then takes up the problem of measurement and the atomic constitution of matter.
Once a week, on Friday night, there is a lecture, the only one in the Program for
The sophomore year is given over to music, but the laboratory resumes in the junior
which attendance is obligatory – perhaps a rule more honored in the breach than the
year with kinematics, mechanics, dynamics, optics, electricity and magnetism up to
observance. But the students who generally profit most from the Program are present.
Maxwell’s equations. Since by the middle of the year students know some calculus, the
After the lecture there is an intense, searching and sometimes interminable question
class isn’t so different in content from that of a standard first-year physics course,
period. Visiting lecturers, all spent though they may be, find these midnight revels
except for the use of seminal papers, and in the hours given to reflecting on the mean-
exhilarating. Where have they ever been so well attended to?
ing of physical quantities like matter, force, energy, fields – how they show themselves
and how they came to be formulated. The senior year returns to biology, now on the
sub-individual, that is, molecular level, but first takes up subatomic, that is, quantum,
physics. At this point the laboratory becomes fairly demanding, not only mathematically but also conceptually. Recall that none of the students are science majors.
13.
W h a t d o w e wa n t f r o m
and for our students?
Nonetheless, they study some early papers on radiant energy and think about the way
nature becomes elusive on the subatomic level: the wave-particle duality (the theory
What we expect from our students while they are with us, what it takes to do
that radiation and matter are in some respects wave-like and in others particle-like);
well, is somewhat different from what in most schools is called “keeping your grades
probability (the theory that on a very small scale strict causality fails and the laws of
up.” Steady preparation, faithful attendance, timely delivery of well-written papers –
nature are statistical); and uncertainty (the theory that the process of observation
these virtues are only part of it. We want our students to extend themselves through
itself makes the simultaneous measurement of certain quantities in principle impos-
the Program, even to the parts that don’t come easily to them, and to be serious
sible). With these investigations our students are ready for their world, not only
about their whole vocation as students. We want them to think of themselves as
because they have some notion how science is developing far beyond our naïvely
responsible members of the community of learning: The faults of “having stopped
natural understanding of nature, but also because they can judge for themselves how
learning” and “not contributing to the class’s learning” as judged by their tutors are
�69
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
causes for being “disenabled.”
What about morality, that swamp of uncertainty for America’s educational institutions? We are bound to enforce local and federal law on drinking, drugs and sexual conduct. But we are an institution of learning, devoted to the cultivation of the intellect
and the imagination, and our first and peculiar care is for the intellectual virtues. There
are certain kinds of behavior that we judge to be incompatible with our community of
learning, and our Student Handbook states this clearly. In particular, the use of illegal
mind-altering substances and the practice of intellectual dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism)
are not tolerated when they come to our notice; these we investigate exceedingly carefully and punish quite uncompromisingly. This morality we confidently enforce for the
sake of the college’s mission. You can’t work in our spirit if you’re not in your right
mind, and you are doing less than nothing if your work is not your own. And though our
M ICHAEL
FARADAY
students come to us from a dangerous world, I think, occasional paroxysms aside, that
they lead remarkably good and sober lives. What we would really wish is that all their
intoxications and ecstasies were those of the thinking soul.
This is what else we want for them: four years of minimally clouded thoughtfulness.
For this we have managed to keep our classes remarkably free of a current scourge of
higher education: politicization. The Program, whose works are full of religious doctrine and political opinion, requires something higher than tolerance; it requires
appreciative openness to all the possibilities of the intellect and the passions. No tutor
is entitled to wreck our conversation by introducing a personal ideology, and our
students generally have the tact to veer off from politics in the narrow current sense
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
}
70
71
{
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R ST. J O H N ’ S CO L L E G E
}
(the sure sign of which is getting hot under the collar; it marks the difference between
pose, and that they will themselves be the catalysts of such communities of two or of
politics and political philosophy, which remains relatively serene under opposition).
many members, for action or for contemplation: companions, families, firms, schools.
We want students to feel safe in bringing all their experience to bear on the discussion
And indeed our alumni are by preference founders and maintainers of small worlds.
of the books, but we hope they will learn to lever them into a large, universal mode.
2. Courage: We expect them to be full of boldness in approaching intellectual and
This desideratum for our students is so close to the heart of our life that I will try
practical problems, in complementing their liberal learning with expertise, in trans-
saying it again: We want to give our students a classroom in which inciting books are
muting their four years’ study into life-long learning and reading. And indeed our
talked about not as mere literature nor as historical documents, but boldly as they
alumni seem to learn and do practically anything, and they are, many of them, invet-
meant themselves to be taken: as the Word of God, or the insight of the intellect, or
erate readers and seminar-goers.
the wisdom of the world. And yet we want these same students to read subtly, not as
3. Decency: The fallout of years of thoughtful reading about good and evil should be
believers, disciples, and partisans – that may happen privately – but receptively, with
at least plain probity. Not to suppose so is to renounce faith in the moral effect of liber-
that most desirable of human dispositions, an open mind, one which hears apprecia-
al learning. And in fact, the alumni I know well do seem to have very live consciences.
tively and responds judgingly, both at once.
4. Tradition: Our alumni are in a singularly good position to live in appreciative
tension with the Western tradition, to know how we came to be what we now are,
14.
namely moderns, to preserve our treasures and reform our faults, and to recover for
themselves what we always were, human beings. And in fact, many of our alumni live
What do we wish for –
and see – in our alumni?
as it seems to me we ought to live: half in, half out of our times.
5. Self-knowledge: Our alumni are as busy as anyone, but we hope that they will
find time for that inner housekeeping, that coolly unclouded self-awareness they
“Alumni” is a word of affection – it means “nurslings.” What nourishment
learned about in their freshman year under the Delphic injunction “Know thyself!”
do we hope St. John’s has given its alumni to strengthen them for what is so curiously
And that is the reality: One of the delights of seeing alumni, perhaps after decades of
called “real life”? I can think of five headings:
disappearance, is the ready candor with which they report on the state of their soul –
1. Community: We hope that they will carry away a picture of a community of pur-
for what would concern their former tutors more?
�{
A COLLEGE UNIQUE AND UNIVERSAL
15.
}
72
Po s t s c r i p t : A s m a l l c o l l e g e
and those that lov e it
I want to end with the peroration of a speech that Daniel Webster made in
behalf of his own school before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Marshall presiding,
a plea which won the case and resulted in making independent colleges like St. John’s
safe from at least one danger – public control (Dartmouth College Case, 1818). He
concluded, and had the Chief Justice in tears:
Sir, you may destroy this little institution... but if you do..., you must
extinguish, one after another, all those great lights of science, which, for more than
a century have thrown their radiance over the land! It is, sir, as I said, a small college, and yet there are those that love it....
Well, St. John’s has been here even longer than that, weathering other storms that
have only made it stronger. And though it too is a small college, it is also a great
college, so that those that love it, love it with good reason.
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Promotional Publications
Description
An account of the resource
Brochures and other documents published to promote the college and the Annapolis campus to the public. The collection includes campus walking tour brochures, and fundraising pamphlets.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, Md.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PromotionalPubs
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
39 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A College Unique and Universal
Description
An account of the resource
A College Unique and Universal publication, written for The Campaign for St. John's College in 2006.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brann, Eva T. H.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Santa Fe, N.M.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College holds the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
St. John's College (Santa Fe, N.M.)
Education, Humanistic
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
College Unique and Universal_2006
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/4050afb71b5185507465a1629993c420.jpg
39ee3e2ad193695014eafc6172d8e536
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
photograph
Resolution
Resolution of the image in dpi.
600 x 600
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
President J. Walter Sterling, St. John's College, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Description
An account of the resource
photograph : color
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this photograph.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
still image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
jpeg
Subject
The topic of the resource
Sterling, J. Walter
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sterling, J. Walter 2024
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
St. John's College
Presidents
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/44505a691685c0883fa651f5173860a9.mp4
904192631c2bf731dd49b174929b020b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series
Description
An account of the resource
The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
streaming video
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:33:20
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Timeless and Timely: Liberal Education and the Demands of the Present
Description
An account of the resource
Video recording of a panel discussion between Brendan Boyle, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, Jonathan Badger, and Patrick Coleman, St. John's College Tutors, on June 19, 2024, as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Boyle, Brendan
Coleman, John Patrick
Badger, Jonathan N.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-06-19
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp4
Subject
The topic of the resource
Education, Humanistic
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Panel_Badger-Boyle-Coleman_2024-06-19-ac
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/768fb174a355785bfa761595d3319988.pdf
063ffd48f2b73eabba79d9231cdae19b
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
The Spirit of St. John’s
May 7, 2024
Vol. XLV, Issue 10
�THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
Abigail Poppleton
Luke Briner
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING
EDITOR
El’ad NicholsKaufman
STAFF
Benne Sco
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
YOUT
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
CONTRIBUTORS
Rebecca Goldner
Ranger Kasdorf
Natalie Goldman
Anna Dayton
Henry David Hills
Troy HernerBrown
Corrections to
Vol. XLV, Issue 9
The amusing article “The Annapolis
Cat Strangler”, which appeared in the
Badfly without a named author, was
written by Vivian Miyakawa.
Dear Polity,
CONTENTS
Λόγος : news reports & narratives regarding immediate campus life
Don’t Worry, Be Enabled by Tamar Pinsky
3
Johnnies Celebrate Glorious Victory in Historic 40th
Annapolis Cup by El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
4
Capturing the Whiteness of the Whale: An Interview with
Ranger Kasdorf By Vivian Miyakawa
7
ΣυμπόσιονÊ:Êcontrasting opinions on various topics for thought
9
Why Do We Write? By Rebecca Goldner
How Do We Write? By Luke Briner
10
The Obscure Birds: A Theory Regarding Shakespeare’s
Macbeth By Ranger Kasdorf
13
ΠόλιςÊ:Êvoices of the community, including poetry, cartoons, etc.
Fight Sterility: RETURN TO MCDOWELL By Anna
Dayton
16
Translation of Plotinus, Enneads, I.6.9 By Henry David
Hills
18
Raggin’ on the ‘Min, Or: Why It’s So Fun to Make Fun of
Admin By B.S.
19
“Noodles” Comics by Tamar Pinsky
20
Astraea’s Rhapsody by Luke Briner
22
XIII. Death by B.S.
27
Benediction for a Johnny by Henry David Hills
28
tomorrow by Natalie Goldman
29
Doors of St. John’s: A Meditation by Troy Herner-Brown
30
A Note from a Future Editor
I write to you for the first time from the pages of this publication, not because I have anything to do with the wonderful
content of this issue (which features an interview on Moby Dick, reporting on enablement, essays on writing, poetry,
comics, and more), but because I felt it was only fitting to have a chance to thank the team whose hard work made the
Gadfly this year possible before I begin my time trying to fill their very large shoes.
Luke Briner, who you will know from four years of thoughtful writing on liberal education, Plotinus, Shakespeare, and
more, has guided our publication through a successful two years as managing editor and editor-in-chief. His work has
greatly contributed to the Gadfly’s role in amplifying the thoughts of all members of the polity.
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm, who was first rightly famed in the Gadfly for her poetry, has done a terrific job of layout this year.
Much of the hard labor of producing the Gadfly is in the painstaking arrangement of text into neat columns, and the
search for images that will make just the right comment on an article, tasks that Nhi has done terrifically. This paper
simply could not happen without her, and I am very grateful for all her work.
It makes me sad to bid these seniors farewell, when they have meant so much to the Polity. However, I am still excited
to see what the Gadfly might have in store next year. I hope to see old writers return, and new ones emerge. The
Collegian, our sister publication, will also be returning with Helen Wagner at the helm. For now, I wish the seniors
best of luck on the next step of their journeys, and the rest of the Polity a restful, or interesting, summer, whichever
you prefer. I look forward to seeing you and your writing in these pages in a few short months!
Your apprehensive, but excited incoming editor,
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
2
�όγος
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Don’t Worry, Be Enabled By Tamar Pinsky
St. John's Students Seated with Musical Instruments, Playing Cards and Drinking Alcoholic Beverages (from SJC Digital Archives)
Why is it that whenever the word “enablement” begins
to emerge from one’s lips, a rousing “don’t worry!” pops up?
“Don’t worry, you are definitely going to be enabled” is the
constant reassurance I receive from acquaintances, friends, last
year’s tutors, and even people who work at the health center.
These people do not know what kind of student I am, what kind
of papers I turn in. For all they know, I could be a terrible
student. And thus their well-intentioned “don’t worry”s manifest
in me worrying, because surely there ought to be something to
worry about, if everyone is telling me not to do so.
I do know why they tell me not to worry–because most
likely they are right; I will be enabled. Most students are. And
even if they are not–then they can appeal the decision. There is
really no need to worry, because enabled or not, one can return
to St. John’s for junior year and senior year. What is the point of
enablement then and why is there an appeal process?
According to the Annapolis Student Handbook,
“Sophomore enabling is a review, conducted near the end of the
sophomore year, of the student’s learning during the two years
spent at the college. Tutors judge whether it is in the best
interest of the student and the college for the student to continue
into the junior and senior years.”
Enablement is not a measure of whether a student is
doing their best; rather it is to determine if the student can and
should take on junior and senior year. Though it comes with an
armful of worrying, according to Mr. Abbott, it is “essential to
the program.” Not only is it an “astonishingly thorough and
just” process, but it is also a special one, for “it is a moment in
which the entire faculty thinks about every student in an entire
class, in as many facets as possible.”
As for the appeal process, it is not a leniency; rather, a
necessity for such a serious decision. It involves the student
considering the decision, writing a letter, and having a
conversation with the Dean, which may lead to their appeal
being upheld, or qualified, such that there are actions they can
take in order to be enabled.
Enablement is a respect to the students; why then do
we worry? Maybe we worry not out of fear of not being
enabled, rather out of insecurity or of high standards we set for
ourselves. These are valid anxieties, but they do not need to be
tied to enablement. For enablement is a judgement of potential,
not proficiency.
Or maybe we worry because it’s fun to worry – it's
exhilarating to wonder and gossip and fret in anticipation of
enabling. Leontius could not stop himself from looking at dead
bodies in Plato’s Republic; so too, we are tempted to make our
minds ache, be it from enablement, or don rags, or essay
writing, etc. But as Mr. Abbott recommends, this temptation
ought to be “set aside, because it keeps us from recognizing the
good work we have done.
3
�όγος
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Johnnies Celebrate Glorious Victory in Historic
40th Annapolis Cup By El’ad Nichols-Kaufman
Ranna Kisswani and Julian Yoder dancing at croquet (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
“The origin of croquet is certainly involved in
mystery,” wrote some New York Times journalist on
a slow news day in 1906. In an article squeezed
between a clergyman in England claiming to have
shot an angel and a letter from the founder of Barnard
protesting gubernatorial candidate and tabloid
publisher Willaim Randolph Hearst’s slander against
her, the Times’ anonymous author opined that it may
derive from “the old sport pell mell,” although
speculated that its true source may be lost to the ages.
Despite that writer’s inability to determine
the true origins of that noble sport, your faithful
correspondent had no trouble finding out the specific
origins of our croquet game, the world-renowned
Annapolis cup, which took place on Saturday, April
13th this year. 40 years ago, St. John’s students
accepted the challenge of beating the midshipmen at
any sport, and the rest is history. At this 40th
anniversary game, history was to be celebrated, and a
great game of croquet was to be played. Armed with
a recording device, a thermos full of tea, and a press
4
badge fitted into his hatband, your most intrepid
explorer of exotic locales such as front campus set
out to record what was certain to be an Annapolis cup
that would go down in the history books.
It was a bright day, although windy, as your
correspondent arrived on the field. Crowds of
students, alumni and midshipmen milled about,
dressed in their spring finery. Extravagant hats, sharp
uniforms, and poor attempts at 18th century
aristocratic wear were spotted amongst the crowd, as
all gathered before Woodward Hall (yes, that is its
proper name) to the tunes of the Naval Trident’s jazz.
Already, the mood of the Johnnies was ebullient, with
swing dancing beginning long before the opening
ceremony.
Finally, at noon, the formalities commenced.
Speeches were given by Nora Demleitner, St. John’s
president, and Yvette M. Davis, the superintendent of
the naval academy, both of whom delivered fitting
and stirring speeches while abusing the adjectives
unique and incredible. Mayor Gavin Buckley was not
�όγος
THE GADFLY
immediately present (he later arrived and appeared
rather inebriated, in the eyes of this reporter) and so a
speech from the city was given by Cate Pettit, his
chief of staff and a fellow Aussie, who said she would
give both sides “a fair suck.” This was followed by
the entrance of the teams, the Navy in their ridiculous
bow ties and sweaters, accompanied by their gaggle
of caddies in mess dress with atrocious gold
cummerbunds; and the Johnnies revealing their
surprise costume for the year: Navy-style blue
coveralls with white hardhats.
The freshman chorus, which had gathered
sometime earlier, regaled the crowd with St. John’s
Forever and the national anthem, and surprised this
writer by actually sounding like they were singing
real music, a musical feat unrivaled by any freshman
chorus heard in the past three years at St. John’s. Not
only was it real music, but they actually sounded
good! A speech was given by an old rusty wicket, or
croquet alum, and then it was time. The unmoved
mover, traditionally St. John’s president, stepped
forward to begin the motion of the universe and
commence the game. However, in a noble and
virtuous gesture appropriate to our institution’s
magnanimity, President Demleitner offered the first
strike of the game to Admiral Davis, who set the
game in motion.
Your humble correspondent determinedly set
out to keep track of the byzantine web of tactics and
strategy being employed by both teams in their
opening game by means of his sharp wit and deep
knowledge of the game’s arcane rules, but quickly
fell victim to the availability of warm sunshine,
pleasant company, and little sandwiches with brie,
honey and apples in them. Thus, he was caught by
surprise at star announcer Lainey Rendelman’s voice
calling out that on court one, Navy was ahead by
three wickets. Your faithful reporter leapt up from his
blanket, and set off to investigate.
First, he found Dalton Olsson, a player on our
team. Olsson said that he felt pretty good about the
game so far, “Magnus and Peter on court three have
been doing fantastic from the get go. On court two,
Caden is doing what we expected him to do, which is
still insane every time you see it…” Olsson then
paused as Caden Marshall went rover, to wild cheers
from all Johnnies present, and a few reluctant claps
from neighboring midshipmen. “...he’s basically
already won. Court one I haven’t really looked at,
because courts two and three are going so well.” Your
reporter also found a Midshipman, Cameron, who felt
May 7, 2024
optimistic about his team’s chances as well. “We’re
playing pretty well,” he said. “We may not play
croquet as much as the Johnnies do, but we’re
definitely going to give it our all.”
Your reporter next consulted a close friend to
understand the experience of the crowd. The Sage of
Gorman street, famed from the St. John’s Collegian’s
aphorisms, was standing by the end of the field, and
said he hadn't watched much of the game, but would
pay more attention towards the end of the game, as
he was deeply invested in victory. “We lost two years
ago. That’s unacceptable. We need a clean sheet.”
Further, he announced his intentions to spend the rest
of the afternoon lying in the sun. Thanking him for
that piece of wisdom, your faithful correspondent
moved on to watch more croquet.
Around the game, the crowd was enjoying
itself tremendously. The renowned Naptown Brass,
famed performers at dignified events like Ms.
Demleitner’s inauguration and the grand Noah
Hillman Garage reopening party, arrived with their
usual irresistible rhythms, sending Johnnies into
whirling dances around McDowell. Elaborate meals
were set out by alumni, with oysters on fine china
and champagne in crystal goblets. Students partook in
plenty of beer, wine and champagne, not to mention
tea and scones. The warm sun shone on front campus,
for once making it a wise choice to wear a thin
summer jacket or short summer dress, and showing
the great wisdom of Johnnies who chose to wear hats.
As the afternoon went on, things became
tense for a moment, and Navy won the first game on
court one by half past one. However, by 2 p.m, things
were turning around. Marshall, already known for his
croquet prowess, made Annapolis cup history by
pulling a sextuple peel, pushing his teammate’s ball
through six wickets, and then shortly after securing a
victory. Court three was also won, leaving just one
game needed for St. John’s to win the cup. The air
filled with excitement as the Johnnies on court one
grew closer and closer to victory, crowned by a
terrific final stroke by Henry Stockman, winning the
game while well ahead of the Midshipmen, around 3
p.m. The crowd went wild, with cheering and yelling,
and your faithful correspondent rushed up to get
Stockman’s immediate reaction, risking life and limb
to get past inebriated seniors, and alumni. “I’m really
excited…Dalton and I were really excited to win the
third game, and keep the trophy here where it
belongs.”
Johnnies flocked to the field, cheering,
5
�όγος
THE GADFLY
attempting to poorly set up a tenor-bass only Sicut
singing, and generally making merry. The cup was
presented to the St. John’s team by Mayor Buckley,
and they celebrated by drinking straight out of this
sacred libation bowl. Johnnies finally got themselves
together, and sang a proper Sicut Cervus, enjoying
the taste of a brilliant, and crushing victory. The
games, of course, were not over- two more games
remained- but for St. John’s, the most important deed
was done. We won, as is right and proper, and it was
time to celebrate.
Even
midshipmen
had
the
goodsportsmanship to concede that the Johnnies played
well, and joined in some of the celebrations. Your
reporter found a Johnnie-Middie Couple, Margaret
McConnell and Braden Walker, and, curious about
what this kind of competition might mean for intercampus relations, inquired how they felt about it. “I
feel great!” exclaimed McConnell. “I love singing
Sicut Cervus and drinking my prosecco (don’t put
that in) and I love kicking the naval academy in its
face.” Walker, on the other hand, was less joyful. “I
feel really bad. It’s unfortunate it’s a loss. I’m hoping
for my senior year we come back and beat the
Johnnies, and I also enjoy drinking prosecco.”
However, it seemed as though their relationship
May 7, 2024
managed to survive these tensions. “He’s buying me
a round of drinks tonight,” said McConnell, “so I
think it will be good for our relationship.”
After this victory, Johnnies began to migrate
off, to various corners of campus and around
Annapolis. Your trusty reporter, on his way home,
caught imperial wicket Angus Preston and croquet
team member Peter Boersema sitting outside of
Annabeth’s, with the Annapolis cup at their sides.
Never missing a chance to interrogate such renowned
sportsmen, he asked them how they felt about the
match. “I’m feeling good,” said Preston. “We’re
happy to continue possessing the cup,” added
Boersema. They were both in good spirits, although
Preston was disappointed to have the cup won while
his game was still ongoing. Nevertheless, he still did
win his own match, giving St. John’s a 4-1 record for
the whole match. Doing some quick thinking, your
clever correspondent realized this meant that since
his Freshman year, St. John’s has increased the
number of games one per cup by one every year, and
asked if they think a 5-0 game is possible next year.
“I’m not gonna come out and say it’s going to be a 50 year next year,” said Preston, “but I also am not
going to say we’re not going to win 5-0 next year.”
Alumnus Francis Proctor, Kate Kennedy, and Charles Dang geared up and ready to crush the Midshipmen
in spirit with “BEAT NAVY” gear. (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
6
�όγος
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Capturing the Whiteness of the Whale: An Interview with
Ranger Kasdorf By Vivian Miyakawa
Ahan Sagreiya as Queequeg in Moby Dick (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
On the evenings of April 26th and 27th, the King
William Players premiered what may have been the
greatest play I’ve ever watched: Moby Dick. Entirely
student-led, Mr. Kasdorf wrote the adaptation,
composed the music, directed the play, and even
acted in it himself. I was so amazed by this
production that I felt compelled to interview Mr.
Kasdorf about the process of creating such a large
and impressive project. The following text is
transcribed excerpts from our conversation.
Mx.Ê VivianÊ Miyakawa: Okay, so my first question
for you is kind of a big one: why Moby Dick in the
first place?
Mr.Ê RangerÊ Kasdorf: I started reading Moby Dick
for the first time in August of 2022. I just cracked it
open out of curiosity and I looked at the chapter “The
Whiteness of the Whale,” which was still to this day
one of my favorites, and, reading it, I was
immediately thinking: I had no idea this is what
Moby Dick was—I had no idea it was written like
this. So, the next day I went to the library, and around
the time when I got to chapter 36, “The Quarter
Deck,” which is the most one of the most theatrical of
the chapters, that’s when I started putting [to]
myself…that this would work really well the stage
adaptation…it kind of struck me as a book that
naturally lends itself to a stage adaptation.
The question of “why” is always hard to
answer for any work of art, but I felt this kind of
compulsion—like I need to see this on a stage.
Looking at these words on the page, it's not enough to
have them there—I need to hear somebody speak
them aloud, I need to hear them delivered and I could
immediately see it perfectly in my head. I really
started having such clear and vivid ideas for how
each scene ought to work. Then, there was this sort of
curious feeling of wanting to make it mine. And this
comparison is not lost on me; it became an Ahab-like
obsession for me, and I certainly began to feel that
kind of madness throughout the whole production. It's
the kind of book that really does naturally inspire—it
is art that begets art.
VM:Ê When you have this feeling of needing to see it
on a stage, how does one go about adapting a book
into a play, like how do you change it from one art
medium to another?
RK:Ê Well, it helps that much of the book is already
structured like a play. The first 27 or so chapters are
very straightforwardly literary, but then chapter 29 is
actually named after a stage direction. It’s called
“Enter Ahab; to him, Stubb.” Then, the chapter “First
Night Watch” is another one with the same structure,
and then “Midnight Forecastle” is just straight up a
scene from a play, with dialogue from all these
different characters, so moments like that were pretty
easy.
7
�όγος
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
If you're going to pick and choose what to but then you have Ahab, who takes that and twists it
include you kind of have to decide for yourself what to his own advantage. All the things that I chose to
the thrust of your adaptation is, and that, I suppose, is keep in this script are about emphasizing the tragedy
the real question. DH Lawrence, in a review of Moby of a man who divorces himself from the rest of
Dick, said something like, “It's clear that the white mankind and turns his eyes on God, not out of desire
whale is a symbol, but it's not clear of what.” I ended for peace, but out of desire for revenge. The ultimate
up deciding to lean into “the whale is God” angle, message is, “Do not in your search for men to find
deciding to emphasize things like Starbuck accusing communion with end up falling prey to men like
Ahab of being blasphemous, the sermon—and things this.” It helps that Ahab is such an incredible speaker,
that seemed innocuous in the book suddenly took on and his words have such power. He is able to sucker
new meanings just by virtue of being placed in this in this crew with that incredibly powerful speech on
context. The story of Jonah that is being told in that the quarterdeck.
sermon is very much relevant to
On a sort of meta level,
the themes of the book. It’s
the play ends up being at least
specifically the aspect of Jonah
partially about how you want to
being a blasphemer who repents.
be aware of fancy speeches, and
you ought to avoid being
In fact, part of my pitch when I
suckered in by appealing and
proposed this play to the KWP
was that Ahab is a Jonah whose
flashy rhetoric. It's funny because
ordeal does not teach him
I'm realizing that the big thing
repentance. Part of my expansion
that made me want to adapt this
of the story is that the whale was
book in the first place was how
God warning Ahab to not go to
suckered in I was by those
sea, but he continues to disobey
speeches—and the thought was
God by continuing to hunt the
that a charismatic actor like Mr.
whale. In that sense, it's like we're
Domanski can really bring these
getting to see what happens when
words to life. The great trap of
somebody is put through a trial
Moby Dick is that it really is a
joyous book for so much of it.
by God and that trial does not
humble them: it only succeeds in
The opening chapter is full of
making them more and more
appeals to this sense of shared
prideful and more and more
humanity, yet once we're on the
spiteful. So, the sermon becomes
ship, things become so much
immensely important in that
more
dark,
painful,
and
context. In the book, it’s told to
miserable.
Ishmael and Queequeg, but my
If I were to try and add
choice to make it a dream
any sort of lesson to this, for
Jack Domanski as Captain Ahab
sequence rather than a literal
anyone who’s interested in
sermon ended up being a chance
adapting a book or any kind of
(Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
work I would say that all that is
for it to feel like a sermon being
delivered to the audience. The idea is that we can't really required of an adaptation is a kind of
preach to Ahab. The Ahabs of the world are monomania. You must have a kind of Ahab-ish
unreachable. So, it suddenly becomes about we're not monomania—you have to become obsessed with and
preaching to the Ahabs of the world—we're fixated on the thing you're trying to adapt, and if you
preaching to the men…they surround themselves do that, then the rest will fall into place.
with. Do not let yourself be sucked into the wake of
these men or led astray by them.
Mr. Kasdorf wishes to publicly thank the King
I think if you had to say what Moby Dick is William Players, lighting techs, stagehands, and
about in one sentence, I would probably say that it is everyone who helped make Moby Dick a reality. He
about the bonds between men. We have this greatly enjoyed the experience and is incredibly
incredible community and sense of shared humanity, grateful for such a joyous production.
8
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Why Do We Write? By Rebecca Goldner
We are a college committed to conversation.
But we are also a college dedicated to rigorous,
critical thinking, to language and its use, and to books
that offer us manifold examples of clarity, creativity,
and beauty. In class, we learn from each other; we
listen, we attempt to articulate our thoughts, we move
with the thoughts of others and we courageously try
and test our ideas among our peers. We can start a
thought and allow someone else to complete it or to
challenge it. We ask questions and rely on friends and
classmates to help us pursue the answers.
When we write, we become our own
interlocutors. We find our own opening questions and
take upon ourselves the responsibility of pursuing
them through somea development, possibly to some
conclusion. Writing requires that we begin a thought
and have the focus to stay with it, even when it
challenges us. When we write, we cultivate our
determination and independence. When nobody else
can finish the incomplete thought, develop the
argument or find the more elegant articulation, we
must do it ourselves. While it might seem that we
write for others- for readers- the first person of
concern, the most important reader, is always the
writer. As writers, we demand clarity, precision,
rigor, creativity and style of ourselves. We become
self-reliant and self-sufficient. We take a stand. We
find our voice in all its many forms: what interests us
and why, what tone and style is appropriate, how we
engage with a text and, most importantly, what we
have to say for ourselves.
Student Seated on Couch Reading "Newsweek" in the College Bookstore (from SJC Digital Archives)
9
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
How Do We Write?
By Luke Briner
In our Group’s two preceding meetings, we
have considered, through papers by Ms. Goldner and
Mr. Braithwaite respectively, why and what we write
at St. John’s College. I believe that a helpful addition
and natural next step from these two considerations
would be to ask more rigorously how this writing
should or must occur—or, in other words, to examine
in more detail the writing of a St. John’s essay as a
specific and philosophically-framed process or
τέχνη.
Since writing assignments are overtly
considered by the Program as an additional or
supplementary element to active classroom
discussion (Statement of the Program, pp. 5-6, 8), it
will be important to establish the nature of the latter
insofar as the former is seen as analogous to and
working toward the same overarching goal as it (I).
Once we’ve done this, we will be able to more easily
and rigorously enunciate the proper structure of the
St. John’s essay and hence also the way that a student
should approach the writing of one as a τέχνη (II).
This, in turn, will naturally bring to light exactly why
the use of AI in our writing is not only wrong in an
obvious and general sense but uniquely and
profoundly contradictory to the overarching
pedagogical philosophy of the Program itself (III).
I.
The aim of every classroom discussion at St.
John’s is to “reach insights far beyond the views of
any of its members” (ibid., p. 5), and, thereby,
through the achievement of an intellectual
communion or πόλις in which “harmony is actual and
immediate” (Luchene, Beginnings of Community, p.
4), to ultimately enrich the minds and characters of
each of those members. The specific structure of
these discussions has accordingly been established
with the intent of achieving this goal as effectively as
possible, which we can consider as consisting of
three essential, highly interconnected elements.
First, there is the material or ὕλή of the
discussion, which serves simultaneously as the
ultimate object of inquiry which all members seek to
understand the full richness and implications of and
10
May 7, 2024
as the substratum by and upon which that inquiring
act takes place. As far as the discussion itself is
concerned, the concrete content of the material is
arbitrary qua interchangeability as long as it can
sustain continual rigorous explication and bear
meaningful fruit in the minds of members as a result
of such explication.
Second, there is the thought-content or λόγος
of the discussion, in and through which the class’
inquiry into and continually-advancing understanding
of the ὕλή itself occurs. This λόγος may be divided
into two sub-elements: the syllogistic, by which basic
explications of and reasonings about the material are
undertaken by members, and the dialectical, by
which the content of those explications and
reasonings are put into dynamic and conceptually
constructive relations to each other. Because this
latter sub-element naturally involves a multiplicity of
syllogistic items, it may be realized equally well by a
single member and by multiple members.
Third, and accordingly, there is the social
order or νόμος of the discussion, through which the
effective interpersonal communication of the
manifold of λόγος-content (λόγοι) with respect to the
ὕλή is actually achieved. This element may likewise
be subdivided into the rhetorical, by which λόγοςcontent is clearly conveyed from one member to the
others, and the harmonistic, by which the equitable
treatment of members with respect to each other
individually and as a whole, and thereby the
continued existence and integrity of the discussion in
all its preceding elements, is ensured. This “nomical”
content, and especially its latter sub-element, is
obviously the most crucial component of the entire
discussion insofar as it sustains the being of all its
others, and the discipline implied in its cultivation is
arguably where the lion’s share of its educational (or,
better, edificatory) value for each individual member
actually resides.
The structure generated and sustained by the
intelligent combination of these three elements—the
hylic, the logical, and the nomical—is naturally the
foundation, and, so to speak, the εἶδος of the seminars
and tutorials that we’re familiar with. The hylic
contents (ὗλαι) of these classes are primarily the
Great Books, since they, as Buchanan observes,
“communicate with great skill ideas that human
experience has taught us are important” (“Now and to
Come: Liberal Education: A Common Adventure,” p.
302) and so allow us to “tune in on the Great
Conversation that we call civilization” (ibid.); and
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Student Seated at Desk Writing a Note (from SJC Digital Archives)
students, as their dynamically-active members, are
responsible for the advancement of logical content
with respect to the ὗλαι thus determined. Given this,
tutors, strictly speaking, are simply fellow-members
in the discussion which happen to also have absolute
nomical power over it: while able to participate in the
λόγος in the exact same way as a student, they also
possess the entirely distinct but entirely necessary
capacity to guarantee, via unilateral authority, that the
social environment through which that λόγος is
communicated and furthered is as open, friendly, and
fair as possible. Each class, thus organized, will
ideally serve as the most favorable environment
possible for the intellectual and moral development
of each student.
II.
Given that discussions at the College are
organized in this exact way, and given that they are
by virtue of the fact that such organization is optimal
for the accomplishment of the College’s ultimate
pedagogical goals, it naturally follows that essays,
insofar as they are understood as serving toward
those very same goals in the very same environment,
are intended to follow an analogous structure to those
discussions. “When we write,” as Ms. Goldner rightly
states in her own essay, “we become our own
interlocutors.” That is, however, crucially, not all that
we become; rather, given what we’ve established
above, we ideally internalize the entirety of the
system already present within class discussions
themselves—all its elements, sub-elements, and
active roles—with the intent of carrying out the work
of that system in, by, through, and for oneself. Our
ὕλή remains much the same, that is, the Great Books,
for the same reason enunciated above. We ourselves,
however, generate and advance all the λόγος-content
of the inquiry into that ὕλή, both syllogistic and
dialectical—and, especially with respect to the latter,
at least potentially raise and sustain a multiplicity of
contradictory ideas that we subsequently seek to
resolve or at least work out to the greatest possible
extent. In this sense we play the role of not just a
single student but all students, earnestly engaging
with each other’s interpretations and questions in an
organic intellectual polyphony, as well as the tutor
insofar as they are responsible for setting that logical
dynamic in motion by a clear, hylically-founded
opening question. We additionally play the role of a
tutor in the even more important sense that,
11
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
simulating within ourselves the entirety of a lively
discussion, we are consequently responsible for
ensuring that that discussion is acted out in a clearlyelucidated (rhetorical) and considerate (harmonistic)
way—in a somewhat strange but very real sense, the
socially-constituted νόμος remains within our solitary
self, and so we are compelled to think and act
nomically with respect to the multiplicity of
perspectives held within that self’s inquiry into the
material. In summary, then—the St. John’s essay,
defined precisely, is simply a self-sustained seminar
carried out or expressed through the written word.
From this it becomes clear that the real work,
the τέχνη of the St. John’s essay consists essentially
in the intelligent delineation and organization of all
dialogical elements within one’s own mind with
respect to the sustained analysis of a text in writing—
or, put in another way, in the endeavor toward
approximating the nature of ideal class discussion at
the College given those same limiting circumstances
to as great a degree as possible. One should begin
with the ideal of a perfect seminar firmly fixed in
one’s mind and organize one’s writing in accordance
with, in proportion to it—beginning with a clearlyenunciated and textually evocative opening question,
working carefully and considerately through a
number of explicative elements and dialecticallyarisen questions, and arriving, through that process, at
some substantially beneficial understanding either of
the text, of oneself, or of the world (and ideally all
three) that was not and could not have been possessed
before the inquiry was undertaken. Consequently, it is
the proper task of the student throughout their writing
career at St. John’s to understand and master this
process, and it is the responsibility of writing
assistants, tutors, and the College itself to provide
them with clear instruction and support in that task.
Additionally, the essay, so understood, can be
thought of as having another capacity we didn’t
initially ascribe to it: the capacity to serve as a kind
of litmus test not just for a student’s technical
knowledge or cleverness but for their understanding
of and mastery over the entire Program. Since the
essay is simply the internalized form of a class
discussion, the way that a student conceives of the
nature and aim(s) of said class discussion will
inevitably inform the manner in which they go about
writing; and so the determination of a good writer is,
at least potentially, a clear means of determining a
truly good student overall, insofar as such a writer
demonstrates not only an overt comprehension of the
12
May 7, 2024
nature of St. John’s essays and hence of the
pedagogical philosophy of St. John’s broadly but the
ability to develop in and through themselves through
the direct application of that philosophy.
III.
It is natural to conclude, then, with all this
being established, that the use of AI in the writing of
St. John’s essays is uniquely and profoundly
contradictory to the overarching pedagogical
philosophy of the Program itself because (1) AI is
incapable of asking the kind of questions, conducting
the kind inquiry, and deriving the kind of benefit that
a student earnestly writing out an inquiry would be
and is (the essence of these things consists in
something deeper than the simple approximating
arrangement of words in itself), and (2) because, even
if it were so capable, the damage of leaving one’s
work to it is immeasurably greater within the context
of St. John’s than it is in almost any other, since the
entire value of our education consists not in the
simple material of the Program but exclusively in the
personal development, the edification that can be
brought about by and through it. To use any such
methods to circumvent the genuine τέχνη of writing
at St. John’s, and hence to at least a significant degree
shirk the great moral responsibility that a liberal
education confers, is therefore not only an affront to
the College but, in a deeper and very real sense, to
oneself and to the world around oneself.
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
The Obscure Birds: A Theory Regarding
Shakespeare’s Macbeth By Ranger Kasdorf
KING. Dismay’d not this/Our captains, Macbeth and
Banquo?
SERG. Yes,/As sparrows eagles…
-Act I, Scene II
MACBETH. If charnel-houses and our graves must
send/Those that we bury back, our monuments/Shall
be the maws of kites.
-Act III, Scene IV
LADY. …The raven himself is hoarse/That croaks the
fatal entrance of Duncan…
-Act I, Scene V
MACBETH. Augurs and understood relations have/
By magot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth/
The secret’st man of blood.
-Act III, Scene IV
BAN. This guest of summer,/The temple-haunting
martlet, does approve/By his loved mansionry, that
the heaven’s breath/Smells wooingly here: no jutty,
frieze/Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird/
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle…
-Act I, Scene VI
LADY. Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek’d, the
fatal bellman…
-Act II, Scene II
LADY. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
-Act II, Scene II
PORTER. …come in, tailor; here you may roast your
goose…
-Act II, Scene III
PORTER. ‘Faith, sir, we were carousing till the
second cock…
-Act II, Scene III
LADY MACDUFF. …the poor wren,/the most
diminutive of birds, will fight,/Her young ones in her
nest, against the owl.
-Act IV, Scene II
LADY MACDUFF. How will you live?
SON. As birds do, mother.
LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies?
SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they.
LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! Thou’ldst never fear
the net nor lime,/The pitfall nor the gin?
SON. Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not
set for.
-Act IV, Scene II
FIRST MURDERER. What, you egg!
-Act IV, Scene II
MACDUFF. …there cannot be/That vulture in you…
-Act IV, Scene III
LENNOX. New hatch’d to the woeful time: the
obscure bird/Clamour’d the livelong night…
-Act II, Scene III
MACDUFF. …O hell-kite! All?/What, all my pretty
chickens and their dam/At one fell swoop?
-Act IV, Scene III
OLD MAN. …On Tuesday last,/A falcon, towering in
her pride of place,/Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at
and kill’d.
-Act II, Scene IV
MACBETH. The devil damn
thee black, thou cream-faced
loon!/Where got’st thou that
goose look?
SERVANT. There is ten
thousand–
MACBETH. Geese, villain?
-Act V, Scene III
MACBETH. …Light thickens; and the crow/Makes
wing to the rooky wood…
-Act III, Scene II
13
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
I have joked before that Shakespeare’s two
favorite subjects–surpassing love, murder, madness,
and crossdressing–are botany and birds. If you’ve
been to New York City you might be aware of the
“Shakespeare Garden” in Central Park, whose
theoretical aim (though it proves nigh-impossible in
practice) is to house specimens of all the plants which
Shakespeare mentions in his plays. As it turns out,
Bard quotes make for quite a diverse garden: there
are roses which assuredly would smell as sweet by
any other name; there are daffodils, that come before
the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with
beauty; there’s holly, heigh-ho; there’s rosemary,
that’s for remembrance, there’s pansies, that’s for
thoughts, there’s fennel for you, and columbines–no
word on whether or not they could find any violets,
though. I suppose there’s no objection to be made
against those who complain that Shakespeare’s
language is “flowery”; even as vicious a villain as
Iago deigns to express his philosophy on life by way
of botanical metaphor: “Our bodies are our gardens,
to the which our wills are gardeners.” And, of course,
the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream revolves
around a magical flower which makes people fall in
love.
I doubt anyone will object to my claiming of
birds as Shakespeare’s other poetical fixation: I
suspect that the majority of falconry knowledge
which most non-falconers have today comes from
reading footnotes in their copies of Shakespeare
plays, explaining exactly what Richard II means by
“How high a pitch his resolution soars,” or why
Hamlet says “Hillo, ho, ho” to Marcellus. But while
plants are so common in Shakespeare that I don’t
know of one play which we might say is especially
densely forested with references to them, there is one
play that stands out as particularly full of birds in
comparison with the rest of the Shakespearean canon.
That play is Macbeth.
This is the sort of thing that one only notices
after having read a play so many times that the actual
events of the plot become akin to the meter of a poem
–beats which must be hit, and which start to feel so
natural that one hardly notices them–and one’s
1
May 7, 2024
attention drifts away from the big, important speeches
and toward the more utilitarian words and odd little
moments that bridge them. I am not the first to point
it out, but it is, all the same, a delightful quirk of the
play, and could be a good way for Sophomores to
throw their classmates for a loop in seminar: why are
there so many birds in Macbeth?
Above I have listed every ornithological
reference that I’ve found in the Scottish Play; as we
peruse them, we certainly cannot conclude that every
individual reference is of the same kind, or carries the
same import. I will not pretend, for example, that,
just because geese and ravens are both birds, the
Porter’s invitation for the imagined English tailor to
cook his goose in Hell merits as much attention as
Lady Macbeth’s ominous declaration that “the raven
himself is hoarse.” Nor do I think that any individual
reference particularly demands explication; by itself,
any one of these bird-invocations seems perfectly
natural. Shakespeare’s talent is such that he can
repeat a motif in such a way that on the macro level it
is obvious yet on the micro level it hardly feels
present. But that macro level is what interests me
here: what impression is created, on the whole, by the
presence of so many birds in this play? I have a
theory, which, though it may seem far-fetched, I think
merits at least some consideration, and which, at the
very least, I have not seen stated elsewhere, and so
may make a novel contribution to the conversation.
Macbeth is both Shakespeare’s most
supernatural tragedy and his most Sophoclean; these
two superlatives are inextricably related. The
appellative Weird given to the opening scene’s three
Sisters–derived from the Old English wyrd, meaning
destiny, and famously given its more familiar
connotation by Shakespeare himself in this very play
–is, among the Bard’s works, unique to Macbeth;1
and just as that word appears nowhere else in
Shakespeare, so is the concept it represents absent in
all tragedies but this one. Though Hamlet may cry out
against outrageous fortune, and though Othello may
rhetoricize about how no man can control his fate, it
is only in Macbeth that we truly feel that the events
we see play out before us are fated, predestined,
inevitable.2 The ghost in Hamlet commands his son to
revenge his foul and most unnatural murder, but does
not tell him it is certain that he will succeed; indeed,
I credit this observation to Mr. Petrich, in his 2012 lecture To Meet With Macbeth.
The closest thing there is to this kind of fatalness in another Shakespearean tragedy is the several superstitious occurrences in Julius Caesar–both the soothsayer’s
message of “Beware the ides of March” and the bestial portents such as the lack of a heart in an offering and the whelping of a lioness in the streets. Still, I will insist
that these omens do not convey a sense of fatedness to the audience as strongly as the Weird Sisters in Macbeth by virtue of their being told to Caesar himself, not to
Brutus, the play’s true protagonist, and by the fact that Shakespeare elsewhere uses dialogue to throw some doubt upon the idea of predestination: Men at some times
are masters of their fates:/The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings. -I.ii
2
14
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
would not the drama be sapped of its intrigue if that
level of certainty were present? Meanwhile, the
supernatural interlopers in Macbeth offer the Scottish
thane not a mission, but a prophecy: All hail,
Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter! From its
mystical opening word–When, not If–the Scottish
play makes us aware of the certainty of all that is to
befall our tragic antihero. Macbeth is thus a different
sort of tragedy than Shakespeare’s others, and it
works by an inverted mechanism. While the tragedy
of, for example, Desdemona’s death is that it may
have been prevented, the tragedy of Macbeth’s
destruction is that it represents the fulfilment of fate;
and this is the very same mechanism by which
Oedipus Rex operates, complete with its own “Weird”
character in the form of the seer Tiresias. Though
Calvin managed to accept that some men are destined
for greatness and others for ruin, this idea is, to
Shakespeare and Sophocles, nothing short of
agonizing–the stuff of tragedy.
Now: what does all of this have to do with
birds? Consider these words from Antigone, spoken
by Tiresias to Creon:
You shall learn, when you hear the indications
of my art! As I took my place on my ancient
seat for observing birds, where I can mark
every bird of omen I heard a strange sound
among them, since they were screeching with
dire, incoherent frenzy and I knew that they
were tearing each other with bloody claws,
for there was a whirring of wings that made it
clear…3
Consider next these words from Oedipus Tyrannus,
spoken defensively by Oedipus to Tiresias:
Why, come, tell me, how can you be a true
prophet? Why when the versifying hound was
here did not you speak some word that could
release the citizens? Indeed, her riddle was
not one for the first comer to explain! It
required prophetic skill, and you were
exposed as having no knowledge from the
birds or from the gods. No, it was I that came,
Oedipus who knew nothing, and put a stop to
her; I hit the mark by native wit, not by what I
May 7, 2024
learned from birds.4
The practice of divining the future from birds–be it
from their behaviors, their cries, or their innards–was,
to Sophocles and his contemporaries, not
superstitious hokum, but a practical science at which
one could be skilled or unskilled,5 and it bodes ill for
Oedipus that he is so quick to disregard it in favor of
his own native wit. By Shakespeare’s day, the
practice had long been relegated to the realm of
outdated hocus-pocus, but the Bard still saw some
truth in it; in Macbeth, there is a recurring sense that,
when the world is sick with some great wrong, its
first symptoms manifest in the behavior of birds.
When the “fatal bellman” the owl shrieks in the night,
Lady Macbeth takes it as a sign that her husband is
about his bloody business. The day after the murder
of Duncan, as Ross converses with an Old Man about
the strange things they’ve seen the previous night,
“unnatural/Even as the deed that’s done”, the killing
of a falcon by a mousing-owl–an omen straight out of
Sophocles–is mentioned before the madness and
cannibalism of Duncan’s horses, even though the
latter would surely be more immediately noticeable
and ghastly than the former.
These are the most obvious examples of birds
as ill omens in Macbeth; yet even the more innocuous
invocations of birds throughout the rest of the play
continually turn our thoughts back to the ancient
Greek understanding of fate and prophecy, and
thereby remind us that, however savagely he may
fight at Dunsinane, Macbeth’s fate is as fixed as that
of Oedipus. The birds have already foretold all.
3
Antigone, 999-1004; Lloyd-Jones tr.
Oedipus Tyrannus, 390-398; Lloyd-Jones tr.
5
The Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon identifies at least two separate verbs referring to bird-based divination, both of which are present in the quoted passages: Tiresias
uses ορνϊθοσκοπέομαι, observe birds, interpret their flight and cries, while Oedipus uses οιωνίζομαι, take omens from the flight and cries of birds. The latter term
comes from οιωνος, a large bird, bird of prey, such as a vulture or eagle, and so distinguished from a common bird, while the former comes from ορνις, which more
generally refers to a bird, including birds of prey and domestic fowls. Birds of both kinds are present in Macbeth; there are οιωναι, such as the “falcon, towering in her
place”, as well as ορνες, like the Porter’s goose and cock. I therefore see little value in interrogating the kinds of birds invoked by Shakespeare, the specific cultural
associations and significance of the owl, the raven, or the wren; rather, if we reduce them down to their barest existence as birds, animals of the class Aves, and
consider them in an ancient Greek light, then things become a bit clearer.
4
15
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Fight Sterility: RETURN TO
MCDOWELL By Anna Dayton
After visiting the post-croquet “Garden
Cotillion” party, I decided that dances in the Mellon
Lobby greatly lack the atmosphere and aesthetic
appeal dances have when they are held in McDowell.
The centralized placement of McDowell gives large
events an interconnected feeling, as people are able to
leave the dance and head straight down the walkways
into the downtown, and the booming of the bass
speakers attract Johnnies in the neighborhood. The
elegant wooden floors, warmer lighting, and
suspended balcony over the dance floor gives the
parties a warmth and soul that Mellon’s modernist
appearance does not match. Dancing in Mellon is like
dancing at an office party at an insurance firm or
some thinktank.
The quad also provides an attractive outdoor
place for people to chatter and loll in if they don’t
want to be inside and exposed to the crowd. The
Mellon walkway and featureless brick patio is
awkward in comparison, because that gigantic glass
window over the patio makes conversing feel
overexposed in a way the quad did not. Once again,
the centralized location of McDowell enables
students to easily return to their dorms. In
comparison, the relative isolation of Mellon is highly
impractical.
Alongside these downgrades, the biggest
thing about McDowell dances that the Mellon parties
miss is the use of the snackroom. It is very obnoxious
to cut around hoards of dancers and people loitering
around just to get to the snacks. Sometimes I hit up
these events just to take chips and fruits back to my
room, and I’m sure many of you readers do too. Why
should we have to step onto the main floor and slink
around people to access the food?
RETURN TO MCDOWELL
Writing on a Chalkboard Reads "Goodbye, McDowell. In 1986, I had my freshman
seminar in this room... it was worth the whole four years just for those
nights." (from SJC Digital Archives)
16
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Rauchel Hauben on McDowell Steps (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
17
�όλις
THE GADFLY
Translation of Plotinus,
Enneads, I.6.9
By Henry David Hills
W
hat, therefore, is that interior seeing? Having
just awakened, it [the soul] is not at all capable
of seeing the Things Radiant. Therefore, one must
train the very soul first to see beautiful habits, then
beautiful works (not as many as skills work, but as
many as do men who are called good); then behold
thou the soul of them that have worked the beautiful
works. How, therefore, mayst thou behold a good
soul such as hath Beauty?
Withdraw thou into thyself and behold. And if
thou beholdest thyself not yet beautiful, such things
as doth the maker of a statue that is to become
beautiful (here it he removeth, there it he smootheth,
here even and there pure maketh he it until a beautiful
face is shewn upon the statue), even thus do thou:
remove what is excessive, straighten what is crooked
– by purifying what is darkened, work thou to be
Things Radiant, and pause thou not from crafting thy
statue until there might radiate out of thee virtue’s
godlike splendor, until thou mightest behold “soundmindedness
established
on
a
sacred
pedestal” (Phædrus 254b).
May 7, 2024
sighted. For the seer to the seen made akin and alike
must be brought to the vision. For no eye hath ever
seen the sun that hath not first become sunlike, nor
could a soul behold the Beautiful that hath not
become beautiful.
Then let each become godlike and each
beautiful should he mean to behold both God and the
Beautiful. For he shall arrive first, ascending, unto
the Mind, and there shall be seen all of the beautiful
forms, and he shall say: “This is Beauty, these ideas
are Beauty.” For from these are all things beautiful,
from the offspring of the Mind and Being. And that
which is beyond This we say is the nature of the
Good, and that which has been cast before the nature
is the Beautiful. So roughly, in a word, the Beautiful
is first; but he that distinguisheth the things accessible
by the Mind shall affirm that the Beautiful accessible
by the Mind is the place of the forms and that the
Good which is beyond is both the wellspring and the
origin of the Beautiful. Well shall he first regard the
Good and the Beautiful as being in the same thing,
except there is the Beautiful.
If thou art become this, knowest it, and, pure,
conversest with thyself, having nothing in the way of
thus becoming the One nor having some other
interior thing mingled with It (but rather whole is the
very True and Solitary Light which is neither
measured by magnitude nor circumscribed by shape
into a narrowing nor even waxed into magnitude by
inexperience but rather is everywhere immeasurable,
as it is greater than every measure and mightier than
every question of quantity) – if thou mightest behold
that thou thyself art become this, then, having already
become vision, with courage about thee, having
stepped forward but a little (no more a guide dost
thou need), gazing on, behold! for this is the only Eye
that beholdeth the Great Beauty.
But if that which may venture upon the vision
is bleared with wickedness and is not purified or is
without strength, by cowardice unable to see the
Radiances at all, then it seeth nothing, even should
another show that which is present and may well be
18
Students with a Model of the Five Platonic Solids in
the King William Room (from SJC Digital Archives)
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Raggin’ on the ‘Min
Or: Why It’s So Fun to Make Fun
of Admin By B.S.
Dear Admin,
Let me begin by saying: I know you like to be
called “Administration” and will, in fact, be
frustrated by the term admin. This is a small liberal
arts college with a penchant for nicknames, not 1984
(read: kindly, kiss my ass).
Now, I am sure you’re wondering: how can I
get these kids to stop making fun of everything I do?
You send out an email about Israel/Palestine and get
yelled at. You choose a graduation speaker and get
yelled at. You receive complaints about tutor pay,
student discipline, retention (I’d like to add one more
gripe of my own, thank you very much: why the hell
did I, a current senior, receive an email asking me to
give money to the college? Oh, but Bennett, it’s just
easier to have you on the list so—Silence. All of my
money is currently in your coffers, probably paying
for some insane project so that a donor can put their
name on it rather than funding our education). There
really ought to be a game for negative student
response to any action you take (my latest BINGO
was: posters around campus, forwarded email chain,
complaining about students not understanding the
process after not communicating the process to the
students (FREE), defending a morally dubious action,
and the Gadfly getting unnecessarily involved (wow
he’s doing it right now).
So what can you do to make these students
understand the hard work and complexity of what
you do? Could you establish trust with the polity
through open communication? Could you bring back
traditions that make us feel like a cohesive whole?
Could you set a precedent by openly admitting your
mistakes and changing them in a student-guided
fashion? Clearly, if you’re coming to me for
solutions, you don’t want anything so reasonable. So
let me tell you the right answer:
The Jingling Atrocity Effect.
Have you ever jingled your keys in front of a
baby (or my roommate)? Those bitches love that shit!
Why? Because it’s loud, it’s pointless, it’s impossible
to reduce into a simple
motion. For politically
inclined liberal arts
students, atrocities are
the keys. For example,
if you were to take War
and Peace off the
program and replace it
with a Leo Strauss
reading, people would
be outraged, but there
would be just enough
people to defend it too.
While there’s a major
uproar about the purpose of the college, the place of
literature in a liberal education, the inanity of
Straussians (all fired up by admin hosted events), you
can pass just about anything less bad under the radar.
All you need to do is make the jingling atrocity so
much worse the actual problem that it what you’re
really gunning for goes by in silence. Want to remove
croissants from the dining hall? The aforementioned
Straussening would work. But bigger problems
require bigger solutions. Want to fire a popular tutor?
Remove all women from the program reading list.
Want to change the name of McDowell to Coal and
Uranium Center for Knowledge (CUCK)? Replace
Plato and Aristotle with third hand summaries of their
works. The magic of it is, as soon as your minor/
actual issue is passed into law, you can reverse the
jingling atrocity and play the hero of having actually
listened to students. Problem solved in a totally
original way that Dick Cheney et al could never have
thought of.
It’s the most beautiful plan ever.
—B.S.
P.S. Ignore this one Admin:
Members of the student body with something
malformed in their souls,
Give ‘em hell
—B.S.er
19
�όλις
THE GADFLY
“Noodles”: The Owl
By Tamar Pinsky
20
May 7, 2024
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
“Noodles”: Sheep Can’t
Sleep
By Tamar Pinsky
21
�όλις
THE GADFLY
Astraea’s Rhapsody
Or,
Innocence Departed
By Luke Briner
Piety was dead, and virgin Astraea, last of all the
immortals to depart, herself abandoned the blooddrenched earth.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses, I.149-150 (trans.
Kline)
What can it be that has brought the souls to forget the
father, God, and, though members of the Divine and
entirely of that world, to ignore at once themselves
and It? The evil that has overtaken them has its
source in self-will, in the entry into the sphere of
process, and in the primal differentiation with the
desire for self ownership. They conceived a pleasure
in this freedom and largely indulged their own
motion; thus they were hurried down the wrong path,
and in the end, drifting further and further, they came
to lose even the thought of their origin in the Divine.
—Plotinus, Enneads, V.1.1 (trans. MacKenna)
§1.
Unfaithful man!—debasement of the world
Self-seeker of this fresh oblivion
That swoons upon our tarnished history!—
Unprovidencing shade!
—I part from you,
I, wracked and last-abiding pillar of
Our new-archaic age, to haunt alone
The voided vestibules of this veiled spire,
And here, in limpid sighs, to contemplate
A trembling memory of golden dust…
§2.
Recall unto yourself, fraught intellect,
Light-lapped progenitress and proem of
This now-forlorn, this self-benighting day
22
May 7, 2024
—Unworthy epilogue that dares to wound
Its benefacting lid in late-set lapse!—
My higher, unembittered origin,
And how at last it came to be that I,
Transported by a strange and heaven-born
Necessity, first condescended to
Accommodate this thence-exuded life
That now so brazenly betrays my trust.
20
Before ran over from the halcyon
That lips in love its bright profundity
My ardent nectar, and upon the earth
Turned in that spill to spoil, resplendent hence
Alone with its own stupor’s seething jewels,
Before the luminaries chandeliered
The now-foreboding vesper, and, in sterned
Recession, fixed their disenchanted glare
Above the ingrate nature left below,
30
Before the umbrage of once-sylvaned shrines,
Sewn through with sun, was made the obloquy
Of its apostate’s squalid artifice,
Before the soul forsook the innocence
With which it had been brought into the world,
Before—before!...
I found my first repose,
God-blearied and extremest paradigm
Known to an instant-formed eternity,
Against the white, unbroken vastness of
40
The coronet that countenanced my brow;
Calm gaze reclined refulgently above
Into itself, my youthful knees were taut
Beatitude on planes of aegised gold:
Laid effortless along the facets of
My new-ascendant principality,
Or bent in rapt attention by the hem
Empyrean draped regally around
The constant, yet-unaperturing dawn,
Who, with a mother’s smiling eyes, gazed back 50
At me, relating in unworded verse
The all-securing honor of our kind—
How sweet it was for me to cleave to her!
10
The zeal-rococoed sunbursts whirling high
Above my head in love-lit reverie,
The crooning palatine cocooning me
In its own measure’s truest liberty,
The first-enlightened prism throwing forth
My vision’s self-composed infinitude,
Transfixed the newborn marble of my heart; 60
�THE GADFLY
όλις
May 7, 2024
And, happily abandoned to the crest
Of the profoundest piety thence shed
In still-unstayed exuberance, I was
Myself the most exalted amarants
Which, bowering the new-yawned panoply
From which I sprung, supped blissfully upon
The ichor blazing through my timeless veins.
A voice—
What else, what else than all this could I have
Found in that birth, that ancient-lavished mind?—
And all of ours!
No discord, no distinction, no disgrace,
70
No reprimand and no remorsefulness
Yet dwelt with me in secret contours of
My cupola’s all-incandescing beams
Or hitched in grief the fledgling breath that would,
By its afflatus, bring them into life—
There was but I in all—and all in me:
Supernal paradise, and all its fruits!
90
§3.
And yet—
then—
a polyphony
Resounding resolute and swift across
The full-concordant channels of that young
Totality—
yours, mother, and my own,
110
—I listened closely then,
Gilt florets splayed submissively before
The air that I adored;
and,
listening,
Bore witness to what it
—what I—
decreed:
O faithful Spirit!—Glory of the World
So swaddled in my own felicity,
Keen generation and unparted sheaf
That, set with perfect confidence along
80
Its gentle-crested crook, swayed forth as though
A dream against the zephyr’s honeyed touch,
I had become—before this petulant
Becoming was—the being that I am:
Ecstatic oculus of the supreme,
All-comprehending, all-encompassing,
Pure lover and beloved of my sphere.
And so it was, my love—
and so it was
For it to be.
a music—
suddenly—
As I assumed, as my light lapped against
The outermost extent of that first age
—Prime precedent of age itself—I came
At once, at last to know
—last knowledge!—
from
The innermost corpuscle of my mind
100
A something new and ultimate:
a sound—
New-emanant from the unfathomed Love
120
Whose Sigh traversed the Void ‘tween
One
and
Two!
Heed You now this Our consummating Will.
Have We not breathed the fullness of the Breath
Vouchsafed unsparingly to Us by that
Perfection resting yet ineffable
Above Our Being’s steepest Apogee?—
The empty Chaos of an unborn Life
130
Cries out for Us—
cries out for Our Embrace:
Who, then, are We, in the full fruitfulness
Of this new-found Perfection of Our own,
To not give forth that which We have received?—
Awake unto Yourself, O Second Sun!—
Awake!
Awake!
Awake!
—The nect’rous Flames 140
That dance behind Your Eyes long now to love
The Lack beyond the limits of their Light;
23
�THE GADFLY
όλις
§4.
The rearing of a new Reality
Entrusts itself entirely to You!
Go You thus forth!—
Our time,
DESCEND!
at last,
has come!—
DESCEND!
150
DESCEND!
And I obeyed!...
My chalice overflown with sibyled fire,
My crystal uncompounded to the pale,
I cast myself beyond all known extent,
And, crested by transcendent-taken love,
White wings surrendered to an alien wind,
Frontiered
the term
of long-expectant space!
160
I was the most devoted vanguard of
The conquest bright-cascaded on that world—
Or,
rather,
on the world that would become:
Down-hurtling through a nascent-bounded want,
Still-tremored arches tracing carefully
The unseen scepters of my early rule
That, lancing the abyss with beaconous
Aplomb, transfixed in sweet obedience
170
—born puissance of a better legion’s fall!—
Its black, composureless infinitude,
I arced, chaste arms outstretched, this just-souled
sphere
And wove through it my sun-anointed threads!—
And there,
at last,
my spirit, drunk with art,
Enveloping the all in gold-kissed clouds,
Alighted long and tenderly upon
The angel-infancy of its new life.
24
May 7, 2024
180
That novel earth!—
That novel ecstasy!—
Soft-glowing afterbirth of my travail,
Display of heaven free-diasporaed
Upon the pinioned sovereignty of doves!—
How could this tongue, belaid as it now is
With the offense so freshly brought by you,
False man, against this place that I had longed
To make your peace and rightly-reckoned love,
Hope to convey the queerness of the joy
190
That I, perched trembling on the pinnacle
Of my yet-tempered, still-enpalaced spire,
Experienced on that primeval morn?—
My fingers knit and raised instinctively
To glory in the new-beheld extent
Of their accomplished craftsmanship and cleave
The tranquiled vastness of the virgin wind
Was but the image and the indicant
Inhering in the happy nausea of
My undenominated form:
200
the eyes
Refulgencing the firmamental tears
With which they had been overcome;
the skin
Embracing, reverently, the paragon
Whose own begot its very breadth;
the robes
Long-mantling and half-matrimonied to
The unexhausted triumph of my dawn;—
What beauty of a god-reined animal!
What progeny of my prolific heart!
210
Thus high-encentering the diadem
Of this young ultimate of youth itself
—As if the lucidest celestial
Moved only to obey the rapture that
Whirled laughing, weeping, through my tender
sense—
I fell
from that
alofted origin
Upon
220
the wonders
of this fledglinged world—
Fell delicate and slow,
now drifting through
�THE GADFLY
όλις
Familiar seas of lilting frankincense
That grazed with tufts of warmly-settled breeze
The flora fanned in splendor uniate
And myriad,
now blazing secret paths
Across a sinless nature’s sanguine whole, 230
The condescension of my naked feet
Kissed gratefully by her new-trodden silt;
And, sweeping through the final-brimmed milieu
Brought up at length
—at that yet-longed-for time—
In my ambrosial discipline and care
To the extremest fullness of its breath
As though an heiress to her dignity,
I found my last repose
gazed then upon,
240
Through thickets prostrate to their light-loomed
queen,
Laid still within the balmy sweat of sleep
More sound and sweet than any wakefulness,
The crowning innocence of this new life:
You, man,
you, soul,
you, once-beloved child!...
What miracle of thoughtless sanctity,
Blessed nothingness’ fulgid-winking beads,
That vaulted close your vestal-tended sight;— 250
And what swift-surging anima imbued
Beneath the canopy of my caress
That vaulted wide your native everything!—
Can you recall, lost legacy, unto
Yourself
—this self so strangely other than
My own!—
the majesty that then suffused
With unsuspecting grace our idylled age
As you, reclined against me, listened to
The all-entrancing cadence of my heart?
260
The virtue so immaculately wrought
Within your nature’s early fondness was
Itself the mobile of yawned azure
And lullabies of yet-unopaled dusk
That you, led with your hand enveloped tight
In mine, were witness and receiver of:
Within the shimmering horizon caught
Between the coast and far-unfolding day
May 7, 2024
In which you could—through that sublimest space
Still see a glimpse of her bright-smiling face,
Or cooed to by divinest companies
That bent, devoted, over you just as
The thronging stalks of gold, new-mothered by
A giving earth, swayed softly with the wind,—
There was but you in all—and all in you:
New-perfect universe, and all its fruits!
And so it was, my love—
and so it was
For it to have become.
280
§5.
And yet—
in time—
—Forever-disparate life extended toward
The rest from which it now had rent itself—
You came to know
—or,
rather,
not to know—
From the yet-effervescent multitude
Of your young-mastered mind,
290
at last,
at once,
A something null and dumb:
an oversight—
An ignorance—
a negligence—
a shade
East-lengthening, in fevered latency,
Against the ever-trusting radiance
That even then,
300
in love,
had cradled you.
In love!—
what darling jewels inlaid themselves,
Bouquet of ardor girdled by my light,
Unceasingly upon the porous clear
So soon uncurtained to their end?
—and what,
Ill-consecrating soul,
delight was there
310
—And is there now—
within the mewling pale
So swiftly and so anciently enrapt
By my world-spectruming supremacy?—
Why, then,
25
�όλις
THE GADFLY
how, then,
in such high auspices
Authentic to the beautiful-itself
Immersed by me
—by me!—
320
as you then were,
Did you,
unstanchioning your promised beams,
Indulge,
away from our since-sylvaned shrines,
Yourself
in this slight animal we wore?—
Was it,
perhaps,
a new-emergent will,
330
Proud argent of the vale between two worlds
Faint-emblemed on your heart, and its undue
Appraisal
that led you, inclining toward
A foreign life for foreignness’ sake,
To see yourself in that dull impotence,
Apart from me in essence as it is,
Which my omnipotence had overwhelmed?
Such strange volition!—
you had scarce begun
340
To know yourself, ensconced serene within
A shell of glass still moltened by my smile,
When,
in that very selfhood’s name,
you broke
Forth from the light in which the mirror that
You coveted alone had come to be!—
So in a new-acquired impudence,
Sun-scorning satellite
now whirling low
Beneath my feet in love-dimmed reverie,
350
which once had so
Enduringly and easily enwreathed
That early world of mine
360
26
—of ours!—
return;
But from this sin now native to its whole,
Fresh-blighted fruit of imperfection willed
By you and you alone
—all injury,
All blasphemy, and all dishonesty!—
My spirit, dead to blood-drenched centuries,
Returns,
despairing,
370
to its early peak
That seems
—with the exhausted sympathy
Of untold deities—
to point to the
Contentment of a time before your own.
What self-unbeautied sight’s opprobrium,
Deaf to the harmony of its own birth,
Became, in that unprovidenced descent,
Of your once-noble nature’s life—
380
and mine!—
And what trace of that cherished childhood,
All-justifying diamond of my fall,
Remains now in your eyes?...
—that trace alone
Which marks, in sad familiarity,
A facet of what heaven,
once,
had formed,
And the profundity of what was lost.
390
§6.
You founded your own order in the world
Whose own,
my own,
alone
could be your peace.
And never would that peace,
May 7, 2024
Unfaithful man!—debasement of the world,
Profaner of the ancient innocence
Departed from your doomed posterity!
Ungovernable child!
—I leave you here,
You, to abide forever in the filth
That you have found and come so much to love
While I take wing toward kindred-grieving stars;
And there, resigned above at last, forget
This trembling memory of golden dust.
400
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
XIII. Death
By B.S.
Well my friend,
It seems to be about closing time. The jokes
have been told, the policies have been satirized, my
every emotion has been parodied and played out for you
in public format. As my father used to say, the
chicken’s plucked, the taxes ducked, the world is
fucked, so we might as well enjoy the weather.
I’ve been asked quite frequently: was it worth it,
selling your soul to this lovely devil masquerading as a
quirky little liberal arts college? Does a bear bear in the
woods? Oh absolutely. You’ll forgive me a moment,
then, as I divulge some final senior knowledge and
things about myself. Consider this my last laugh.
At heart, I am a coward, a room Johnnie who
can do little more than smile and nod in social
situations. I’m lucky to have as a roommate the closeted
straight man and love doctor Benjamin Maier who
forced me to actually socialize. But how does a muddle
of a man like me make it work? I’d like to say
something about saying yes, about taking risks, about
slowly building up a community of friends that really
and truly support you. The real answer is actually a lot
simpler:
Y’all are fucking weird.
There’s nothing more heartening than knowing
that doing my best impression of a cat boy (ears and all)
will, in fact, be a quickly forgotten part of the party,
overshadowed by the people who made out on the
couch, the large amounts of drugs ingested, and the
shaking of the aforementioned roommate’s hips. If I
ever had ‘a people,’ I don’t think it should surprise
either of us that they partook in every vice, including
the worst of all: cringe. And god bless us for it.
The only thing I’d change about my time here
(other than the pandemic and the dropout rates and the
fights with friends and—) is just taking that weird ol’
beast by the scruff of its neck and taking it for a ride
more often. There are gonna be crazy opportunities to
do things which you’ve never even thought about. Take
every last one.
And don’t forget: write it all down for the
Gadfly.
It’s been good.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
—B.S.
27
�THE GADFLY
όλις
May 7, 2024
Benediction for a Johnny
By Henry David Hills
G
raveyards teem with life,
and this life will never die.
May it grow forever;
may it choke up the tombs.
These Grecian urns are fair,
the fare to earn the world.
The man who longs after them
in the end will be held by them.
May doors be doors
and windows windows,
lest rich be poor
and housewives widows.
28
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
tomorrow
By Natalie Goldman
Take thirteen steps back,
Toe to heel,
And tell me again that you
Can’t feel time’s magnificent hands
Pushing against your back.
You’ve only gotten used to
The lack of resistance
Because your strides don’t change
From one day to the next.
Tomorrow, walk with your own purpose,
Unborrowed from anything.
Rhythm will come to you herself
And hold your hand in hers.
29
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Doors of St. John’s: A Meditation By Troy Herner-Brown
Randall Hall Front Door (from SJC Digital Archives)
“Doors forget but only doors know what it is doors forget.”
- Carl Sandberg
The double doors of Mellon basement point in opposite
directions. Presumably this is so that instead of being easy to
move things one way and very hard to move them back it is
moderately difficult to move in both directions. I feel that the
extremes of life have been robbed from me and replaced by a
blasé mean.
-The door to Gilliam is incredibly heavy. As a believer in
kratocracy, I appreciate that we ensure that only those strong
enough to hold a phalanx are able to enter the nicest dorms.
-“Just the other day I walked into the Spector basement commonroom door (glass door, invisible) at full speed, forehead first,
and I might have seen god,” says a senior. He seemed to treat
this as an annoyance, but I find it beautiful. The image of God
can only be found in that which contains no image of its own.
30
-Sometimes opening one of the lab classroom doors will cause
the other to close. I suspect quantum entanglement.
-While doors connecting to the outside close gently, dorm doors
slam shut with a bang. So, in the event of an invasion, our first
warning would only come when the enemy is already within our
dorms. Just like the Trojans, we would not have reason to fear
until after the enemy had already breached our inner walls.
-The door of the Men’s restroom in Mellon squeaks in a way that
sounds uncannily like a puppy being kicked. I find this
distressing, but when I tell people this they tell me what's more
concerning is how familiar I am with the sound of a puppy being
kicked. I choose to ignore them.
-The doors to the first floor of McDowell are both too small and
too heavy, I imagine their density must rival that of a great star.
I wonder if their sinister secret purpose is to send tenured tutors
plummeting to early retirement. The agents of the state often
take unsuspecting forms after all.
-In Pinkney, there is a delay between when your key card scans
and when the automatic door opens, as if the door takes a
moment to judge whether you are worthy of entry. I worry that
some day soon I will scan my card only to discover I am no
longer one of the elect.
-Two years ago the acting DC president was trapped in a Gilliam
bathroom for 30 minutes. I suspect the doors have begun to take
an interest in our political affairs, and I fear for our future.
-“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear to man as it is,
Infinite.”
says
William
Blake, but as per above I
worry if the doors of
perception were cleansed
they would be too hard to see
and we’d walk right into
them.
-The doors of the Fishbowl
are indistinguishable at a
glance from the floor length
glass
windows,
distinguishing doors from
walls moves from an
unconscious to a conscious
process. Ironically, uniform
transparency results in the
most oppressive kind of
opaqueness. But I think this
is an important life lesson:
one must often work to
discern the true pathways
from the false.
�όλις
THE GADFLY
May 7, 2024
Last Lines of the Spring Semester
Sophomores: The Tempest by William Shakespeare
“Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned be,
Let your indulgence set me free.”
Juniors: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“Tom’s most well, now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard for a
watch, and is always seeming what time it is, and so there ain’t nothing more to write
about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to
make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it and ain’t agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to
light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt
me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”
Freshmen & Seniors: Phaedrus by Plato
Socrates: Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in
the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the
wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and
he only can bear and carry.—Anything more? The prayer, I think, is enough for me.
Phaedrus: Ask the same for me, for friends should have all things in common.
Socrates: Let us go.
May we keep each other in our prayers as we go and grow be er and
more beautiful while we are apart. A fond farewell to the polity!
31
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Croquet Fairies (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
St. John’s Forever
True love of wisdom is sheltered in her halls.
Seekers of virtue will answer to her call.
Books and a balance are all the tools we need.
St. John’s forever! She will make us free.
should either be in Google Docs or
PDF format.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
32 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XLV, Issue 10
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XLI, Issue 10 of The Gadfly. Published May 7, 2024.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Briner, Luke (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-05-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
College students' writings--Periodicals
College student newspapers and periodicals
St. John's College--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gadfly Vol XLV Issue 10
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c975a9f1eb28808641bd44b9361c1f9b.pdf
32e30ae785a2c45f86db1fcaad9b1cc3
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
BADFLY
The (Anti-Naval) GOAT
April 22, 2024
Vol. XLV, Issue 9
�CONTENTS
Not-Quites by Pamar Tinsky
3
A Review of All the non-Dorm Bathrooms on Campus,
‘cause Someone’s Gotta Do It -- for the George Costanza in
All of Us by Pamar Tinsky
4
Class Analysis from the 1896 Rat Tat SJC Yearbook
7
Wear To Go: Fashion Musings to Carry Along With You by
Pamar Tinsky
8
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
DukeÊPickleman
MANAGING
EDITOR
ENKÊ(EnigmaticÊ
NobleÊKing)
MonkeyÊ#1
STAFF
i made this at four in the morning during writing period by
Gatalie Noldman
10
The Man Behind the Initials: An Exclusive, Tell-All
Interview with B.S. by Nl’ad Kichols-Eaufman and S.B.
11
Let’s Play: Spot That Tutor arranged by Rosemary the goat
14
The Game of Getting Through St. John’s College
16
USNAÊInfiltrationÊ
SquadÊPressÊAgency
PinkneyÊÊPooper
B.S.’sÊRitualÊGiraffe
MonkeyÊ#2
SJCÊDigitalÊ
Archives
YOUT
RosemaryÊ(theÊ
GOAT—literally)
None
CONTRIBUTORS
(you’veÊdoneÊ
groupÊprojects,Ê
youÊknowÊhowÊ
theyÊgo)
Letter from the (Layout) Editor:
Happy April! Hopefully this edition of
the Badfly gives you a good laugh and
puts a smile on your face.
- Rosemary the GOAT
MortimerÊJ.ÊAdlerÊLaughingÊwithÊaÊGroupÊofÊStudents
A Brief News Report
After lengthy efforts, the USNA Infiltration Squad, our most valuable underground club, has succeeded in
breeding an intelligent goat capable of acting as a spy (pictured on front cover). This goat, codenamed
Rosemary, will be raised with the best education we can offer to prepare for her mighty task. She will be
trained in cutting edge intelligence gathering techniques, covert communications, and a full course of human
languages (though she’ll have to learn to speak Midshipmanese before she learns any of those). In order to
complete her disguise as a male goat, she will have her horns replaced with larger artificial ones (packed to
the brim with state of the art surveillance equipment).
When Rosemary is ready, she will be sent to the USNA goat selection competition, where she will outperform
all other normal goats (thanks to some well placed bribes and a vigorous course of steroids) to become the
next Bill the Goat. From her position as USNA mascot, she will feed SJC all necessary information to at last
overthrow the tyranny of the Navy and establish Johnnie supremacy across all of Annapolis.
2
�THE BADFLY
Find little laughs here!
April 22, 2024
Not-Quites
These are not quite jokes, not quite anythings; I’m not quite sure what they
are. But they ought to get a little chuckle out of ya.
1. Product idea: banana peels with little bumps on them, so that you can
prank your friends by putting a banana peel in their path, but avoid being
too mean, for they won’t actually slip and fall, thanks to the bumps.
2. New ways of asking if someone is a dog person or a cat person—are you
a dog person or are you a both person? Do you hate cats or do you like
them?
3. Did you hear about the new hair regrowth method that uses electricity?
It’s called hair plugs.
4. What do you call a caterpillar that chomps leaves into little chopped
salads? A Catererpillar.
5. How do colorblind people know when to stop eating a slice of
watermelon? That’s what the little white in between part is for.
6. He “lied through his teeth”—as if teeth are some sort of filter that only
lets true statements pass!
7. How do you wash a baseball cap?
8. Someone who fears the paranormal and has poor spice tolerance would
not like ghost peppers...
9. Tables are lonely because all the chairs have friends :(
10. The Littlest Sweat Shop! A sewing kit for children.
3
�3 guys walk into a bar...
THE BADFLY
April 22, 2024
A Review of All the non-Dorm Bathrooms on
Campus, ‘cause Someone’s Go a Do It -- for
the George Costanza in All of Us
Determining the best bathroom is not an exact
science; it is complicated, often subjective, not to
mention crude. At the same time, bathroom
information is useful information. How else will you
know where to go?
There are many different uses for bathrooms,
and therefore many different criteria for telling what
makes a bathroom great.
I came up with eleven categories of criteria. Then I
assigned each a number of points. The bathroom to
follow the most criteria – and therefore have the most
points – ought to be the most satisfactory.
Here are the criteria (with certain specifics
elucidated upon) and the total possible points a
bathroom could be awarded for each category:
1. Convenience of location (near classrooms or
not, near a water fountain or not) – 3 points
2. Privacy of stalls (size of cracks at the bottom,
4
size of cracks at the side, OR single stall) – 3
points
3. Likelihood of being not crowded – 3 points
4. Water quality (automatic or not, reliability of
sensor, temperature, pressure) – 4 points
5. Soap quality (automatic or not, reliability of
sensor, reliability of there being soap, good or
bad type of soap) – 4 points
6. Paper towel quality (automatic or not,
reliability of sensor, quiet or loud sound) – 3
points
7. Stall doors quality (open in or out, quality of
lock, whether there is a coat hook) – 3 points
8. Ease of flushing – 2 points
9. Sufficient trash cans – 2 points
10. Inclusivity (regarding gender, regarding
people with disabilities) – 2 points
11. Hand sanitizer – 1 point
�… the 4th one ducks.
THE BADFLY
Therefore the total possible number of points,
resulting in the perfect bathroom, is 30 points. Are
higher point numbers directly correlated to better
bathrooms?
According to the ratings, the non-dorm
bathrooms from best to worst are:
1. Mellon (single) with 22 points or 73.33%
satisfaction
2. BBC (single) with 20.5 points or 68.33%
satisfaction
3. Coffeeshop AND Library (single) tied with 19
points or 63.33% satisfaction
4. Dining hall with 17.75 points or 59.17%
satisfaction
5. McDowell with 17.25 points or 57.50%
satisfaction
6. Mellon (back hall) with 17 points or 56.67%
satisfaction
7. Mellon (Mitchell museum adjacent) with 16.5
points or 55.00% satisfaction
8. BBC with 16.25 points or 54.17% satisfaction
9. Gym with 15 points or 50.00% satisfaction
10. Mellon (2nd floor) 14.5 points or 48.33%
satisfaction
11. Mellon (Hodson room adjacent) with 12
points or 40.00% satisfaction
April 22, 2024
Upon reflection, some of these ratings make
sense while others do not. Where does the problem
lie?
I think there are three main flaws with the
analysis:
1. Other criteria were left out – forgotten (I can’t
believe I forgot toilet paper!), avoided for the
sake of not insulting maintenance staff, or
difficult to put into words and quantify
2. A laxity in record taking on my own part
3. A conflictingness between certain criteria
This last flaw is crucial. For I could not help
but wonder why it seemed that the bathroom near the
Hodson room was never without a visitor, despite it
having next to no privacy, broken locks, manual
water that is easily too hot, and soap only sometimes.
But the answer was obvious – it came down to the
convenient location. People do not use the Hodson
room bathrooms because they are nice; rather,
because they are in a rush. Would it have made sense
then, to allot more points to conveniency of location,
given how much importance people clearly give to it?
But then one runs into another problem – the more
convenient a bathroom is, the more likely it is to be
crowded. Whereas the uncrowded single bathrooms
are less convenient.
5
�Broken pencils...
THE BADFLY
Therefore it seems there are two main
purposes for bathrooms – quick places for when you
are in a hurry, and private places when you need
some more time. Perhaps it was a tad foolish to lump
the two together to find the ultimate bathroom, when
really there ought to be two ultimate bathrooms – one
for convenience, and one for comfortability.
If one removes the points of convenience of
location from the ranking, then the highest scoring
bathroom is the Mellon single bathroom. If one only
looks at convenience of location, then the highest
scoring bathroom is the Mellon Hodson room
adjacent bathroom. Two very different bathrooms.
But is it impossible to try and find some
middle ground? Maybe not. One bathroom, though
not visibly liked in the ranking system, has been
found to be a student favorite. While not super
convenient, it is not terribly far from many
classrooms. It is relatively private, it always has soap,
it has a crowdedness rating of 1.5 out of 3 – it is the
back hallway new Mellon bathroom. The only
complaint about this bathroom is that it can be cold.
According to freshman Nathan Zewdie, this
bathroom is “pretty great.”
It was with Zewdie’s help, as well as that of
senior Stephaun Turner, that I was able to include the
men’s bathrooms’ ratings. The ratings displayed in
the above charts are averages of the women’s and
men’s bathroom scores – often the two scores would
mirror each other, but a few held stark differences.
For example, the men’s bathroom in the dining hall
has a crack in the wall; this is not an issue in the
women’s bathroom. Another difficult men’s
bathroom situation is in McDowell, where there is
only a single bathroom that they can use. On the plus
side, it has a changing table!
Zewdie and Turner elucidated upon the sorts
of “personalities” some of the bathrooms presented,
supplementing my point system with their
observations. My quanitifcation falls short of
considering perhaps the most important factor in
what makes a bathroom satisfactory: vibes -- which is
where Zewdie and Turner come in. Therefore,
combining their nuanced evaluations with my
calibrated assessing ought to determine the true
winner of the title of Best Bathroom.
Starting with the BBC – they seemed to like
this bathroom, and Turner noted that it satisfied many
of the criteria – but Zewdie remarked that it had the
“personality of a brick.” Therefore, although the BBC
bathroom is not reflected terribly in my ratings, it
6
April 22, 2024
appears that it would not be anyone’s first choice,
most likely.
Similarly, the bathroom near the Mitchell
museum, while being neither highly or lowly rated,
was deemed to have the personality of “a man in a
suit.” I took this to mean that it was formal and nice,
but perhaps a bit too much so for ideal comfortability.
Turner found the bathrooms near the Hodson
room to be despicable, as they had hand sanitizer
dispensers that dispensed soap instead.
The gym bathroom had an apt description -“personality of a bro.”
The coffeeshop was found to be quite
favorable, fairly aligning with its rating on the point
system.
The most positive reaction they had was
regarding the single bathrooms in Mellon. However,
they were concerned about expressing this sentiment,
for fear that these bathrooms would start being used
by too many people.
Therefore the contenders for best bathroom
are the coffeeshop and the bathrooms in the back
hallway of Mellon – third place and sixth(!) place on
my list.
It is interesting that the winning bathrooms
are more average; moreover, their averageness may
be an advantage. For they are only somewhat
convenient such that one does not have to go way out
of their way to use them, but they are not right next to
any classrooms. And thus, they are never extremely
crowded, and they reliably have soap. By not being
perfectly convenient nor perfectly private, these
bathrooms manage to be a satisfactory middle
ground.
Maybe this is to say, that even regarding
bathrooms, moderation is the way to go. Unless, of
course, you have to drop a deuce.
�April 22, 2024
THE BADFLY
… are pointless.
ClassÊAnalysis,ÊfromÊtheÊ1896ÊRatÊTatÊ
SJCÊYearbook
SourcedÊfromÊtheÊSJCÊDigitalÊArchives
7
�Why don’t hedgehogs...
THE BADFLY
Wear To Go
FashionÊMusingsÊtoÊ
CarryÊAlongÊWithÊYou
The tragedy of Hamlet
tells
many
meaningful
messages about honor and
revenge, and it also sneaks in
a message about the importance of clothing. Polonius
imparts wise words of wisdom to his son, Laertes:
“for the apparel oft proclaims the man.”
There is certainly truth in that statement – the
clothes we wear impact how others perceive us, as
well as influence our own perceptions of ourselves.
Professional clothing may even lead us to act more
professionally. (Think again before wearing sweats to
seminar!)
I was considering this idea of our clothing
communicating a message to others, in tandem with
the rest of the ways we present ourselves. How much
of a difference does clothing really make?
An idea came to my mind – and the problem
is, I could have sworn that I read about it in a book,
or in a study, but I searched and searched and could
not find it. Forgive me, you will have to rely on my
fuzzy memory.
The text I had read gave a limitation to the
influence of clothing, and did so by considering overthe-top outfits, be they unconventional or overly
spiffy. Researchers had found that the same clothing
could both help or hinder the wearer. For a very
intelligent person, a strange outfit adds to the
8
April 22, 2024
character of an eccentric genius. Whereas for a not so
smart person, such clothing enhances a persona of
simpleminded oddball.
Combining the ideas of “the apparel
proclaims the man” and “clothes can help or hinder,”
I have come across a new theory of clothing, as
displayed in the graphs below.
AlmostÊDirectÊCorrelationÊBetweenÊDressingÊSmartÊ
andÊLookingÊSmartÊ(GeniusesÊareÊtheÊexception)
This first graph represents the perception
people have of those wearing “normal, put-together
but not trying too hard” clothing, ranging from not
smart people to very smart people. As you can see in
the graph, dressing this way increases what others
think of you, unless you are a genius, in which case,
there’s not much that this type of clothing will do for
you.
IfÊYouÊThinkÊYouÊFallÊatÊtheÊRight-MostÊSide,ÊYou'reÊ
ProbablyÊatÊtheÊLe Ê
This second graph represents the perception
people have of those wearing “strange, shabby, or
�… just share the hedge??
THE BADFLY
over the top” clothing, ranging again from not smart
people to very smart people. As you can see in the
graph, dressing this way will hurt your appearance
drastically if you are not smart, and it will hurt you
somewhat if you are of average intelligence, and it
will do wonders for you if you are of brilliant brains.
Thus, there are four types of people – those
who are smart in both mind and attire, those who are
smart in mind but not attire, those who are smart in
attire but not in mind, and finally, those who are
neither
smart
in
mind
nor
attire.
One question remains – which one are you?
Answer the multiple-choice questions below to find
out which category you fall under – let's call them
“smart,” “eccentric,” “dandy,” and “fool.”
April 22, 2024
Questions:
1. It’s seminar night. What are you wearing?
a. My favorite corduroy pants.
b. Whatever shirt I put on this morning.
c. Purple tie! Purple shoes!
d. The same hoodie I always wear.
2. Which scenario do you find yourself in the most?
a. Someone repeats the point you made ten
minutes ago.
b. That kid across the room is furiously
nodding at you as you speak.
c. You go on for a lovely two minutes only
to get silence in response.
d. Someone goes to the bathroom just when
you were planning on leaving the room.
3. You get most excited about...
a. My oral! I think I’ll wear my argyle tie.
b. The new math paper I got assigned.
c. Plans to go thrifting later!
d. Bedtime
4. What do you think your tutors think about you?
a. They probably like me; I’m a decent
student.
b. I hope they aren’t annoyed at me always
interrupting them.
c. Have they noticed that I always remember
to wear pink on Wednesdays?
d. There was that joke I made that one time –
they must think I’m the bee’s knees.
5. The kind of compliments you get are...
a. Nice sweater!
b. Did you do the language homework yet?
c. You look so cute today!
d. What’s your last name again?
Count up all your letters! If you got mostly as, you
are a Smart Johnny. If you got mostly bs, you are an
Eccentric Johnny. If you got mostly cs, you are a
Dandy Johnny. And finally, if you got mostly ds,
sorry to break it to you, but you are a Fool Johnny.
9
�I can give you anaphylytic...
THE BADFLY
April 22, 2024
iÊmadeÊthisÊatÊfourÊinÊtheÊmorningÊduringÊwritingÊperiod
Shingled canvas, black as dawn,
Hangs on that insidious wall
In the great room,
Surrounded by countless other
Bawdy depictions of hazy summers
And young Edwardian women in curls.
Every inch of space is diseased
By a mess of line, shape, or color.
Luckily, the foyer is much more
Pleasing to the eye,
With its fleur-de-lis wallpaper
And oak-framed silver mirror.
How much more respectable it is
To have a nice place to observe
One’s complexion or teeth
Or to run a comb through one’s hair
Than to stand in that dreaded dark room
And be forced to examine oneself.
The Annapolis Cat
Strangler
Johnnies…lock up your furry friends. There’s a
cat-astrophic criminal on the loose. Far from a simple
cat burglar, something—or someone—is decimating
the feral cat population of Annapolis. Freshmen this
year have hardly reported any cat sightings around
town. Ms. Berthel (’27), who consistently takes long
walks around the area, asks her fellow students to
“Think about it, when’s the last time you saw a cat?”
This shocking lack of felines may not be entirely
coincidental. In fact, some have even suggested that
there’s a purr-petrator behind this madness. The
corpses of unfortunate cats with evidence of
strangulation wounds have been found strewn about
Annapolis alleyways. Witnesses include artists from
the Dapper Dog tattoo studio, and they’ve taken it
10
upon themselves to alert the local population to
anything out of place. Local police have also been
following this strange case, and so far, no humans
have been harmed. However, these happenings leave
many students worried. Although some were
skeptical at first, a quick google search has thankfully
convinced them otherwise. When pressed about his
view of the situation, Mr. Hodges (’27) worriedly
exclaimed, “That’s serial killer behavior!” and
assures that he is “going to lock [his] doors tonight.”
Unfortunately, this news along with the stress of
essay writing period has caused undue stress to some
members of the polity. Once the juniors were alerted
to the alarming mew-s, an anonymous student let out
a desperate cry of “I just Kant take it anymore!” and
collapsed prone onto the floor of Mellon 141. To all
the cats out there, stay safe, and to the rest of the
Polity, it is my most sincere hope that after this clawful human being is thrown in jail, we’ll all be more
relaxed and finally feline fine.
�… shock in a nutshell.
THE BADFLY
April 22, 2024
The Man Behind the Initials: An Exclusive,
Tell-All Interview with B.S.
Pictured:ÊTheÊconfrontation
Everyone on campus knows B.S. That is to say, everyone on campus
who reads the Gadfly, which is everyone who matters. He has built
himself as a campus legend, with irreverent satire of dubious quality,
questionably philosophical interviews, and a general ability to
dedicate far too much of his time to comic bits.
This, of course, is the B.S. we all know. But what’s he really like,
behind the curtain? Why does he do it? Who does he work for?
Why’s he so handsome and amazing and smart and cool and
definitely not rewriting this section of his own interview? The desire
to answer these questions, and many others, leaves much of the
polity in a sleepless anxiety. Maybe that’s just me, though.
This month, I finally got the chance to fulfill this desire, although
unfortunately with only two Gadflies left in the year, I was forced to
include this serious article in the otherwise satirical Badfly. I met
with B.S. on a warm afternoon in late March, in the Fishbowl. He
immediately struck me as a dramatic figure, his turtleneck sweater
and overly tight and short pants accentuating his lengthy
proportion. His face, weathered by four years at St. John’s, showed
the characteristic weariness of the senior, but his eyes, those brilliant
eyes, maintained a spark of life seen in very few of our Johnnies.
He was occupied when I arrived, digitally arranging countless small
photographs of himself on top of a larger photograph, also of
himself. He reluctantly tore himself from that pleasant task, and
rose to greet me. We then adjourned to the vernal air of the Mellon
Courtyard. What follows is an accurate transcript of our
conversation.
El’ad Nichols-Kaufman: To start off, there’s something that’s very
perplexing to me, and I think perplexes most other people who
know you. You could have had a perfectly good computer science
career by now if you had stayed at ASU, and instead you’ve doomed
yourself to Starbucks and adjunct lecturer positions. Why are you
here?
B.S. You know El’ad, I’ve spent a long time contemplating this
question myself. I think, as in all things, I was guided by the
multifariousness of my rather startling mind. There are three reasons
that average men might begin to comprehend. First, ASU is known
11
�A psychic dwarf escaped...
THE BADFLY
as a party school, but what parties do they really have? They drink,
they do drugs, they scream their fading youth into the dark abyss
which comes for all our days. They know nothing of real parties. I
came to SJC because our festivities are necessarily more bacchic,
more inexplicable, more intense by the mere fact that that person
over there doing cocaine off of someone else’s chest is not some
random guy you’ll never see again, but a man who’s in your lab class
that you’ll see in two days, slowly adding information to a file that
contains his entire life though you’ve only spoken to each other once
and only with moderate sexual tension. So I came for the parties.
[Editor’s note: BS spent the last party at his house locked in his
room, ailing with a migraine and doing exactly nothing interesting.
Coward.] Second, I wanted to destroy myself. People going to a large
research university cannot comprehend the simple need to
annihilate all the work that your loving and kind parents put into
you as a human being, leaving little more than a shell filled with
Platonism and a vague memory of Greek paradigms. Third, I was
brought here by the fear of God, which guides all wise men.
E.N.K. How do you manage to write so much? What are you on,
and can I have some?
April 22, 2024
no one else know about this? This is the first formal announcement
we’ve had. I am the nepotism candidate, and I own up to it. The DC
is a corrupt institution. Do you know why I got appointed? It’s
because I know people like you.
You, sir, are the problem. I am the anti-corruption corruption
candidate. When Adam Powers, the most virtuous of men and
politicians, was removed from the council for dubious reasons of
“not showing up to meetings” and “wanting to be removed from the
DC,”I saw into the political soul of this institution. And you know
what I saw? I saw rot. And you know what’s even worse? This
corrupt political institution has gotten to another one of our
beloved philosopher kings, Marshall Cooperman, forcing him to
resign. Now, I have lodged a formal legal complaint with Ms. Helen
Felbek, the so-called “Polity Attorney” and apparently sole arbiter of
justice at this college. What has been the nature of my complaint?
Nowhere in the constitution establishing the DC does it say that
one person cannot hold two delegate positions. Ms. Felbek and the
powers that be, including you yourself, Mr. Nichols-Kaufman, are
attempting to block my being elected to a second delegate position
that I might carry on the great legacy of the class of 2024 till the very
end. I turn now to the people of this great college
and plea to them: look at this tyranny, at this
corruption. First, they appoint me without even
announcing it to the polity, then—and so much
the worse—they attempt to take away our Godgiven American right to interpret the
constitution in the most wild ways we can
justify. I ask, nay, I beg every caring member of
the polity to speak to their class delegates and
anyone else on the DC that they might know
and tell them simply: make BS the double
delegate. If we let the corrupt political
institutions silence us here in the name of
“Common Sense,” they shall soon take away far
greater liberties.
B.S. My writing process is not for the weak. I
begin with a ritual purification involving
[answer shortened for length] Then you must
get the giraffe, the giraffe is essential, as they are
the one true being. [answer shortened for length]
Which made me ask myself, who the hell is Bill
Clinton to tell me about my relationship with
religious figures? [answer shortened for length]
The cold will get to you. It gets to everyone. But
the truly artistic soul must endure. [answer
shortened for length] My preference is for
Bionicles. There’s something truly revelatory in
the way they can move, can stare into your soul.
[answer shortened for length] Had my first
experience with sleep paralysis recently, but the
demons were just my classmates. It did wonders
So the real answer, Mister secretary of the St.
B.S.ÊHimself
for my psyche. [answer shortened for length]
John’s College Delegate Council, if that’s what
Then I get to thinking about my daddy issues, of course and
you really are, the power has gotten to your head. And I want some
naturally leading me back to The Beatles’ classic song “Yellow
of it.
Submarine,” which I have had playing on repeat this whole time,
E.N.K. Moving right along, (uncomfortable chuckle) a recent
though only now is it clear amongst the sound of giraffes, Bill
statistical survey of the Gadfly articles from the past year showed
Clinton speeches, and my own screams. [answer shortened for
that nearly half of them are by you. What do you have to say about
length] Which, all in all, takes me about 2 hours, 27 minutes, 39
that?
seconds. So, really, I think anyone can do it. Even you, El’ad.
E.N.K. You’ve recently been appointed to the Delegate Council.
Has power gone to your head?
B.S. I think the real question people should be asking is, why does
12
B.S. Let me take you back. Not many of you may be able to believe
this, but there was a time where I did not write for the Gadfly. It was
a dark age a year and a half ago. I saw that [something happens here,
B.S. speaking slower] well…we have a great campus community and
�… small medium at large.
THE BADFLY
I saw that my friends and people I knew weren’t all that enthused
about the Gadfly, even though it’s the voice of that community, so I
wanted to inspire people to write really entertaining stuff for it and
actually get involved, which honestly I’ve probably failed at, maybe
even made worse and… sorry [the aggressive glimmer returns to
B.S.’s eyes]. The Gadfly was in a dark age. So I saved it. Simple as
that.
E.N.K. On the topic of your apartment, while doing some
“research” on you, I discovered your room is in fact completely
empty other than a plain, undecorated bed and a single chair facing
the window. Can you explain?
B.S. There was at one point a decoration.
It was a calendar my roommates gave me,
essentially a Toddlers & Tiaras calendar,
but for cheerleading, so a bunch of child
cheerleaders. I had a horrible falling out
with the Dance Mom’s community just
after COVID, so naturally I felt it wrong
to keep this calendar up. Now, my only
decorations are myself and my ego. And a
little plant. I do have a little plant.
E.N.K. This is a question I’ve been obliged to ask by Taylor Waters,
as part of the editorial process of the Gadfly: Where were you on a
certain night a few months ago when a certain video uploaded to a
certain Gadfly affiliated YouTube channel [BSMysteries] showing
someone looking very much like you entering the basement of the
Chancellor Johnson House?
April 22, 2024
blooded American he is, none of this cowardly fidelity to those
bourgeois [The pronunciation actually used by B.S. for this word
cannot be reproduced in the Gadfly due to constraints on
publishing obscenities] cowards. He actually talks to people at
parties, maybe from behind the long distance of an impersonal
mask, but at least he can look you in the eye and not crumple over
with nervousness. B.S. isn’t a person, so much as a state of mind.
When I leave here, B.S. will continue. It is only a question of if
anyone is strong enough to bear it.
E.N.K. What will the Gadfly do without you?
B.S. Nothing much of importance.
E.N.K. I heard rumors that you are boycotting the Badfly.
B.S. Yes, my boycott is for a variety of reasons, most of them highly
moral. The main thing is, as you know, in the past year and a half, I
have transformed the Gadfly singlehandedly. I’ve been the most
prodigious, the most important writer, maybe ever. And now,
they’re inviting other people to come in and say funny things, when
humor is my invention. I took humor from the gods and brought it
to men. And now other people are going to say their own funny
things. I can’t allow it.
E.N.K. Any last words?
B.S. The good man dies in silence. The great man uses his own death
as content.
B.S. For legal reasons, nowhere. But, y’know…[B.S. proceeds to
perform an elaborate pantomime seeming to suggest that he not
only went into the Chancellor Johnson House but every other
building on campus and left a small…something? An egg? Is he
implying he created the greatest Easter Egg hunt of all time? An egg
in each building, hidden away in the most absurd corners, but we
cannot say for certain. It is worth noting B.S.’s legal acumen here,
seeing as pantomime cannot be used against you in a court of law, as
decided in the landmark supreme court decision MILFs (Mimes In
Louisiana and Florida) vs. The United States (1863)].
E.N.K. Why do you write as B.S.? Doesn’t everyone know who you
are?
B.S. There’s something about B_____t S___t, the man, which
disgusts me. He is weak, he talks too much during class, he can
pronounce neither French nor Greek, he got shouted down during
his Leibniz seminar. B.S. has no such problem. He just goes up to
the board, draws something strange and unusual, and you are forced
to simply contemplate it. He speaks French like the goddamn red
13
�An Irishman walks...
THE BADFLY
Let’s Play: Spot that Tutor
April 22, 2024
CanÊyouÊrecognizeÊyourÊfavoriteÊtutorsÊbackÊinÊtheÊgoodÊoldÊdays?Ê
14
�… out of a bar.
THE BADFLY
April 22, 2024
15
�THE BADFLY
April 22, 2024
SourcedÊfromÊtheÊ1986ÊSt.ÊJohn’sÊCollegeÊYearbook
16
�THE BADFLY
April 22, 2024
17
�THE BADFLY
18
April 22, 2024
�THE BADFLY
April 22, 2024
19
�Pictured below: SJC’s next intelligence operative in training,
a turkey preparing to infiltrate the White House through the
annual Presidential turkey pardoning. Success in this
mission promises to secure $10 billion for the funding of the
Program. St. John’s Forever!
THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
The Key to All Mythologies (see p.14-15)
1.
Ma ÊCaswell
12. WalterÊSterling
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
2. ChesterÊBurke
13. DavidÊTownsend
3. JimÊBeall
14. CordellÊYee
4. GeorgeÊRussell
15. PeterÊKalkavage
5. RobertÊGoldberg
16. FawnÊTrigg
6. LijunÊGu
17. JoeÊMacfarland
7. CarlÊPage
18. MichaelÊComenetz
8. WillÊBraithwaite
19. HarveyÊFlaumenha
9. EricÊSalem
20. PatriciaÊLocke
For more information, contact us
10. AndreÊBarbera
21. PamelaÊKraus
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
11. MichaelÊDink
22. RobertÊDruecker
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
PDF format.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
20 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XLV, Issue 9 [Badfly issue]
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XLI, Issue 9 special Badfly issue of The Gadfly. Published April 22, 2024.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Briner, Luke (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-04-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
College students' writings--Periodicals
College student newspapers and periodicals
St. John's College--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gadfly Vol XLV Issue 9
Badfly
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/8c85f96c328fc281acbc0bdabfbc49cd.pdf
6f1273b3e6d7c0ddb1488cfffc4c5358
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
We Live in a Society
March 21, 2024
Vol. XLV, Issue 8
�CONTENTS
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
Λόγος
What is the Best Place to Hang Out on Campus (Or Are
You a Room Johnnie)? by Tamar Pinsky
3
You Shall Orient Your Objects: An Interview with Graham
Harman, (post)Johnnie Philosopher by Bennett Scott
5
I Love Montaigne! Do You? by Tamar Pinsky
15
EDITOR-INCHIEF
MANAGING
EDITOR
STAFF
ΣυμπόσιονÊ
A Demonstration of the Equivalence of Euclid’s Fifth
Postulate, Proposition I.30, and Playfair’s Axiom by Luke
Briner
17
Πόλις
Secret Societies by Jack Webb
19
Paradox Puns by Tamar Pinsky
20
Come For Me, Vol. 1 by Allyson Brink
21
Liberal Arts as a Service by B.S.
22
A Review of Cabrini (2024) by Jack Webb
23
YOUT
CONTRIBUTORS
SJC Digital
Archives
Luke Briner
El’ad NicholsKaufman
Meliha Anthony
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
Louis Rosenberg
Benne Sco
Tuyết-Nhi
Nghiêm
Allyson Brink
Jack Webb
Letter from the Editor
Dear Polity,
Welcome back! We at the Gadfly
hope that you’ve all had a
wonderful spring break. Please
enjoy our eighth issue of the year,
and here’s to finishing the year
strong.
Your editor,
Luke Briner
THE STRUCTURE
Λόγος holds news reports and
narratives of immediate relevance to
the Polity. The purpose here is to
develop a shared reservoir of
information relating to campus life
and the community.
St. John's Students Seated with Musical Instruments, Playing Cards
and Drinking Alcoholic Beverages
←Cover: Architectural Model of Renovated Greenfield Library
2
ΣυμπόσιονÊoffers the opportunity for
our readers to thoughtfully consider
contrasting opinions regarding a
particular topic.
ΠόλιςÊserves as a platform for
elevating voices in our community.
Here we find letters to the editor,
columns, cartoons, and submitted
pieces.
�όγος
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
What is the Best Place to Hang Out on Campus (Or
Are You a Room Johnnie)? By Tamar Pinsky
Male Students Relaxing and Smoking in a Common Room (Source: SJC Digital Archives)
When I look at St. John’s students, sometimes
I wonder—do we get out enough? How many of us
go to class, a club meeting here and there, and then
straight to study and straight to bed?
God, I’m kidding! (Mostly.) From what I can
tell, the student body is bustling all over the place
(have you walked past the fishbowl?).
There is always someone out and about. But
maybe that first bit did hit home for you, in which
case, you should ask yourself: are you a Room
Johnnie?
If you are reluctant to self-diagnose yourself
as such, let me ask instead: do you have a Third
Place?
What do I mean by Third Place? I mean a
communal gathering place that is neither home nor
the workplace (or school-place). Ray Oldenburg, in
his book The Great Good Place, characterized the
Third Place as a location that fosters community, a
neutral place, a home away from home, a place where
conversation is the focal activity.1 Think a café or a
church.
Do you have a Third Place that you spend
leisure time in regularly? If the answer is no, I am
afraid you might be a Room Johnnie. If the answer is
yes, congratulations! But have you ever considered
how important that place is in your life?
According to a paper about potential
1
Oldenburg, R. (1999a). The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the heart of a Community. Marlowe and
Company.
3
�όγος
THE GADFLY
consequences of the closure of Third Places in the
United States:
[T]he social support generated in third places
can be protective to health and wellbeing
across the life course. Third places are often
overlooked, yet represent essential sites to
address society’s pressing challenges,
including isolation,
crime,
education,
addiction, physical inactivity, malnutrition,
and sociopolitical polarization.2
Whether you are aware of it or not, if you
spend ample time in one or more Third Place, you are
doing wonders for yourself.
The options for Third Places at St. John’s are
always changing. Last year, there was no fishbowl.
Next year, there will be a new coffee shop in
Campbell, and it is still undetermined what will
happen to the McDowell coffee shop.
In the current school year, then, what do
students consider to be the best Third Place?
According to a semi-random3 survey of 65 St. John’s
students from years
freshmen to seniors,
the number one best
place to hang out on
campus is the quad.
Receiving 41.5% of
votes, the quad is a
sensible and timeless
choice, as it is in the
center of several parts
of
campus
(McDowell, the dining
hall), people walk
through it on the way
March 21, 2024
to class, and it is rarely under full construction.
The fishbowl won second place—another
unsurprising result. The fishbowl has attracted a large
and increasing number of students (and tutors)—
perhaps migrating from the coffee shop. As one
student put it, “It’s been wonderful having the
fishbowl this year. I honestly can’t remember what
we did when everyone had to pack into only the
coffee shop.”
Speaking of the coffee shop, if you are
wondering how it stacked up—it is still somewhat
popular, ranking third place. It still holds a place in
the hearts of many, but it remains to be answered
how much we need it, and how much we may miss it
next year, depending on what it becomes.
The next two most voted for places were the
gym and the smoking area, ironically. Do with that
information what you will.
Finally, another notable entry was [friends’]
dorm rooms. To be honest, I was not sure whether to
include these responses or not. For they are not
exactly Third Places, given they are not public
spaces. However, it
seems
unfair
to
dismiss them entirely,
as
they
certainly
strengthen community
ties and are a space
where
many
friendships bloom. As
one student summed it
up quite nicely, “Some
of my happiest SJC
memories are hanging
out in dorm rooms.”
2
Finlay, J., Esposito, M., Kim, M. H., Gomez-Lopez, I., & Clarke, P. (2019, November). “Closure of “third places”? exploring potential consequences for collective
health and Wellbeing.” Health & Place (Nov. 2019): 60. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6934089/
3
The survey was conducted using Instagram stories and the SJC email, so students who tend to be offline are unfortunately not well represented. Also, as seen in the
chart below, the responses are mostly from sophomores.
4
�όγος
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
You Shall Orient Your Objects: An Interview with Graham
Harman, (post)Johnnie Philosopher By Benne Sco
Pictured: Two philosophers (Photos from Wikipedia and the kitchen hallway in my apartment, respectively)
Mr. Graham Harman is, and presumably that’s one
of the most interesting things about him. He helped found
Object Oriented Ontology (shortened to OOO throughout
[Professor Harman always puts: “Pronounced ‘Triple-O’”
after he first uses this acronym in a book, but I prefer to
say Oooooo to myself each time I read it]), a new
approach to metaphysics which takes “objects,” their
qualities, and the gaps that exist in those relationships as
primary. His Object Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of
Everything is a wonderful introduction to his thought, but
I’ll be doing my best to give the reader some basics
throughout the course of the interview to make things a
little more comprehensible.
Before we get into the big ideas, it’s worth
clarifying a term we will be using a lot: by “object,”
Harman means anything which is more than its parts and
its connections. This magazine is an object, but so too are
WWII, the internet, and the mitochondria in the heaviest
cell in my body.
Idea 1: Objects and their Qualities have essential gaps
between each other and themselves
Kant in many ways entirely changed the face of
philosophy; in the Critique of Pure Reason, this shift finds
its basis in the difference between noumena (things-inthemselves) and phenomena (things as we experience
them). Almost all post-Kantian philosophy accepts Kant’s
divide of the world into human/everything else, but does
its best to ignore the existence of the things in themselves.
OOO differs in both respects: it is a “flat” ontology,
meaning that humans are given no primacy over other
objects (thought/world is thus not a meaningfully unique
categorization) and it takes the noumena/phenomena
distinction to be extremely important for all inter-object
relations, including in how they relate to their qualities.
This is expressed in a slightly expanded form of Harman’s
chart on page 81 of the OOO book:
5
�όγος
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
OOO is concerned with the ways in which these lines—
the relations between objects and qualities—describe the
various possible connections in the world.
fashionable form suggests that the universe is just a single
vibrating energy field, and so individual entities are just
derivative, temporary crystallizations from the whole.
Idea 2: Science and analytic philosophy focus too much on
under- and overmining
For Harman, there are two forms of knowledge
based on two methods: overmining and undermining.
Overmining treats things as centrally constituted by their
impact (e.x. Water satiates my thirst). Undermining treats
things as centrally constituted by their constituent parts
(e.x. Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen). Much of
modern philosophy and science partakes in what Harman
calls ‘duomining,’ in which the object of interest is both
overmined and undermined (e.x. Humans are social
creatures made from certain types of cells). While these
are the only two forms of knowledge in OOO’s view,
knowledge is not the only goal; art, for example, should
not be expected purely to tell us about its parts nor about
its relationships. Philosophy, too, should not be limited to
mere gathering of knowledge because its treats of objects
and all objects, to Harman, are irreducible to their
components and their effects (there is more to you than all
your relations to the world and all of the particles which
form you). Instead of pure knowledge, philosophy needs
to be oriented towards something more elusive.
From here, I will let my conversation with Mr.
Harman take over for a while:
BS:Ê You have used prolonged examples, including the
Dutch East India Company, to explain your attitudes
towards objects. Why are these ideal examples of objects?
GH: I chose the Dutch East India Company because I
always enjoyed the portion in Leibniz’s correspondence
with Antoine Arnauld that disqualifies certain things from
being real substances: a circle of men holding hands, two
diamonds glued together, or all the officers of the Dutch
East India company. This is what I like least in the
tradition of substance philosophy: its overreliance on
nature as a criterion for real substancehood. Today we are
increasingly interested in artificial and compound objects,
especially technical ones, and we need a new criterion that
allows us to treat such hybrid beings as substances. In my
2016 book Immaterialism I considered the Dutch East
India Company as an object no less real than a tree, and
was pleased with the results.
BS:Ê In terms of combating overmining in particular,
you’ve brought up the idea of a “zero-person” approach to
art and architecture (e.g. Architecture and Objects, 5).
What is a zero-person approach and why is it important?
GH: When I was at St. John’s, a distinguished outside
lecturer came in and said that the whole point of a liberal
arts education is to see that “everything is connected.”
Even at the time, that sounded like an exaggeration. It
leads to an extreme form of holism, which in today’s
In the arts, this takes the form of everyone wanting their
artworks (and architectural works even more so) to be
taken as “site-specific,” and as somehow directly
intervening in social or political questions. I wouldn’t rule
all political art out of court, but it is by no means the case
that an artwork ever relates to the whole of the universe.
Part of the task of an artist is to teach us, however vaguely,
what is excluded from a given work. An artwork asks us to
forget everything else for a while. Now that I teach at SCIArc, a premier architecture school in Los Angeles, I try to
encourage my students to be clearer with themselves about
what parts of a building site they are engaging in dialogue
with and what parts they deliberately ignore. Otherwise,
the dogma of site-specificity turns everything into a
formless blob, like the pre-Socratic apeiron. Everything is
not everything else.
As concerns the term “zero-person,” I came up with that
for a 2009 article in a collection on the philosophy of
mind. One of the recurring debates in philosophy of mind
is between scientistic thinkers who think that mind is
perfectly describable through third-person descriptions of
subpersonal neural components and outward behavior
(Daniel Dennett comes to mind), and the more humanistic
camp who think that first-person mental experience is real
and irreducible to the third-person (such as David
Chalmers). Both of these seemed wrong to me, since both
are committed to the idea that mind can be captured in
some sort of description. I don’t think so. The self cannot
be exhausted by scientific descriptions, for the same
reason that it cannot be exhausted by introspective
awareness: otherwise, who would ever need therapy? The
self is never directly present to us. “Zero-person” refers to
the intrinsic reality of selfhood, and both third- and firstperson approaches inevitably fall short of it. In other
words, the zero-person of the psyche is the psyche in its
own right, not the psyche as presented through some
favored means of description, and that’s why we need to
approach it obliquely rather than directly.
6
(Campus of SCI-Arc, Source: SCI-Arc)
�όγος
THE GADFLY
In the book Architecture and Objects I applied this idea to
architecture, as you noted. In the modern period the
leading distinction in architecture is between form and
function, with different camps of architects disagreeing
over how much priority to give to one or the other. But the
problem here is that form is usually described as the visual
look of a building, and function as its immediate purpose,
and there are serious problems with both of these. As for
architectural form, a building has many different looks
depending on the place and distance from which you are
viewing it, the time of day and year, and so forth. But even
more importantly, architecture is more a kinetic experience
than a visual one. We remember ourselves passing through
a series of stations, both inside and outside the building,
and this total experience gets us closer to the form than a
mere postcard view can do. As for architectural function,
we also cannot equate it with the current purpose of a
building. The Italian architect and critic Aldo Rossi wrote
eloquently about how many buildings have a function
different from their original one. So, what you need to do
is look away from the surface purpose and ask about the
“deep function” of the building. The SCI-Arc building
where I work was originally a freight depot for the Santa
Fe railroad, before falling into disuse and becoming a
habitat for homeless people. Then one day, an Uber driver
told me that he used to bribe the homeless to leave for a
night so that he could host rave parties inside. Later it was
purchased and re-developed into an architecture school. If
there’s a deep function of the building, it would be
something like “extended horizontal movement along a
narrow corridor,” and in this form it affects the entire
culture of the school today as much as it affected the other
uses. If you want to avoid somebody at SCI-Arc for any
reason, then you really need to leave the building and go
outside, because there’s only one hallway. But this also
makes it easier to find people when necessary.
BS:Ê You have said in Architecture and Objects (100) that
“every entity must be a compound” and immediately
followed such an interesting statement by saying you
wouldn’t argue it in the book. Would you be able to give at
least an outline of why you think this must be so?
GH: That’s because it’s a technical philosophical question
and I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to develop
and present it. But the basic answer goes something like
this: Kant includes, among his Antinomies [questions
undecidable by reason], the question as to whether there’s
a final layer of physical simples or whether matter can be
cut up infinitely in the way that Aristotle imagined in the
Physics. But far from calling it an Antinomy, I would say
that there must be an infinite regress of entities. Every
entity has specific qualities that make it different from all
others. And I interpret qualities as being that which leaks
out from the combination of two separate entities when
they combine; they combine in a literal way, but the
excess of the parts not used up in the literal combination
March 21, 2024
leak out. You may recall what I said about metaphor in
Object-Oriented Ontology. I’m thinking of the “wine-dark
sea” in the Odyssey. There is no way to translate this
phrase literally into “the Aegean Sea is the same color as
wine,” because that’s both banal and partially false.
Homer uses the resemblance in color as a pretext to assert
the implausible claim that the sea has all of the other
qualities of wine as well: intoxication, danger, oblivion,
and so forth. This is one of the best examples of leakage,
since the superfluous qualities of the wine are left behind
in the air and seem to belong to the sea. When pondering
the metaphor, one thing you are not thinking about is
color, because that’s already been used up as a bonding
agent between the two terms in the metaphor.
BS: One of the central points of your treatment of objects
is the way in which the reality of objects goes beyond
what we can witness, extending Kant’s insight about ‘the
thing-in-itself.’ You have a very interesting quote in Art
and Objects (7) where you say: “The real embraces us
from above no less than eluding us from below.” I was
hoping you could expand on what sort of relationship this
creates between us and reality and how top-down reality
imposes on us.
GH: When people talk about realism, they're usually
talking about something “outside the mind.” I use
quotation marks here because why is the outside always
supposed to be an outside of the mind? Other things have
outsides too, and realism ought to try to say something
about them as well. In any case, the realist philosopher
looks for techniques to go outside and grab that real;
usually this involves the techniques of mathematics or
natural science, in an effort to borrow from the current
superior prestige of these disciplines. But there are also
approaches like Kant’s and Heidegger’s, which recognize
the difficulty of getting at reality directly.
(Harran II by Frank Stella, one of Michael Fried’s
favorite artists; Source: Whitney Museum of Art)
But as for “realism from above,” with this phrase I was
focused on the fact that we as thinkers are real, and that
any time we take an interest in something, we unite with
that thing to form a new sort of hybrid object. More
specifically, I was thinking of Kant’s admonition to
7
�όγος
THE GADFLY
approach art with disinterest. The art historian Michael
Fried, whose Friday Night Lecture in Annapolis during my
student days meant a lot to me, tries something similar
when he speaks out against “theatricality” in the arts.
What Kant and Fried share is the view that the artwork
and the beholder must never be mixed, and this provides
most of Fried’s ammunition against the post-1960s forms
of theatricalized art that he has never liked. But as I see it,
art is made of both artwork and beholder as surely as
water is made of both hydrogen and oxygen. In Art and
Objects, my lengthiest and most serious meditation on
visual art so far I was trying to show the way in which the
human beholder of painting is actually part of the painting
as well. What I was trying to do was show that the
traditional formalism that draws a sharp distinction
between work and observer is not the right kind of
formalism. In fact, they do not have autonomy from each
other; their autonomy is a shared one in which the two
together are partially cut off from the remainder of the
universe, just like hydrogen and oxygen when they meet
to form water. Realism from above means that the real
isn’t just something that eludes our direct gaze, but is also
something that we constantly produce through our
thoughts and actions. There has been a modern tendency
to see humans as having the special feature of
transcending or outstripping the world. I’d rather say that
we are constantly burrowing ever more deeply into the
world, the very opposite of transcendence. Along with
transcendence, there is a tendency to fetishize alienation
and irony due to their supposed position of distance from
the world. Instead, I’d prefer that we celebrate sincerity
and fascination with the world. We humans are curious
cats, and are capable of being intrigued by almost
anything. So why pretend that we’re somehow above
everything as our fundamental feature?
Idea 3: Aesthetics is essential
OOO has a common catchphrase: “aesthetics as
first philosophy.” To this new approach, art is not a
peripheral subfield, but instead is an essential basis for
thought. It’s worth noting that “[b]y aesthetics, OOO
means the general theory of how objects differ from their
own qualities” as alluded to above (Art and Objects, 24).
One of the most important ways in which aesthetics
influences OOO is through metaphor.
How exactly does a metaphor work, for example,
“the wine dark sea”? OOO’s account, in brief, goes like
this: when presented with a metaphor, the two objects
cannot be too literally identical (a truck is like a car) nor
entirely disparate (a star is like a towel), but must overlap
in some way. Once this overlap occurs, many of the nonshared qualities of the one object get put onto the other
(the sea goes from mere wine darkness to having wine’s
other qualities: drunkenness, danger, temptation, etc.). But
what object are these qualities being put onto? We don’t
have direct access to the Real Object (the thing-in-itself)
8
March 21, 2024
of the sea. Instead, we, as readers, take the place of the sea
in the metaphor, performing the combined qualities in
ourselves.
BS:Ê Is the way in which humans must exist for aesthetic
appreciation in some way essential for OOO? In what
areas can we move past human compounds?
GH: We can’t move past human compounds in art, I
would say, since an artwork necessarily has a human
beholder as one of its components. Years ago, after a
lecture in France, someone asked me what “art without
humans” would look like, and I was stumped. It took a
few months before I realized that the question was a
misunderstanding. The point of OOO is to consider the
status of objects independent of human access to them,
and also independent of each other. People tend to forget
the second part and assume that OOO is all about a world
without humans: as if humans were contaminating agents
that ought to be removed from any situation if we are to
learn anything useful. But that’s not OOO, that’s Kant’s
Critique of Judgment, where disinterested contemplation
is said to be the only way to do artworks justice. Of
course, there are plenty of interactions in the cosmos that
do not involve humans as one of the terms, such as a
collision between rocks in distant outer space. Many
people will try to lasso this example too, by saying that
since we are humans thinking about this collision, that
somehow it also involves human thought. This is
effectively how the German Idealists tried to put an end to
Kant’s thing-in-itself. It would take a long discussion to
settle the issue, but the root of the problem is that they
equivocate between two senses of “human thought.”
It is helpful to remember that OOO is primarily an antiliteralist philosophy. Now, there are two ways to explain
what literalism means, and both are genuine parts of the
puzzle. The first sense of literalism is the notion that we
can know what things really are. There are no hidden
aspects of reality, no occult qualities or things-inthemselves, and no truth that cannot be expressed in the
form of clear propositional statements. Modern scientific
rationalism inclines in this direction, but I reject it. The
first reason is that much of reality is simply not
paraphrasable in this way. As soon as you restate a
metaphor, a joke, a threat, or erotic innuendo in terms of
plain old English prose, you have ruined it. Aristotle made
the same point about rhetoric: you’re not supposed to
explain to your audience that “this man has been crowned
three times with laurel” just means that “this man has won
three times at the Olympics.” By doing that you have
destroyed the elegance of the speech, and elegance is
something real, not a superfluous decoration. But there is
also the philosophical case made by such thinkers as Kant
and Heidegger that the real cannot be stated clearly in
prose, or directly perceived. I’m on their side in this
argument. The world is not made of statements, and hence
anything made purely of statements is not the world. This
�όγος
THE GADFLY
isn’t “mysticism,” it’s just the recognition that you can’t
translate one thing into the terms of another without
energy loss. We all know that a globe cannot be translated
adequately into a map.
The other way to explain literalism is by pointing out the
flaw in David Hume’s “bundle of qualities” theory.
Strictly speaking, Hume does not believe in objects. There
is no such thing as an apple. That’s just an abbreviation for
a large number of qualities that seem to go together so
often through customary conjunction that, through sheer
force of habit, we call them an apple as a sort of bulk
nickname. Though it hasn’t often been noticed, the best
refutation of Hume on this point is found in Edmund
Husserl’s phenomenology. The founding insight of
phenomenology is that experience is not of “contents” (as
Husserl’s teacher Brentano still assumed) but of “objects.”
I don’t see pixelated qualities or bundles of qualities, I see
apples. And I consider them the same apples even though
their qualities seem to change wildly from one moment to
the next as the sun moves and my mood shifts.
(Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill by Pieter
Claesz, Source: Met Museum)
To summarize in different words, what OOO is really
about is the surprisingly loose relation between an object
and its appearances, and between an object and its
qualities. Those relations are usually taken to be extremely
tight: for Hume, they are so tight that there is no difference
between an object and its qualities. But to some extent we
knew long before Husserl that objects aren’t bundles of
qualities. Just recall Aristotle’s simple point that Socrates
happy and Socrates sad, Socrates sitting and Socrates
standing, are still the same Socrates. For OOO it is the gap
between the enduring object and its swirling qualities that
is crucial, and this is why most of OOO’s method involves
different ways of driving a wedge between an object and
its appearances and an object and its qualities. We give the
general name of “aesthetics” to all of these gaps, the
March 21, 2024
reason being that aesthetic experience is the easiest place
to find them.
Though, we should recognize that natural science is also
not confined to a literalist outlook, at least not in its best
moments. This already became clearer when authors such
as Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos showed that scientific
statements are either falsifiable (Popper) or already
falsified from the start (Lakatos), which means that they
simply cannot be literal expressions of what reality looks
like..
BS: One of the important qualities in your assessment of
art is that an artistic object cuts itself off from some but
not all connections around it (you give the example that
even the most perfect postmodern piece of art cannot take
into account the location of all the dust in the room). Is
there a way to think about which connections will be cut
off and which maintained?
GH: What I think too often happens, with artists and
architects who aspire to have more than an aesthetic effect
on the world, is that they quickly dive into the deep end of
an untenable holism. For instance, artists often proudly
announce that their works are “site-specific,” and
architects really have no choice but to work with a specific
site. But the point is that no work is infinitely site-specific.
Picasso’s “Guernica” is in part a commentary on the
human rights atrocity of a surprise Luftwaffe bombing in
Spain, but it is deliberately and rightly silent about other
disasters occurring in the same year, such as the
Hindenburg crash. You always have to choose certain
aspects of the site to resonate with your work, while
remaining silent about others. And the more that artists
pay serious attention to demarcating what lies inside or
outside the work, the more we will be back in the
formalist camp. Unlike traditional formalism, a wider
geographical space might now be included in the artwork,
but the whole universe will never be included: an artist
could always try to make a work called “Universe,” but it
is highly unlikely that they will succeed in bringing the
universe as a whole into play aesthetically. The title would
then be a mere word. The artist needs to signal, however
tacitly, what the limits of the work are supposed to be. And
then the artist actually needs to pull it off.
(Exterior of the
Lawrence and
Anne Kistner Shaw
House in Portland
by John Yeon,
Source: dwell.com
[note: I do not
know if Harman
would approve of
this house, but it
suits me])
9
�όγος
THE GADFLY
My St. John’s classmate David Ruy, the person who did
the most to draw me into the architectural world, wrote a
brilliant article about how the understandable
environmental concerns of architecture today run the risk
of architecture dissolving into ecology, which is another
example of how holism can go too far. If we do the
calculations on a building’s desired carbon footprint
limits, there are still many different design paths that can
lead one to achieve the desired result. It follows that
architecture, like art, cannot just be a branch of climate
science, of Marxism, or of anything else. By no means do
I agree that politics or themes of social protest have no
business anywhere near art. There are too many counterexamples, in visual art and literature, of works that were
able to pull off aesthetic and political work
simultaneously. But there is no master discipline holding
the ultimate moral high ground. And whenever people
start to behave as if there were, what you get is nothing
more than Puritanism at work. In fact, these days I fear
that the academic world is becoming nothing more than
Puritanism in different guise, as if the point were merely
to hold a giant sit-in about reality in general and complain
about how horrible everything is. That’s too big and too
unrealistic a mission for anyone. There are important finite
breakthroughs to be made; they don’t all need to save the
world.
BS: In relation to architecture, you’ve spoken of how
actual buildings have different requirements than
philosophical ideas; for example you speak of how
Derridean architects must “tempe[r] Derrida’s excessive
love of nonidentity with architectural fact” (Architecture
and Objects, 38). Are there ways in which enacting OOO
in actual architecture has changed your views?
GH:Ê I should admit that I’m not Derrida’s biggest fan,
but, more to the point, Derrida was intellectually close for
a while to the American architect Peter Eisenman. Their
relationship fell apart in a classic exchange of open letters,
right around the time I graduated from St. John’s. The
reason I find Derrida’s side of that correspondence so
frustrating is that he raises what I take to be largely
pointless claims about Eisenman misusing words: such as
Plato’s chora, or even “absence.” Eisenman’s response
was effectively: “I can’t play games with words all day. I
have to design something that won’t collapse on the heads
of its users.” Derrida can claim all he wants to challenge
the principle of identity—though I don’t think he
succeeds—but Eisenman cannot do so without causing
mass casualties.
This is one way Eisenman helps remind us of the modern
philosopher’s disease: the notion that ideas are always
most successful when pushed as far as possible, as if
screaming were always the right tone of voice. Today, for
example, the French philosopher Alain Badiou is
disappointed in Alban Berg for making atonal music
palatable to the listening public. The notion seems to be
10
March 21, 2024
that ideas are automatically best when in their most
concentrated form, and that anything less amounts to
watering them down. I don’t think so. The reason for
compromise in thought is not to water down or sell out.
It’s because of the realization that the world itself is also a
component of ideas, perhaps in the same sense that the
beholder of an artwork is part of the artwork. If there were
a form of oxygen unable to bind with hydrogen, would we
call it the “best” kind of oxygen just because it doesn’t
lower itself to dealings with hydrogen? That would be
odd. Yes, I’m a philosopher who emphasizes the prior non
-relationality of things, but that’s only because relations
take work and we need to do work to explain how they
happen, not because relations are too degrading for
individual things. If Derrida were designing buildings, he
might have better realized that his critique of self-identity
is both unnecessary and a bridge too far. Throwing a
baseball 1,000 feet is not better than throwing it forty-five
feet, given the spatial range over which baseball games
take place.
(Eisenman’s City of Culture of Galicia, Source:
Eisenman Architects)
As for OOO and architecture, I’m not directly involved in
designing buildings, but I do have friends who design, and
I do look at and comment on a lot of student design work.
One advantage I think architects have over philosophers is
that they are always bringing their skills to bear on finite
problems requiring finite solutions. This means that they
need to take various sorts of constraints more seriously
than we do. Philosophy is not a discipline that is fond of
constraints, except whichever ones it inherits without
comment and then defends to the death when challenged.
BS: Has your philosophy, in turn, changed how you look
at particular buildings or works of art?
GH: It does provide me with certain tools for looking at
particular works in a new way. But my preference has
actually been to look at art and architecture as a way of
trying to “falsify” the current version of my philosophy at
any time. Here’s what I’m worried about. Consider
Clement Greenberg, a controversial figure, but no doubt
�όγος
THE GADFLY
(Westminster Abbey, London; Source: Architectural
Digest)
the greatest art critic America has ever produced. He
speaks highly of his own “eye,” and of how much he trusts
it. For a long time I took that statement at face value. But
after years of reading him, I came to the conclusion that
his success was less about his eye and more about his
underlying theory. That’s why I think the best way to train
one’s eye is to look for disproof of one’s own favored
aesthetic theories. Artworks serve best as falsifiers rather
than verifiers of philosophies. In museums and galleries,
what I often look for are things that I should hate but
don’t.
For instance, in architecture, since I had no very defined
architectural taste before starting to teach at SCI-Arc in
2016. Before then, my judgments were impulsive and
personal. But from working and talking with architects,
and from studying architectural history, I’ve become a lot
more sophisticated in this area. I’ve also shifted towards
liking more complex and intricate architecture, including
such styles as Gothic and Renaissance, while maybe I’ve
grown tired of High Modernism.
Once I was reading something about Gothic architecture
that struck me. Modern architecture sees space as a preexistent whole that can be analytically carved up, but
Gothic architecture proceeds more by agglomeration. You
have a building, and then you add something onto it, and
then add something else, and then something else. That
sort of hybridization has interested me in a couple of other
contexts as well. For example, when I started reading
about Lynn Margulis and her non-Darwinian approach to
evolution through serial endosymbiosis. Individual
creatures are not cut off from each other over the course of
history, but often invade each other parasitically, so that
evolution really occurs less through natural selection than
through a cell being invaded by a virus and then joining
with that virus to become a new species. I suppose this
sort of case interests me so much because of my
dissatisfaction with the modern idea that there are only
two kinds of things in the universe: (a) human thought,
and (b) everything else. I see human thought as just one
March 21, 2024
kind of thing among trillions of others, not as half of
ontology. As humans we will of course be more interested
in human matters than in anything else, but the human
entity needs to be treated differently in philosophy than as
50% of the cosmos. Primarily, humans are entities that
combine readily with other sorts of things, and should not
be treated as a purified half of reality.
BS: Is there a book or author you’ve most enjoyed
disagreeing with?
GH: Yes, that would be Alfred North Whitehead, who I
think was one of the small number of great philosophers in
the twentieth century and that greatness is fairly simple, in
my view: during a long era when philosophy more or less
assumed that we need to begin with what is given in the
thought-world relation, Whitehead just canceled that
assumption. For him the more general category is
“prehensions” (relations) between any two entities.
Human cognition does not have any central status for
philosophy, but is just another kind of relation. If
Whitehead had been trained as a professional philosopher
instead of a mathematician, as he was in real life, he
probably would not have found it as easy to ignore one of
the central dogmas of the modern philosophical
profession. I also disagree with much of what he says. But
as someone with the potential to guide us out of the
thought/world deadlock that limits modern philosophy,
he’s hard to beat.
And secondarily, for the same reasons as with Whitehead,
I enjoyed disagreeing with the late Bruno Latour, an
important philosopher disguised during his lifetime as a
sociologist and anthropologist. Latour is effectively a
Whiteheadian, so our basic disagreement is the same. He
thinks an entity is nothing more than the sum total of
effects it has on other entities. Latour’s Actor-Network
Theory is a useful innovation for making discoveries in
the social sciences, but in the end Latour needed more
Aristotle in his blood. Things cannot be analyzed into a
(Harman and Bruno Latour; Source:
anthem.wordpress.com)
11
�όγος
THE GADFLY
sum of relations any more than they can be adequately
defined, and for the same reason. Things are not just
bundles of relations, any more than they are bundles of
qualities in Hume’s fashion. Latour and I had a long
argument about that up until his death two years ago from
cancer. But he was the first major international thinker to
take me seriously when I was young, and I’ll never forget
his generosity in that respect.
That leads me to another piece of advice for graduating
Johnnies, one that I received from one of my own
professors in graduate school. If you ever want to contact
someone you admire with a question or a comment, never
be afraid to do so. No matter how famous they are, they
probably feel misunderstood, rejected, and alone, and will
welcome your approach. I’ve encountered this again and
again in intellectual life. The most significant thinkers are
often the most approachable people on earth; it’s the
pretenders who make a big scene of being too busy to talk.
Try it, and you’ll see what I mean.
BS:Ê You have spoken in a few different places about how,
in your opinion, “the philosophical foundations of any
theory cannot be a form of knowledge but must be a
subtler, more indirect way of addressing the world” much
like that of art (Immaterialism, 13). How might a
philosophy—especially for those of us who have been
raised in the very scientific 20th/21st centuries—go about
such an approach?
GH:Ê One of the bad ideas encouraged by modernism is
that we should always begin any enquiry from some
unshakeable first principle. But there are no unshakeable
first principles, and that is why Whitehead says that they
should be the goal rather than the starting-point of
philosophical inquiry. Whitehead has a lot of good things
to say about the practice of philosophy, in fact. Another is
that philosophies are abandoned, not refuted. In other
words, the obsession of professional philosophy with
“knockdown arguments” is usually pretty futile. We
abandon our previous philosophy for a new one not
because we find “incorrect arguments” in the former,
because the previous philosophy either leaves out too
much of reality or because its various parts prove to be
incoherent with each other. Parmenides wrote: “Being is,
and non-being is not.” Do we reject this because of some
“knockdown argument”? No, most likely we will never
become Parmenideans because we recognize something
hopelessly abstract about his manner of dealing with
reality, and thus we are already on the road to some sort of
dialectic. And then it turns out that dialectic has limits of
its own, and the adventure continues.
The only field in which it is remotely plausible to say that
we begin with unshakeable first truths is geometry, and
they’re only “unshakeable” in the limited sense that we
agree to accept certain axioms. All St. John’s students
have made or soon will make their tour through non-
12
March 21, 2024
Euclidean geometry, and thus they are aware that Euclid’s
axioms aren’t unshakeable either. You can also read Proofs
and Refutations by Imre Lakatos, the important Hungarian
philosopher of science, and discover how later proofs in
mathematics often retroactively transform our sense of the
earlier ones. In any case, don’t go looking for rock solid
foundations in philosophy. Start instead with something
apparently paradoxical that you truly care about, and keep
pushing on it, and eventually you might see that people
have been missing what’s important about it. That’s what I
did with the famous tool-analysis in Heidegger’s Being
and Time. Hundreds of people have written about it, but
none of them have seen what I thought was truly
important. It was (and still is) usually interpreted in the
banal sense of “praxis comes before theory,” even by some
very smart people. And once you get to that point, push it
beyond whatever author you’re arguing with, and see how
it works out in the broader world. At that stage, the
worthwhile people will either be listening to you or
ignoring you based on how generally fertile your idea is,
not by some debate over whether you made a logical error
in step 3B of your argument. Academic debate often works
that way, but important philosophy generally does not.
BS: To ask some more general questions now: What is it
like to be a philosopher in 2024?
GH:ÊIn professional terms, it’s a bit stifling. Part of that is
just because job opportunities are dwindling and there’s
not a lot of movement. Many good people are hanging on
as part-timers, hoping for full-time jobs that are not likely
to appear. In a place like France this might not be a
concern, since there are many ways to participate in
intellectual life there without being a professor. But in the
United States, work hours are so long and vacations so
few that without independent wealth it is hard to find a
lifestyle that allows the many free hours needed to read
and write.
Luckily, I have a good work situation and don’t have as
much to worry about on that front. But for other reasons
it’s still not the easiest time. Philosophy is still dominated
by the analytic/continental division, with the analytics
controlling the most prestigious departments in the
Anglophone world. For all their differences, both are
deeply indebted in different ways to Kant and the resulting
assumptions about transcendental philosophy, and of
course that doesn’t work well for someone like me. One of
the unusual features of OOO is that it tries to put objectobject relations at the same level as thought-object
relations, and you’re not going to find that in any recent
philosopher besides Whitehead. And Whitehead, too, is
marginalized in both analytic and continental circles, for
precisely this reason. There’s a modern taxonomy where
object-object relations are thought to be the subject matter
of the natural sciences alone. Hey, science is doing such a
great job with that, just leave that area alone! We
philosophers can focus on the sole site that is left to us: the
�όγος
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
point where thought meets world. The problem is that for
all the achievements of the sciences, Bertrand Russell was
right to say that science gives us the extrinsic, relational
properties of things. Anything intrinsic in the things,
anything like the old “substantial forms,” has been a
laughingstock in the sciences since at least Descartes. And
maybe it’s good that they are, since science might not
have flourished if it needed to deal with all sorts of
shadowy and half-expressed potencies. But philosophia
doesn’t work under the same constraints or have the same
goals as natural science, because fundamentally it is not a
form of knowledge. Most people still don’t accept this
idea, but the nice thing is that you don’t need to convince
everyone, or even a majority. If you keep refining your
ideas and publishing them, allies will appear, and they
make life easier and more pleasant.
BS:Ê You have said that “a work should
try to be more than the product of its
time and place” (Architecture and
Objects, 174). And based on what you
just said, it seems like a lot of your
work is almost extremely beyond the
current place and time of philosophy in
the United States. What do you feel has
contributed to you taking such a
different path than maybe a traditional
philosopher within the United States?
But I doubt I will ever teach again in a philosophy
department in the United States. The reason is the conflict
persisting between the analytic and continental schools of
philosophy: both of them hang on jealousy to every job
they control, and I’m not a good fit with either of them.
This is evidently my fate, and gradually I’ve become
comfortable about moving on an eccentric path through
the world.
BS: Did you ever have inklings of your current work
while at SJC?
GH: When you’re in your early twenties, it’s usually more
a matter of devouring all your favorite influences. You
might have ambitions about doing certain things in the
future, but those are usually destined to change greatly
over the next five to ten years. But
there were a few things that happened
at St. John’s that remain near the core
of my work even now. One was during
my freshman year in Santa Fe, when I
was just browsing in the library. I was
reading
through
the
book
Phenomenology and Art by Ortega y
Gasset; I had been reading Ortega
anyway for other reasons. That book
contains his “Essay on Esthetics by
Way of a Preface,” which contains his
theory of metaphor. I didn’t fully
GH:Ê It has certainly worked out that
understand that essay until thinking it
way, although it wasn’t my original
over for nearly twenty years, but did
wish. Coming out of St. John’s, I saw
have the “struck by a lightning bolt”
my future as that of a typical
feel immediately upon reading it.
philosophy professor in the Continental
What’s strange is that it cuts against
tradition. Because of my interests, I
the grain of Ortega’s work as a whole,
expected to fit in very well in the (Untitled (Black on Grey) by Mark and maybe that’s what I unconsciously
Heidegger studies community in Rothko, Source: The Guggenheim felt. It's not a famous essay, but I
particular. But then reality made it
would rank it as one of the unknown
Museum)
philosophical classics of the twentieth
clear that I was headed for different
things, by clubbing me in the head several times. First of century, and believe it will come to be seen that way,
all, graduate school roughed me up pretty badly. I was though it does contain a sexist remark and one or two antikicked around rudely in my first program. My second British remarks.
program was a better fit, but there was some terroristic BS:ÊWhat program author have you gained the most from?
behavior by a couple of faculty that forever shattered my
illusions about academia. At least it was a fairly hands-off GH:ÊI did my freshman year in Santa Fe; my lab tutor was
program and they let me do what I wanted. And I still Mr. Cornell, who is still there, and our student assistant
loved my work, even though no one was really accepting was Mr. Poppele, now a tutor in his own right. I think Mr.
it other than my fellow Ph.D. students, who enjoyed my Cornell had us read a bit of Discourse on Method one
unorthodox papers and lectures. In a sense, the early week, and I was hooked, rereading it every couple of
realization that I was never going to be a comfortable months despite being a slow reader. One author who
student for my professors freed me up to stop expecting didn’t mean much to me while I was there, but who
standard academic success and to do whatever I wanted. It became very important later on, was Hobbes. When I
made me a bit angry for a while in my twenties, but once finally started writing about politics a decade ago, I began
in Egypt I realized I was having a much more interesting to see Hobbes as an essential piece of the puzzle in trying
life than those who had thwarted me, and decided to just to get beyond modern political theory, in which the Left
and the Right both assume that human nature is what’s
ride wherever the wave was going next.
13
�όγος
THE GADFLY
really at the basis of political theory. Hint: it’s not. Francis
Bacon also didn’t interest me much as a student, but really
fascinates me now, due to some remarks once made to me
by Eric McLuhan, son of the media theorist Marshall
McLuhan.
I think I also had a bit of senioritis when we were doing
Einstein and Minkowski in senior lab, so I eventually had
to go back and struggle with those works myself when
they became relevant to where I was going. And finally, I
should mention the St. Matthew Passion. It blew me away
on first hearing, and continues to do so. A couple of years
ago the Hamburg Ballet passed through Los Angeles and
performed it, and it brought back so many memories of
Annapolis.
BS: For all those in the dreadful state of being soon to
graduate from the college, do you have recommendations
for post-program reading?
GH:Ê Yes, there are two obvious places to start. One is to
read contemporary materials, which there isn’t much time
to do at St. John’s except maybe in a Preceptorial. The late
Mr. Raditsa, a former tutor in Annapolis and an almost
unbelievably colorful human character, used to talk about
how reading “forbidden” books is an important part of
education, and in his case it was a matter of cutting class
for a week and just reading Nietzsche in his dorm room. I
think there are enough bibliophiles at St. John’s that we
don’t really have forbidden books, though a classmate of
mine was once scolded by a tutor for carrying a volume of
Derrida across campus. But what I’m really talking about
are non-program books. I ended up in an ultracontemporary Ph.D. program after St. John’s, which was
probably the right way for me to decompress after four
years of all classics. The great thing is, once you turn to
contemporary trends in thought after four years at St.
John’s, you will have the advantage of not being easily
impressed.
That brings me to another sort of recommendation, one
that also stems from the unique features of a St. John’s
education. One area in which Johnnies are practically
unparalleled is their ability to take up new fields without
feeling intimidated. If you’ve been through Apollonius
and Leibniz’s papers on calculus, you won’t give up easily
at any intellectual task. Continue to cultivate that Johnnie
talent of picking up completely new fields and learning
them through primary texts. I did that once with Islamic
civilization after unexpectedly winding up in Cairo. I did
it again with architecture, after unexpectedly ending up on
an architecture faculty. My aforementioned Annapolis
classmate David Ruy, whom I hadn’t spoken with in over
twenty years since graduation, suddenly resurfaced to lure
me into the architectural world. I asked him for a list of
eight to ten books in both classical and contemporary
architectural theory. After reading those, I was certainly no
expert, but knew enough to follow conversations and
14
March 21, 2024
(Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid Architects;
Source: archdaily)
understand the basic historical and present-day
controversies in the field. These days I’m being lured into
archaeology and prehistory, and hence the process is
repeating itself. Any St. John’s student has the skills to
pick up new fields from scratch and do interesting work in
them. Learn a little, and you can discover that you want to
learn more. There is nothing wrong with amateurism.
Everyone is an amateur at most things.
BS: Anything else?
GH: I just want to say that enrolling at St. John’s was the
best decision of my life and I would never change it. And I
say so as someone who did not have an easy time as a
student there. St. John’s is widely known as the Great
Books School, but on the ground it is also the Great
Talker’s School, and I wasn’t a great talker in those days.
It was hard for me to find the right words in class quickly
enough, and that caused a lot of anxiety. It wasn’t until
years later that public speaking became easy for me.
Graduate school wasn’t any easier than St. John’s, and
graduate school politics are usually much worse. But I had
formed great reading habits, as well as the self-confidence
to argue in my mind (and eventually on paper) with any
author you care to name. I think that is a common skill
among St. John’s graduates, and it is priceless.
(McDowell Hall Restored A er 1909 Fire; Source: St.
John’s College)
�όγος
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
I Love Montaigne! Do You?
By Tamar Pinsky
People are always telling me to stop writing in
first person. “Third is more proper,” they say. In a
book I read long ago, a character asserted that thirdperson narrators are objectively better, and that “the
only good book in first person is Robinson Crusoe”;
and now I am always ashamed of my preference for
first person narrators.
First person narrators feel more intimate. I can
pretend that I am the narrator, or I can pretend that
the narrator is a close friend revealing deep secrets to
me. Either way, I find it easier to relate to books in
first person.
Is that not what we all want?—to relate to the
books we read, to feel seen?
Well—I suppose we also want to learn from
the books we read. That must mean that books have
two opposite goals to accomplish simultaneously—to
be familiar to the reader, so that the reader relates,
and to be strange to the reader, so that the reader
learns something new.
Is one goal for the sake of the other, is one
goal more important than the other? Are we fed
digestible content for the sake of acquiring
unappetizing, but necessary, knowledge? Or are we
fed the unfamiliar knowledge for the sake of
increasing our capacities for connection?
Furthermore, what should our intentions be
when reading a book? Should we be aiming to relate
or aiming to discover new information?
One might think that it is good to relate to
what one reads. What sticks with a reader the most is
what resonated most with the reader. The reader also
would get more out of a reading that agreed with
them. It is evident how relatability encourages
learning.
But relatability also has the risk of making the
reader not learn anything new at all. For if the reader
feels too strong of a connection, they might become
too comfortable and too close-minded, aligning the
author’s words completely with their original
worldview, and overlooking important, yet subtle
differences.
This risk does not mean that one should
dismiss relatability entirely. For without relatability
in a text, how would the reader latch onto any new
concept?
One might think it a weakness to desire
relatability in books. (Similarly, to desire first
-person narration.) One
might think—a powerful
enough mind should be
able to understand ideas
without being spoon-fed.
But there is a difference
between spelling out
ideas
and
simply
elucidating them. And
besides, it is the job of a
writer
to
deliver
information clearly,
is it not? We do not
want
writers
to
coddle us, but we
would never praise
them for giving us
overly
complicated
explanations.
15
�όγος
THE GADFLY
Well, maybe some people would. But I would
not. The seminar readings that stand out to me are the
ones that spoke to me the most; the ones that I felt
that I could understand, or at least try to. I imagine
this is the case for most students – but of course, not
every reading is going to elicit the same reaction in
every student. Still – some readings must tend to be
more relatable and more likable than others. After
reading Montaigne’s essay On Experience, I could
not help but wonder, is this one of them? Is everyone
relating as much as I do? (This text is in first person.)
So I took a (semi-randomi) poll. Out of 43 St.
John’s students, nearly 50% found On Experience to
be highly relatable, scoring a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1
March 21, 2024
being “could not relate whatsoever” and 5 being “I
feel so seen—it's like I wrote it myself!”). A fair
number of students also ranked the work at 3, and a
few ranked it as 5. Only 4 students ranked it a 2, and
not one student ranked it a 1, or completely
unrelatable. The average score: 3.7; the median: 4.
Thus overall, the poll results suggest that On
Experience is quite a favorite reading among St.
John’s students.
I feel both wonderful and rotten finding out
that this reading resonated with so many others. On
the one hand, I am glad that On Experience gets the
recognition it deserves. On the other hand, I feel silly
to have connected so personally with this essay, later
realizing that I was not special in doing so.
Montaigne accomplished something great in
this essay. He managed to write to readers such that
they feel a personal connection; at the same time, he
wrote about ideas that are universal to everyone. I
suppose that is what any writer wants to achieve—
writing about a broad idea in a specific way, so that
anyone can appreciate it; further, that anyone can feel
touched by it.
Perhaps Montaigne succeeded at attaining this
feat because his work enables each reader to relate in
a separate way. The reader can relate because
Montaigne goes into detail regarding natural
processes that everyone goes through—but everyone
goes through them differently, and so they can
understand Montaigne through their own readercolored lenses. Every reader receives a similar, but
slightly different version of Montaigne.
This notion comforts me—even though other
people took immense pleasure in reading On
Experience just as I did, each of us had our own
personal connection with Montaigne. What
Montaigne is to me is not what Montaigne is to you. I
know this to be true, given some of the responses
people gave in the survey. Among other titles, people
called Montaigne “a very interesting fellow,” “the
realest one out there,” “such a girl’s girl, senile
bestie,” “literally me,” and “just a drunk dude you
meet at a bar and then never see again.”
I
This survey was conducted via Instagram and SJC
email.
Portrait of Michel de Montaigne (Source: Wikimedia
Commons)
16
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
A Demonstration of the
Equivalence of Euclid’s
Fi h Postulate,
Proposition I.30, and
Playfair’s Axiom
March 21, 2024
2. Playfair’s Axiom.
Through any point not on a given straight line there
is at most one straight line parallel to the given line.
By Luke Briner
I. Expositions.
1. The Fifth Postulate.
[Let it have been demanded (Ηιτήσθω)] that, if a
straight line falling on two straight lines make the
interior angles on the same side less than two right
angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely
(ἄπειρον), meet on that side on which are the angles
less than the two right angles.
Let the straight line EF fall on straight lines AB and
CD, whose respective interior angles, G and H,
amount to less than two right angles. The Postulate
asserts that, if lines AB and CD are produced
indefinitely, they will eventually meet on the side of
angles G and H.
Let there be produced the straight line AB, with
points C, F, and I placed in arbitrary positions about it
but not upon it. The Postulate asserts that points C, F,
I, and any other possible points of the same supposed
nature, will each have no more than a single straight
line through them that will be parallel to AB (i.e., DE
for C, GH for F, and JK for I).
3. Proposition I.30.
Straight lines parallel to the same straight line are
also parallel to one another.
Let straight lines AB and CD be parallel to straight
line EF, with straight line GK falling upon each of
them. The Proposition asserts that, since AB and CD
are both parallel to EF, and since the line GK falling
upon them produces equal angles on each of them to
those produced on EF, then AB and CD themselves
must be parallel to each other.
17
�υμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
II. Equivalences.
1. Equivalence of the First and the Second.
A. From the First to the Second.
The Fifth Postulate asserts that if any two straight
lines are shown by their mutual intersection by a third
straight line to have combined interior angles
amounting to less than two right angles, then those
lines, when indefinitely extended, will meet in the
direction of those sub-supplementary angles. That
any two straight lines that admit of this nature (i.e.,
their eventual intersection upon the basis of their subsupplementary angles) are not parallel is clear from
Euc. Book I, Def. 23, which defines parallel lines
precisely by their non-admittance of that very nature.
But it follows necessarily from this that there can
only be a single parallel relation between two straight
lines, since there is only one position in which they
could be arranged that would allow their interior
angles to be exactly equal to two right angles. Again,
even the slightest deviation from this single position
implies (when cut by the third line) the subsupplementary sum of one side’s interior angles, and
thus to the eventual intersection of the two lines on
that side. And this is exactly what the Parallel
Postulate itself asserts. Thus it has been shown that
the assertion of the Second can be arrived at by the
premises established by the First.
B. From the Second to the First.
Playfair’s Axiom asserts that there is at most a single
straight line that can be drawn through any given
point parallel to a given straight line. This implies
that any other position that the straight line drawn
through any given point could take in relation to the
given straight line will not be parallel. Euclid defines
parallel straight lines as “straight lines which, being
in the same plane and being produced indefinitely in
both directions, do not meet one another in either
direction” (Def. 23). It follows necessarily from this
that any straight lines that are not parallel to each
other (i.e., any other position which the line through
any given point could take in relation to the given
straight line) will meet one another in at least one
direction, and presumably thereby that those two
lines, if mutually and evenly cut by another straight
line, will have one side whose interior angles do not
amount to two right angles, which indicates that they
will meet on that side. And this is exactly what the
18
March 21, 2024
Fifth Postulate itself asserts. Thus it has been shown
that the assertion of the First can be arrived at by the
premises established by the Second.
2. Equivalence of the First and the Third.
A. From the First to the Third.
The Fifth Postulate asserts that if any two straight
lines are shown by their mutual intersection by a third
straight line to have combined interior angles
amounting to less than two right angles, then those
lines, when indefinitely extended, will meet in the
direction of those sub-supplementary angles. This
implies that straight lines that do not so meet, i.e.,
whose interior angles are exactly equal to two right
angles, are parallel, since this is precisely the
condition for parallel lines set by Def. 23. It follows
necessarily from this that, since “[t]hings which are
equal to the same things are also equal to one
another” (C.N. 1), and that all parallel lines have
interior angles exactly equal to two right angles, all
straight lines parallel to the same straight line must
also be parallel to each other. And this is exactly what
Proposition I.30 itself asserts. Thus it has been shown
that the assertion of the Third can be arrived at by the
premises established by the First.
B. From the Third to the First.
Proposition I.30 asserts that straight lines parallel to
the same straight line are also parallel to each other.
This implies, by Def. 23, that no lines thus
understood as parallel will ever meet each other. It
follows necessarily from this that straight lines that
are not parallel will meet each other in at least one
direction, and presumably thereby that those straight
lines, if mutually and evenly cut by another straight
line, will have one side whose interior angles do not
amount to two right angles, and that they will meet
on that side. And this is exactly what the Fifth
Postulate itself asserts. Thus it has been shown that
the assertion of the First can be arrived at by the
premises established by the Third.
3. Equivalence of the Second and the Third.
Since the conceptual equivalence of the Fifth
Postulate and Playfair’s Axiom has been proven, we
know by Euc. C.N. 1 that Playfair’s Axiom and
Proposition I.30 will also be conceptually equivalent.
�όλις
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
Secret Societies
By Jack Webb
Secret societies are neat. So why aren’t there
any at St. John’s? The accidents of the College seem
to fit. It is well known that many people come to St.
John’s after reading The Secret History by Donna
Tartt in high school and deciding that it is more
interesting than real life. The pedagogy of the
College is not gnostic, but it is esoteric: what it
purports to teach is taken to be unavailable to
everyone except those who have the time and ability
to discover it for themselves. The College is also
exceptionally old, and well-attended by the wealthy.
The French Monument was erected in memory of
some of Lafayette’s troops once buried on the
grounds.ÊThere are persistent rumors of hauntings and
secret passages. Annapolis has the only surviving
Baroque city plan in the United States, consisting of
two wheels with overlapping spokes, St. Anne’s
Church and the State House serving as the hubs. (The
priorities of the
planners
are
thus manifest.)
Most of the
founders of the
College were
Freemasons.
Altogether, the
school is wellpositioned for
secular, liberal,
elitist, secret
activity.
On the other hand, it may be that the College
is too small to have effective secret societies. The
Skull and Bones at Yale, one of the most famous and
successful collegiate secret societies in the United
States, selects fifteen new members every year. Yale
has an undergraduate population of about 6,500,
meaning the proportion of “Bonesmen” to
undergraduates is about 1 to 450. If this is the most
perspicuous proportion for a secret society, a St.
John’s society could have no more than one or two
members. The society of lovers is secret in a way, so
St. John’s perhaps already has enough. It does not
seem to be the same sort of thing, though: lovers
rarely swear blood oaths, and the costumes are of a
different kind. Maybe the College as a whole is a
secret society. We are probably not that special,
though.
I may have discovered a secret society last
year. I believe that they have, or had, regular
meetings. It was a group of about twenty men,
predominantly class of ’25. I do not know what their
télos was; all I know is that they had gathered to eat
cheap fried chicken in malappointed suits and ties.
They were clearly a group of a private nature,
although I am not certain that they were properly a
secret society, because they seemed humdrum and
not exotic at all. I will not say any more about what I
saw, or who was present, for fear of retribution.
I myself am starting a secret society. It will come
together as soon as we have finished our inquiry into
the nature and ends of a collegiate secret society.
Obviously I cannot share any more details. The
membership will remain secret. I will not divulge
whether I am a member.
19
�THE GADFLY
όλις
March 21, 2024
Paradox Puns
By Tamar Pinsky
“Parrotox”
“Parrot, Ox”
“Pair o’ Docs”
20
�όλις
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
Come For Me, Vol. 1
By Allyson Brink
This girl got way too into something she has never
had…an orgasm. While in pursuit of my first orgasm,
many questions arose. For answers I turned to my
friends. I’ve asked these questions in my friends’
living rooms and in laboratory prep rooms; the
resulting conversations have been both hilarious and
enlightening. I also realized that I wasn’t the only one
of my friends who hadn’t had an orgasm. This is
when I decided St. John’s was in desperate need of a
Carrie Bradshaw.
--Over the summer I submitted the first of four
payments on a new vibrator. This vibrator measures
your vaginal contractions and connects by Bluetooth
to an app on your phone. It would then tell you how
often and how strongly your vagina contracted as you
masturbated. This data is displayed in a graph that
clearly spikes when you have an orgasm. After using
the vibrator and comparing my graph to ones of
orgasms, my suspicions were confirmed: I have never
had an orgasm. Annelise has orgasmed. In order to
better understand my own experiences, I asked her
some questions about her experiences with orgasm.
AB: Do you masturbate manually, with a vibrator, or
some combination of the two?
AI: I prefer a manual approach. I’ve dabbled in
vibrators, but I find that they don’t really please me,
the way I can myself.
AB: Why don’t you find that vibrators please you?
AI: I think they’re just too powerful from the
beginning. There’s no buildup, no tension, no
intrigue.
AB: How long does it usually take you to orgasm?
AI: For me, about 30 minutes…but I am on
antidepressants.
AB: How long do your orgasms usually last?
AI: About 30 seconds.
The Lioness Smart Vibrator (Source: Glamour.com)
builds up, and then, it—whoom.
AB: Do you watch porn when you masturbate?
AI: Um, I prefer to read erotica. But, if I do watch
porn, it’s usually lesbian.
AB: What type of erotica do you read?
AI: Girl, I don’t even know. Whatever trash is on the
internet probably.
AB: And you don’t find it too much for your hands to
be scrolling and masturbating?
AI: No, it’s like what else would I do with the other
hand?
AB: I guess maybe I’m just lazy.
AB: Have you ever orgasmed with someone else?
AI: No. From my experience that’s not really a man’s
place.
AB: Do you have
any more words
of wisdom for me
in my road to
orgasm?
AI: Wisdom? I
don’t have any
wisdom. Just my
hands.
AB: And how do they feel for those 30 seconds?
AI: Overpowering…it just feels like a wave, like it
21
�όλις
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
Liberal Arts as a Service
By B.S.
Dearest fellows,
Take a moment to imagine for me the agonies
of the rich and wealthy: they amass more wealth,
more power, more new toys with each passing
moment. Where will they put their new rocket ships?
What is there to talk about with the common person
(they refuse to understand the need for a private jet)?
Who will even befriend them (they cannot stand each
other)? They may well be the most well off,
healthiest, most powerful individuals ever, but being
amongst the oligarchs of late-stage capitalism has its
agonies: it do get kinda lonely sometimes.
Now, I need
not remind you of the
corresponding agonies
of a Johnnie: where
once we were considered
useless by every business and
engineering major, now almost
every degree will be useless in the
face of AI (we have lost our unique
absurdity!). Soon, there will be
computers which can write better,
read better, speak better, think better
than any of us. Only our soft SJC-essence will remain
(and it smells of…Bud Lite?).
In these two sets of woes, you might see an
image of modernity or a gap so vast that it is
meaningless to think of both sides as human, but
what I see is a business opportunity. Rich people are
lonely; we are pseudo-intellectual blabber mouths.
The solution for both sides is simple: Rent-aJohnnie.
The structure is obvious to anyone who can
think: go on our easy to use website (auto-generated
by SquareSpace [This segment is sadly not
sponsored]), select your desired topics of
conversation (from the Freudian nature of early cell
biology to the Platonic reasons for non-platonic
relationships), and bam, within two hours we will
send straight to your door a willing and able
proliferator of all useless ideas. Everything you say
will find its place amongst citations of Hegel and
22
Kant, will be the most profound ideas since Aristotle,
and will outclass even Dante in poetry. When you sit
us down to explain your new screenplay, entirely
original and without any of that AI generated crap,
we will nod, applaud, and moan (with agony,
pleasure, oh whatever you want).
Remember, you’re no dictator. You’re a
totally normal human being who didn’t have any
systemic advantages whatsoever and even if you did
you worked so very hard to get here. So why should
the dictators be the only ones to get their very own
state philosophers? Plus, we’re providing them at a
very reasonable rate.
Rent-a-Johnnie: We Make Expensive Men by
Means of a Balance and Checkbook.
Consider investing today.
—B.S. (is for hire)
Rent-a-Johnnie Seal by Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm; Latin
Mo o translated by Henry David Hills
�όλις
THE GADFLY
March 21, 2024
Photograph of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini
(Source: Wikipedia)
A Review of Cabrini (2024)
By Jack Webb
Cabrini tells the story of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian nun who came to
the United States at the turn of the century to minister to underserved immigrants.
It is pretty good. Very, very well-shot. Story is moving. Acting a little stiff,
except for the Archbishop. Child actors are good, as far as they go. Mother
Cabrini doesn’t seem to pray very much, weird for a nun. Very bad song after the
credits, make sure to listen to it. Pretty long, but not boring. It seems to be of the
new genre of decent movies made for the tastes of conservative Christians. It is
not itself conservative, or particularly Christian, but homeschooling families will
love it. If you like immigrants, children, or nuns, you might like this movie. (PG13, 142 min.)
23
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
PDF format.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
24 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XLV, Issue 8
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XLI, Issue 8 of The Gadfly. Published March 21, 2024.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Briner, Luke (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-03-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
College students' writings--Periodicals
College student newspapers and periodicals
St. John's College--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gadfly Vol XLV Issue 8
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/81e4296ae99ee5f7c46b557afe30cd4d.pdf
450f620cf0a9bb989bed25feb662a8f2
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
Onwards & Upwards!
February 15, 2024
Vol. XLV, Issue 7
�Letter from the Editor
CONTENTS
Λόγος : news reports & narratives regarding immediate campus life
Dear Polity,
A Thank You Message From Mr. Kerimov
2
The Senior Infection by Vivian Miyakawa
3
Want to Join a Cult? Come to Tea Club! By Vivian
Miyakawa
4
Συμπόσιον : contrasting opinions on various topics for thought
Puns in Twelfth Night By Mary Elizabeth Harper
5
Insider Ethnography: An Alumna’s Exploration of a
College Tradition (Part Two) By Maura Sugg
8
Πόλις : voices of the community, including poetry, cartoons, etc.
Fifty Shades of Modern, Monotonous, Mind-Numbing
13
Gray By Tamar Pinsky
Comics: Noodles By Tamar Pinsky
16
Censor, Oh Censor! By B.S.
17
half gone By Natalie Goldman
18
Translation of the First Seven Stanzas of Valéry’s
“Le cimetière marin” By Luke Briner
20
A Thank You Message
From Mr. Kerimov
Dear Polity,
I am deeply grateful for the overwhelming
support and encouragement I received from
so many of you in the past few weeks. With all
that has happened, I feel proud to belong to
our caring, strong, and energetic Polity. May it
always be such.
To paraphrase a friend: although I never had
to leave, it feels wonderful to return.
With admiration,
Khafiz Kerimov
2
We at the Gadfly hope that you’ve
been having a wonderful semester so
far! We’d also especially like to congratulate our seniors for finally submitting their essays, and for all the hard
work that went into them.
Please enjoy this year’s seventh issue!
Luke Briner,
Editor-in-chief
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
MANAGING
EDITOR
STAFF
Abigail Poppleton
Luke Briner
El’ad NicholsKaufman
Meliha Anthony
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
Louis Rosenberg
Benne Sco
YOUT
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
KC Taylor
CONTRIBUTORS
Natalie Goldman
Mary Elizabeth
Halper
Maura Sugg
�Λόγος
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
The Senior Infection By Vivian Miyakawa
Something strange is happening to the
seniors. They’ve become pale, listless shells of their
former selves, only seen shuffling from the writing
lounge to the fishbowl. The crescents of purple
shadow under their eyes grow darker and darker
every day. They don’t seem to sleep. I worry that this
strange phenomenon is slowly consuming their lives.
My friend and I witnessed it firsthand as we were
wandering around Mellon at 1 a.m. Giggling our way
down the hallways, we were walking and talking
about nothing important, when suddenly, two seniors
popped their heads out of room 143. Like errant
messengers from the Fey-Wild, they grinned and
offered us snacks from their kingdom of riches. We
knew better than to accept. To set foot in the twisted
domain of the seniors would certainly spell our
doom. At this stage, who knew if the disease was
infectious or not? All I know is that I would hate to
contract it.
It’s been weeks, and the seniors still wander
around, mumbling about Archimedes and Proust and
biblical symbols. I think some of them have taken up
permanent residence in the fishbowl, setting up
shrines to any possible deity that would listen to their
desperate pleas. An orange beanie rests upon a lamp.
It has been there for a week now. Is it an offering? A
sacrifice? Or could it be something more sinister,
perhaps a tribute to a fallen comrade? Either way, I’m
not sure if I want to know.
It's the day before their essays are due. Stress
and relief both hang heavy over St. John’s College, a
creeping fog composed of pride and desperation. A
fellow freshman walks by; she works for Ms.
Munsey. She’s been inside the belly of the beast,
restocking snacks and washing blankets. She tells me
that the blankets disappear as fast as the snacks do.
Less than half of the blankets remain. The seniors
must be ravenous.
Tonight, they will ring the bell and finally
free themselves of this terrible burden. They have
completed their duties and remained loyal to the
college. They will graduate soon, and forget about
this apocalyptic month. But the underclassmen…we
will remember. As we congratulate our friends on
finishing their essays, one thought runs through our
minds and makes us shiver. Oh god. One day, this
will be us.
Class of 2024 Seniors Celebrating A er Turning in Essays and Ringing the Bell (Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
3
�Λόγος
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Want to Join a Cult? Come to Tea Club!
By Vivian Miyakawa
Every Wednesday from 5-6 p.m.,
students of all sorts rush up the stairs to
McDowell 22, eagerly following
the warm scent of honey and
spices mixed with the gentle
notes of soft jazz instrumentals.
Once inside, they are greeted with a
cup of tea and a hearty welcome from
club Archon, the lovely Christina
Cruz.
Taking
on
the
responsibilities of archon
even as a freshman, Ms. Cruz
runs Tea Club with passion
and care, connecting the
physical with the spiritual.
At every meeting, Ms.
Cruz presents the club with a
new type of tea. With options
from Chai, to Blackberry Sage, to an Earl-Grey
lavender London Fog, there are so many varieties to
explore, and new tastes for everyone to discover.
Anyone with doubts about the beauty and magic of
tea simply needs to attend a meeting of Tea Club and
experience it firsthand. Friends from all years and
backgrounds sit together at the wooden table, sipping
hot tea and basking in warm light. The community
that Ms. Cruz has succeeded in creating, however, is
the most incredible thing. Freshmen, sophomores,
juniors, seniors, and even a GI student laugh together
like old friends, chatting about anything from the
Program to the latest gossip on campus. Ms. Cruz’s
vision for the club was to unite the Polity through the
ancient healing art of tea, and looking upon the
community she has built, she is 100% certain that Tea
Club is living up to that vision.
Tea Club is nothing if not cozy, but part of
what makes this club so unique is the sheer hilarity of
each meeting. Ms. Cruz’s alter ego, aptly named
Chris-TEA-na, only semi-denies the frequent
allegations of being a cult leader. When pressed
about the issue, she simply states that “the tea is so
good—everyone wants to follow in the way of the
tea.” In further claims to innocence, when asked
about the purification rituals, our wonderful archon
4
claims that “if a person needs to be
purified, well, then they need to be
purified! Why not use Tea
club as a way to purify?”
This logic is hard to argue
with, especially with the
cheerful addendum of, “We
also do exorcisms!”
Luckily, unlike most mainstream
cults, you don’t have to be a
committed member. There is no
obligation to show up to every meeting, but if
you ever need a moment of your day to sit
down, relax, and just be, know that Tea Club is
waiting for you with a cup of tea, and perhaps a
few shenanigans as well.
Zenith Brown Seated outside Having Tea
and Pe ing her Dog Lauralei
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
Puns in Twel h Night
By Mary Elizabeth Halper
What follows is a section from an essay titled, “Cross
-dressing, Puns, and the Playful Cosmos: The Role of
Comedy in Liberal Education,” co-written by Mr.
Aaron Halper and Ms. Mary Elizabeth Halper,
expected to published in an edited volume on liberal
education. The excerpted section is on puns, written
by Ms. Halper.
The very first pun in Twelfth Night is perhaps
"play.” It comes in the final foot—a spondee—of the
first line: "If music be the food of love play on." We
hear both a call to keep playing music and to start
playing the play. To hear both of these at once
suggests that the play itself, Twelfth Night, is ongoing. Indeed, the play begins not at a natural
beginning, but in the middle of some unfolding
circumstance. Our first sight of Orsino recalls his ongoing and unsuccessful courtship of Olivia. The other
so-called beginning, our first sight of the siblings
Viola and Sebastian, is also in medias res—we find
them first in the storm that sunders them. With the
spondaic “play on” we are abruptly plunged into an
action that stretches out behind us as well as before
us. Perhaps, then, we are also as bewildered as Orsino
and Viola at the start.
Another pun falls hard
upon the heels of the first: "Will
you go hunt my Lord?" "What
Curio?" "The hart." The pun is
obvious: hart and heart. The
catching of hearts is of course much
of the action of the play. At least so
far, Duke Orsino desires to
capture the heart of Olivia,
and this desire makes of
him a hart: "That instant I
was turned into a hart and
my desires like fell and
cruel hounds/E'er since
pursues me." Orsino now
is all hart/heart. By his
own heart, he is the
February 15, 2024
hunter of another's heart and by the desires for that
heart, he is the hunted.
This first pun—“play”—is both phonically
and graphically identical. It sounds the same and is
written the same, but it provokes a multiplicity of
meaning. The next pun—“hart” and “heart”—
possesses only phonic and not graphic identity. The
picture of the word is different—we write them with
different letters—but the sound to which the different
composition of letters corresponds is the same. In the
latter case, it is clearer to the eyes that there are two
words at work. But to the ears, both cases offer the
possibility of two words. This same sound is the
matter of the words. It is a single bearer of many
meanings, or a sole body with two souls.
It may seem, then, that puns work by
multiplication—layering a second meaning atop the
first. On this view, puns would be a case of semantic
polyphony arising from sonic monophony.
Shakespeare scholar Sigurd Burckhardt gives a
contrary analysis of puns in his essay “The Poet As
Fool and Priest.” Rather than claiming that the pun
imbues a word with more meanings, Burckhardt takes
puns to be a “way of divesting a word of its
meaning.” The poet uses puns to forcibly reclaim the
medium of words from ordinary language so that he
might make of words what his poetic art demands.
With puns the poet creates “a semantic identity
between words whose phonic identity is, for ordinary
language, the merest coincidence.” But insofar as this
creative act makes intentional what is otherwise
coincidental, it is also a violent act: it shatters the
intimate and exclusive bond between word and
meaning, between signifier and signified. The poet
creates his singular meaning by splitting into two
what by all other accounts is one word.
We have two analyses of puns on offer: puns
are two words in one sound, or puns are one sense in
two words. Without attempting to offer a final word
on the matter, let me propose a higher reconciliation
of these contrary analyses. While the pun may be a
disruption of the bond of word and meaning, it is no
simple destruction. The pun breaks up the nice, direct
correspondence of word and meaning in order to
make greater space for a greater meaning. By
wrenching the word from its familiar meaning, puns
wrench us from our familiar, unreflective use of
them. We are able to mean more, not by meaning two
coincidental intentions at once, but precisely by
intending their coincidence. With puns, we have a
single sense in a single sound but we come to that
5
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Shakespeare in the Park production of Twel h Night (Source: Shakespeare in the Park, 2009)
possession by breaking the simple correspondence
between sign and signified.
In arresting our ordinary wielding of words,
puns afford us greater sense; in interrupting the
prosaic work of words, they provide a more
encompassing continuity. And in these ways, puns are
like feast days. Whether it be a day of rest that
sanctifies one’s labor, or a festival of birth celebrated
by a remembrance of crucifixion, death, and
resurrection, feast days have a similar strangeness
that puns do. Feasts are breaks in ordinary time. They
are times when we set aside our daily bread for
sublime—even divine—delectation. In our festival
times, we perhaps anticipate a more lasting—even
eternal—joy. But we do so only for a day or a brief
season. The day is sacred by being set apart; it is holy
by being a whole in itself, at least while it is going
6
on. Because of its separation from the surrounding
time, feast days may seem like forgetting, like a
willful neglect of that to which we must return. But
better understood, feast days are days for
remembering–for recalling what is our true, though
not continual, calling. We do not forget that we are
subject to pain or bound to labor, but we celebrate
that it is not always to be so. This foretaste of heaven
is not a forgetting of our moral toil, but a
remembering of that condition too. It is not always to
be so that we fear death and sin, but it is so in the
larger now. To borrow from the Archbishop in T. S.
Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, feast days are days
in which we “both rejoice and mourn at once and for
the same reason.” The whole of our human condition,
of being that being betwixt and between, is intended
and is most intense in a day of feasting.
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
Puns are likewise: the whole of an intention—
bursting in between the words of its expression—is
concentrated in a single utterance. It is fitting then
that in Twelfth Night (a title which recalls us to the
conclusion of Christmastide), Feste is the one who
puns par excellence.
As the persona of puns in their festival
function, Feste is hardly better than in Act IV, Scene
2, when he adopts the cover of a curate. In the person
of a Master Parson, Feste may be said to be engaging
in a kind of cross-dressing—if, that is, a priest and a
fool are indeed contraries. Under this guise, the fool/
priest relates: "...for, as the old hermit of Prague, that
never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of
King Gorboduc, 'That that is is;' so I, being Master
Parson, am Master Parson; for, what is 'that' but 'that,'
and 'is' but 'is'?"
On the page "that that is is" looks like a
scribal error: a duplication of “that” and a duplication
of “is.” But for the hermit that never saw pen and ink,
and therefore for whom the written doubling is no
difficulty, it is sensical even if trivial. The voice
makes this sense by making it audible. Tones and
inflection matter to the matter of the word. More
meets the ear than meets the eye. In order to make
sense, the words must go beyond their signification;
they must be animated—reanimated, perhaps—with
the spirit of the speaker. Here, Feste, who may be
feigning a foolishness just as much as he is
simulating a sacred office—or who may be true in
both—practices the same poetic power that produces
puns. When puns are possible, the trivial question
"What is 'that' but 'that' and 'is' but 'is'?" is a question
that becomes pressing.
This is not the only time Feste provides a hint
to the being of puns. In addition to making his fair
share of them the fool offers a kind of account or
perhaps an apology for this wily device. At the
beginning of Act III after an exchange of puns, Feste
exclaims: "A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a
good wit: how quickly the wrong side may be turned
outward!"
Viola takes this as proof that: "they that dally
nicely with words may quickly make them wanton."
Viola seems to take this possibility of words—that
they may dallied with—to be a sign of a peculiar
failure, a per se fault: words are themselves wanton,
or may become so by our misuse. The fool reveals the
heart of Viola’s concern even as he discounts its
consequence: "I would, therefore, my sister had had
no name, sir. Her name's a word; and to dally with
February 15, 2024
that word might make my sister wanton." Viola’s
worry is that if a word is not just what it means, then
there is a risk that it may mean anything. Feste’s
counter is that if words are just what they mean, then
they can mean only what they already say. Feste does
not deny the risk of wanton chaos, but his response
suggests that to resist this risk by making inviolable
the bond between sign and significance is to forsake
not only the capacity to make a more comprehensive
sense but also to deny the world itself as a source of
meaning.
Feste concludes: "Words are very rascals
since bonds disgraced them." Words are in their being
very rascals; to bind them, to insist that they have
only and exactly one meaning is to disgrace them, to
deny ourselves the grace they give so that we may
mean as much as the world offers.
Actor Louis H. Chrispijn as Feste, ca. 1899 (Source:
Wikimedia Commons)
7
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Insider Ethnography: An Alumna’s
Exploration of a College Tradition (Part Two)
By Maura Sugg
EDITOR’S NOTE.
The following is the second and concluding part of an
essay graciously submitted to the Gadfly by Ms.
Maura Sugg (A17). The previous Part can be found in
our previous issue (XLV.6).
-LB
Affect Theory and Musical/Religious Experience
We have seen at this point how various
aspects of Sicut Sing participate in the experience of
sacred ritual. The space of the Pendulum Pit, the
weekly repetition of the event, the connotations of the
text and musical texture, and the communal nature of
the tradition all set Sicut Sing apart as a meaningful,
orienting activity. But what more might we say about
the experience of singing the music that contributes
to a feeling like Durkheim’s collective effervescence?
As I will describe, a musical experience resembles a
religious one, and affect plays a key role in making
that happen. What emerges from this investigation is
that music is affective, existing in a sort of “inbetweenness: in the capacities to act and be acted
upon” (Thompson and Biddle 2013, 6). Through
music, we are keenly aware of our affective
potentiality, which exists in the relation of our
individual subjective parts to each other and to the
collective whole. Because of the informal, variable,
and ritualistic aspects of Sicut Sing, the tradition
enables its participants to experience and witness
themselves experiencing this affectivity in an
especially strong way. This can allow, however
momentarily, for the healing and collective freedom
from reality akin to the effects of religious
experience.
As a domain of scholarship, affect theory
highlights the “interest in the relationship between
bodies…and the fluctuations of feeling that shape the
experiential in ways that may impact upon but
nevertheless evade conscious knowing” (Thomspon
and Biddle 2013, 6). Affect itself is elusive,
Michael Engstrom Leads Johnnies in Sicut Sing on February 14, 2024 (Picture by KC Taylor)
8
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
occupying spaces in between individual and
collective, thought and feeling, perception and
reaction, sensation and abstraction, object and
subject. We experience it even when we cannot name
it. Music seems to heighten our awareness of affect,
or of being affected. Synthesizing the theories of
Susanne Langer and Brian Massumi, eldritch Priest
presents provocative formulations of how music and
affect work together that are especially applicable to
Sicut Sing. As Priest explains, Langer asserts:
The human organism not only possesses a
capability to abstract a qualitative-relational
value from sensory particulars but develops a
capacity to live in and through these
abstractions that are expressive of an ‘import’
which doubles sensations with a ‘likeness’—
semblance—‘entirely congruent with forms of
mentality and vital experiences.’…The
abstractions in which we feel significance,
quality, or value, are a phase of organic
processes in which vital activities cross a
threshold of complexity and intensity to be
felt as thought, felt abstractly. (Priest 2013, 45
-46)
The arts, and music in particular, play an
important role in making this process happen because
they take the form of semblances that open us to the
speculative dimension of abstractions felt as thought.
“What the arts speculate on,” Priest says, is “what it
feels like to feel oneself affecting and being affected
by and as an occasion of experience” (Priest 2013,
46). Imagination is always at play, since music’s
semblance both makes us feel and “gives logical
expression to forms of feeling…of what it is like to
feel feelings” (Priest 2013, 51). Because of this, we
become aware as listeners or performers of the
potentiality of our affectivity, of “how a world may
be felt” (Priest 2013, 56). Again in the words of
Langer:
Its [the semblance’s] message…is not an
immutable abstraction, a bare unambiguous,
fixed concept, as a lesson in the higher
mathematics of feeling should be. [The
semblance] is always new, no matter how well
or how long we have known it, or it loses its
meaning; it is not transparent but iridescent.
Its values crowd each other, its symbols are
inexhaustible. (Priest 2013, 56)
Like the collective effervescence of religious
ritual, there is an element here of renewal. We can
experience music, the same music, again and again,
February 15, 2024
and yet the experience is always new and always
gives something to us. This again invokes Eliade,
who describes sacred time as “indefinitely
recoverable, indefinitely repeatable” (Eliade 1959:
69). It is the form of the experience that produces this
effect. In this sense, Sicut Sing is similar to John
Cage’s “4’33,” which Priest describes as “an
occasion of listening, but more generally an occasion
to experience” (Priest 2013, 62) because it fixes our
attention on the idea of listening. Sicut Sing is also an
occasion to experience. Although the music is
important and amplifies the sense of transcending
oneself and joining with the collective, it is the event
as a whole that is meaningful because it gives us the
chance to contemplate our affectivity. In a polity so
concerned with the relationship between the part and
the whole, Sicut Sing is at once an opportunity to
recognize one’s own subjectivity and its affectivity,
and to see oneself caught up in the collective.
Because of the conversational nature of St. John’s,
students are always acting out a sort of affective
discourse, but there are so many other factors at play
that obscure their ability to reflect on it. As a
designated ritual for mutually making and beholding
a musical semblance, Sicut Sing provides a weekly
moment to feel as thought the intense state of
affectivity that is the St. John’s experience.
This offers an explanation for why the
variability and imperfection of Sicut Sing are parts of
its allure. When Fricke first envisioned it, he just
9
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
wanted a way to sing the piece with some of his
classmates. Eight to twelve of them would walk over
to the Pendulum Pit after class and sing the piece,
trying different configurations around the space or
switching up who sang which parts. Even as Sicut
Sing picked up steam and became a regular
publicized event, it was always student-led. Though
there are often regular participants, there is never an
obligation to commit, nor is there a prerequisite of
being a musician. For Johnnies, Freshman Chorus
already levels the playing field because no matter
prior experience, everyone learns to sing, even if they
do not always (or ever) sound good. It fosters an
acceptance of imperfection that students then bring
with them to Sicut Sing. That the quality of the
musical product does not seem to matter runs counter
to what most musicians would say about their own
performances. In their aforementioned interviews
(Arnold 2013, 70-83), Peter Phillips and Harry
Christophers both emphasize the quality of the
performance as a crucial component of making
sacred music meaningful to an audience of nonbelievers. But Sicut Sing is not a performance. Its
participants are there to do just that: participate.
Because the participating forces are not consistent,
the balance, blend, intonation, and tempo are always
different. Even if the piece falls apart one week, there
is little room for discouragement because of the
knowledge that the next Wednesday will soon roll
around, and because of the affective experience the
tradition creates no matter the musical outcome.
While the times that are musically tighter might be
more satisfying to the ear, their quality alone does not
affect the sense of meaning that participants ascribe
to the tradition.
The notion that the repeatable, inexhaustible
potentiality of our affectivity is revealed to us
through a musical semblance also helps me make
sense of my most poignant Sicut Sing memory, and I
believe it accurately encapsulates the power that the
tradition can wield. During my junior year, one Sicut
Sing took place the day after the 2016 presidential
election. We knew the results by the time we had
gone to bed the night before, and the overall feeling
on campus that Wednesday was one of somber
disbelief. A large but dejected crowd assembled for
Sicut Sing, and when we sang, we wept. The more
eye contact we made with each other, the harder it
was to control our tears. The experience was not
necessarily cathartic in the sense of flushing out our
fears, nor did it actively instill hope for a brighter
10
February 15, 2024
future. But through singing together, we were made
aware of, as quoted above, “how a world may be
felt.” We felt ourselves mutually inflecting each
other, merging our individualities with each other in
the collective, transforming a place into a space by
transfusing it with purpose, and engaging in a
sacredly creative act. Further, we knew that it would
not be the last time we would gather for the
experience, that we could enter the imaginative
affective state again. All of the idiosyncrasies of Sicut
Sing that I have described and analyzed throughout
this essay make this possible every week, but in times
of fear, isolation, and uncertainty, we feel it most
strongly.
It is through affect, then, that a musical
experience resembles a religious one. In his analysis
of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience,
Arnold connects James’s four marks of mystical
experience to music (Arnold 2013, 104-106). These
are ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and
passivity. The ineffable of the religious necessitates
individuality of experience because it cannot be
adequately described, only felt by those willing to
experience it. Like the mystical, then, “the quality of
the musical experience of the listener is, to some
extent, determined by their openness and receptivity
to the power of the music” (Arnold 2013, 104).
Similarly, the noetic quality is the expression of deep
truths otherwise unknowable or unexplainable,
something to which Arnold claims music exposes us.
Transiency, like collective effervescence, is
ephemeral, short-lived, and only recapturable through
repetition of the experience. Finally, passivity occurs
when someone feels, in the words of James via
Arnold, “as if his own will were in abeyance, and
indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a
superior power” (Arnold 2013, 106). All four of these
qualities are present in the combination of elements I
have considered throughout this paper, i.e., that a
musical semblance affects us and reveals our
affectivity, which rouses a feeling akin to the
collective effervescence of ritual in a delineated
sacred space. Sicut Sing’s power is in its potential to
provide us with this experience, itself an occasion to
experience.
Concluding Thoughts
Sicut Sing needs all of its constituent parts. It
needs the small, community-oriented spirit that the
form and content of a St. John’s education creates. It
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Aerial View of Sicut Sing in the Pendulum Pit (Picture by KC Taylor)
needs a piece that everyone knows with both text and
texture that symbolizes the ritual itself. It needs the
Pendulum Pit, a place-made-space that marks the
sacred from the profane by orienting participants
around a center that allows transcendence and
creation. It needs the weekly repetition of a
designated communal gathering to counter the
alienation of daily individual subjectivity. Finally, it
needs imperfection and variability to always make us
aware of the potentiality of our affectivity and enable
us to glimpse the world other than it is, ourselves
other than we are. Only all of these elements taken
together can make Sicut Sing what it is.
I followed my heart in this investigation. Based
on my experience at St. John’s College, I know Sicut
Sing is special. It seems, from what I could tell while
I was there and from my interviews, that other
Johnnies agree. My goal in writing this paper was to
find out why. I cannot claim that my conclusions are
Truth, the one absolute meaning that Sicut Sing
imparts to its participants. Perhaps some Johnnies
would take issue with my invocation of the sacred as
an analytical lens, or maybe they do not think that
Sicut Sing is any different than other musical
traditions on campus. More interviews could point to
other interpretations I have not yet considered. I do,
however, think that my analysis is one of many ways
to make sense of Sicut Sing’s multivalent meaning. I
hope, too, that it is a productive practice in doing
ethnography from the inside and uncovering the
hidden workings of the things we love in the
communities we inhabit.
11
�THE GADFLY
Συμπόσιον
References
Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1986. “Chapter 1: Guest and
Daughter.” In Veiled Sentiments: Honor and
Poetry in Bedouin Society, 1-35. Oakland:
University of California Press.
Anonymous. 2020. Interviews by Author. November
23, 2020.
Arnold, Jonathan. 2013. Sacred Music in Secular
Society. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Certeau, Michel de. 1984. The Practice of Everyday
Life. Translated by Steven F. Rendall. Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Cooley, Timothy J. and Gregory Barz. 1996.
“Introduction: Casting Shadows: Fieldwork is
Dead! Long Live Fieldwork!” In Shadows in the
Field 2nd Edition, edited by Gregory F. Barz and
Timothy J. Cooley, 3-24. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Durkheim, Émile. 1915. The Elementary Forms of
the Religious Life. Translated by Joseph Ward
Swain. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Eliade, Mircea. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane:
The Nature of Religion. Translated by Willard R.
Trask. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Feld, Steven. 1984. “Sound Structure as Social
Structure.” Ethnomusicology 28, no. 3: 383-409.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures.
New York: Basic Books.
Gill, Denise. 2017. Melancholic Modalities: Affect,
Islam, and Turkish Classical Musicians. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Horsfall, Sara Towe, Jan-Martijn Meij, and Meghan
D. Probstfield, eds. 2013. Music Sociology:
Examining the Role of Music in Social Life.
Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Kingsbury, Henry. 1998. Music, Talent, and
Performance: A Conservatory Cultural System.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
12
February 15, 2024
Olaveson, Tim. 2001. "Collective Effervescence and
Communitas: Processual Models of Ritual and
Society in Émile Durkheim and Victor Turner."
Dialectical Anthropology 26, no. 2: 89-124.
Pratt, Tim. 2016. “Sicut Cervus: The Tradition
Continues- And Spreads to Santa Fe.” St. John’s
College, News and Features, October 7, 2016.
https://www.sjc.edu/news/sicut-cervus-traditioncontinues-and-spreads-santa-fe.
Priest, eldritch. 2013. “Felt as Thought (or, Musical
Abstraction and the Semblance of Affect).” In
Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic
Experience, edited by Marie Thompson and Ian
Biddle, 45-64. London: Bloomsbury.
Ruskin, Jesse and Timothy Rice. 2012. “The
Individual in Musical Ethnography.”
Ethnomusicology 56, no. 2: 299-327.
Stokes, Martin. 1994. “Chapter 1: Introduction:
Ethnicity, Identity and Music.” Ethnicity, Identity
and Music: The Musician Construction of Place,
edited by Martin Stokes, 1-27. Oxford, UK: Berg
Publishers.
Stone-Davis, Férdia J., ed. 2015. Music and
Transcendence. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Thompson, Marie and Ian Biddle, eds. 2013. Sound,
Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience.
London: Bloomsbury.
Winstead, J. Lloyd. 2013. When Colleges Sang: The
Story of Signing in American College Life.
Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama
Press.
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Fi y Shades of Modern, Monotonous,
Mind-Numbing Gray By Tamar Pinsky
I bet Hell’s been on a lot of your minds recently,
given the recent sophomore readings of the Inferno,
the senior writing period, not to mention the
perverted weather patterns we’ve had tossed at us.
Hell’s been brewing in my mind since winter break,
when I visited there on a little trip.
I didn't go to Dante’s Hell, oh no. I went to a
gray, gray, insipid gray, secluded, gray Hell, a vast
gray expanse in the middle of nowhere, not too far
from Potomac, Maryland, filled with modern art and
architectural structures.
A museum, okay? The Hell I experienced was a
museum. I went to a museum with my mother, and it
drove me out of my mind. The name of the place?
Glenstone.
Let me give you a couple disclaimers before I
proceed.
First of all, I do not hate museums nor do I hate
art. This is not an anti-art op-ed by your local art
hater. On the contrary, I appreciate looking at and
creating a variety of art forms. Sure, I can have a
harder time with some modern art, but who doesn’t?
Second of all, I do not hate the color gray. On the
contrary, my favorite pair of jeans are a dark
charcoal. But it irked me that the whole of Glenstone
was shiny, sleek, and gray, from the gravelly parking
lot to the boxy buildings to the staff’s uniforms.
So what’s my deal with gray then? Have you
heard of the term “millennial gray”? The color gray is
now in style because everyone is over maximalism
and the bright colors of blatant consumerism. Gray is
now a soothing relief instead of a bore. The problem?
That calming grayness is all a facade, for
consumerism is as strong as ever. Have you heard of
the term “quiet luxury”? Extra, extra! Now you can
spend more money on fewer items—simple, gray,
items—so you can pretend to be rich and humble at
once.
Millennial gray and quiet luxury were just the
terms to describe Glenstone. The place was huge; it
was like an airport. Only it was not an airport; it was
not providing transportation for thousands of people.
It was providing a glimpse into the life of the rich;
the whispering wind screamed a haunting message—
“look at my simple extravagance!”
Not just the gray box buildings were to blame for
the gray subtly wealthy sentiment. The location—a
realm of wheat-colored bundles of weedy grasses—
somehow both ugly and charming—increased the
sense of “we can do whatever we like with our twelve
hundred acres of isolated land, see?”
But perhaps the most at fault were the art pieces
inside the box buildings.
I came into the place with the goal to try and
appreciate the art, find some meaning. I came into it
with an open mind. But my enthusiasm led to my
eventual overwhelmed insanity.
The first piece we saw was a compilation of
several canvases, hung up on the wall in an array.
About twenty-four in all, each was painted a different
color. There were some similar colors, only differing
by a shade, but there was not a single repeat.
“I’d hire the guy for a paint job,” I told my
mother. Despite our cynicism, we decided to give the
piece more than a single glance. So we played a made
-up game of “come up with a creative name for each
color!”
“Terracotta,” my mother said.
“Inside-of-a-banana-yellow", I replied.
“The-red-that-is-called-cadmium-red-when-youbuy-paint-but-actually-looks-a-bit-orange-ish,"
my
mother continued. And so on.
One of the museum staff noticed us staring at the
wall of colored canvases and giggling for fifteen
minutes straight, and asked us why it intrigued us.
We told her, and she exclaimed, "jellybeans!"
She apparently had done "the exact same thing as
us"—she had come up with jellybean flavors that
each color might represent. I didn't think it was
exactly the same thing—similar—but I did not argue;
I allowed her to revel in this moment of connection
over the art.
Then my mother and I went into the first room of
pieces and I continued trying to get something out of
every piece. I did not want to be one of those people
who dismisses all of modern art without giving it so
much as a chance. At the same time, however, I
didn’t want to be one of those people who speaks so
snobbishly about modern art, saying phrases like “the
juxtaposition of the curvature and the vibrant red
hues” and “evoking a conversational discord in the
mind of the viewer.”
So I just tried to be straightforward about it.
13
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
Looking at the first piece, I said—“it reminds me of
an eraser I had in middle school that I loved. It was
half blue and half white; the blue side erased pen and
the white side erased pencil. I called it my pen eraser
and everyone wanted to borrow it; this was before
erasable pens were everywhere.”
I tried to come up with some comparison for
every piece we looked at, but it got increasingly more
challenging. What do you say about a piece called
“yellow relief” that’s just a canvas raised on one side,
painted two tones of yellow?
And it certainly feels odd to look at basic pencil
sketches of flowers hanging on the walls as if they
are enormous projects—they couldn’t have taken
longer than a few minutes; they were called sketches,
for Pete’s sake!
We had only gone through the first section of the
building when my mother and I decided we needed a
break. We went to the restroom. And my god, even
the restrooms were pretentious. Each stall was a little
room, with doors that stretched from the ceiling all
the way to the floor. Which was saying a lot; the
ceiling stretched over ten feet high. Everything was
white and clean and pristine and huge and the soap
smelled delightful.
When we came out we decided we’d had enough.
We exited the big gray box building and stepped out
into the sunshine. It was a nice day, cool, with just
the right amount of sun. We looked at the weedy
plants shining golden and pleasant against the
blueness of the sky. There were country looking
houses in the far background, small and cute because
of the distance. “What a nice landscape,” I said to my
mother. “It looks like a painting. Let’s take a picture
of it, maybe later I’ll paint it.”
It was a nice experience at first, to look at this
view after the hodgepodge of disarray inside the gray
building. But then I realized what the building had
done to me. Everything I set my eyes upon now
looked like a painting. It looked far off, and like the
people walking in it had hopped inside a picture,
Mary Poppins style. All I could think about was the
composition, the colors, the texture, the structure.
Nothing looked real, everything was constructed,
everything was something about which to be
contemplated.
We started walking on a footpath, and I tried to
let go of the weird feeling I was having. I wanted to
close my eyes tight and never have to look at
anything ever again. Because once I started looking,
the more I felt like I had been picked up and placed in
a fabricated reality. I felt like I was inside a big alien
Glenstone museum courtyard (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
14
February 15, 2024
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
maze, and I was there to look at things, and some
aliens were looking down at me like I was their
experiment.
Even if it wasn’t aliens—some wealthy family
had created the whole place. They had oodles of
money to make this big area with strange art and
strange vegetation. They had hired staff to dress in all
gray and smile and welcome us into the vast expanse
of surreality.
“No way the workers are actually happy working
here,” I said to my mother. “They'd go crazy. I would
go crazy if I had to spend hours upon hours stuck up
here. It’s all a facade. It's fake. It’s fake. It’s not real.
They’ve plastered this happy persona onto
themselves but really they’re crumbling and lifeless
inside. Job pays well, probably, you think?”
The place was eerie; I had been there two hours,
and I had to leave. My mother and I walked on a path
that we hoped would lead to the parking lot. It was a
nice path and for a moment I considered that maybe I
could tune myself back into the real world. But I
looked at the drops of water on the gravel that had
stayed there from last night’s rain, and I looked at the
rays of sun shining directly on them to dry them up,
and I couldn’t shake the eeriness off. The sun was not
real, what was it thinking, shining at me like this?
We came to a structure. It was huge. It was a
dinosaur of some sorts. Was this art? Maybe to some,
but not to me. To me it was a huge dormant alien.
That was it, no more chances for you, Glenstone. I’m
not coming back.
We made our way to the parking lot, and I asked
my mother to drive on the way back; I was supposed
to practice driving, but I was exhausted. I closed my
eyes as we drove, I wanted to flush everything I’d
seen out of them. I just needed a break from seeing. I
hoped that I would be able to leave the alien hell
behind me.
The hell of colors and shapes that some people
had decided were good. They (whoever they were)
were trying to be better than “regular people.” They
were saying—we can reach the world of the Forms.
We can appreciate pure unadulterated color. We can
appreciate Red without thinking of flowers and
pomegranates and blood. We have achieved the
highest form of contemplating color and structure—
in the simplest way.
If they were right—I don’t want to live in the
world of Forms. I don’t want to understand the
Forms. I only want to experience yellow in the
context of a pretty blouse or a just-ripe banana.
February 15, 2024
Unfortunately, they had infiltrated my mind, and I
was scared that even in the normal world I would be
extracting from images automatically. So I closed my
eyes.
Two months later, I am still sometimes plagued
by this weird paranoia when I look around myself.
I’ll see a pair of shoes and think of them as a prop.
Who placed those shoes there? Look at those shoes,
who shaped them in that way, who made them be
black? Why are they angled in that way on the shoerack? Is someone placing them there like that for
some sort of effect? See, I’m sort of in a movie now,
and I’m watching the things in my life in a removed
way. That’s what Glenstone did to me.
Or maybe I’m blaming Glenstone unfairly? My
mom had a great time, and we had gone together.
Strange, that we had gone through the same
experience and each come out of it so differently. But
I suppose that not all architecture is for everyone. As
the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said,
“You think philosophy is difficult enough but I can
tell you it is nothing to the difficulty of being a good
architect.”
Maybe that’s why the trip was so hard on me: I
was thinking about the two hardest things,
architecture and philosophy.
Oh, and also, I had driven on the way there, slow
as a snail, because I only have my learner’s permit, so
there was that. Oh, and I hadn’t eaten in several
hours, so I was light-headed the entire time. So yeah,
just blame me, don’t blame Glenstone.
The gray box buildings still haunt me, though.
They got me thinking about the buildings on campus
at St. John’s, and how I am certainly thankful to be
living in one that makes me feel cozy rather than
cold. Recently, I said to a friend of mine, “how awful
would it be, if we went to university at one of those
modern looking plain buildings?” to which she
replied, “I’d kill myself.”
Well, I’ll be killing myself trying to get the
money to afford a nicer room next year. Because
that’s the new situation, have you heard? Money is
going to control whether you live in an architecturally
delightful environment, or an architecturally gloomy
one. (I’m exaggerating, I know.) But the point still
stands—sure, I bet you could be sad in both a
mansion and a shack, but you can’t look me in the
eyes and tell me that your environment won't affect
you at all.
15
�THE GADFLY
Πόλις
February 15, 2024
Comics:
Noodles
By Tamar Pinsky
Washing Dishes
16
Tall Order Chef
Secrets
Good Dentist, Bad Dentist
Crutches
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Censor, Oh
Censor
By B.S.
Pictured on Right:
The Great Fighter of
Red Menaces, Dwight
(Source: SJC Digital
Archives)
My fellow Johnnies,
What is America for? What’s the point of
living in an ex-capital of our wonderful home of the
free, land of the brave? Do you smell it, in the air,
between the puffs of cigarette smoke and the strange
odors that your classmates always seem to emit? It’s
freedom. Nobody kicks tyrannical ass quite like us,
nobody has successfully overthrown more dictators
and allowed the people’s will to be expressed. We’ve
got all the essential freedoms. Speech. Printing.
Assembly. Bodily autonomy. I love this country. I
was raised on freedom fries and post-9/11 rhetoric.
Who loves freedom more than me? I have an
American flag tramp stamp. I only buy from major
multinational corporations. I have dogmatic opinions
in favor of a political party that doesn’t really have
my own interests in mind. I love freedom.
So just hear me out when I say I think it’s gone a bit
too far. Any time someone gets their views canceled,
their protests shut down, their tweet ratioed out of
existence, we’re always talking about freedom (I
deserve to be heard! they whine). But what if…
unfreedom is…kinda…sexy good? Sure, you may be
a grown adult able to form your own opinions and
views of the world, but what if your opinions and
views are stupid? Have you seen the humanity out
there on reality TV (which must be the most real by
definition)? Really, what percentage of that
population actually deserves the ability to rule
themselves, make their own decisions, decide what
they want?
Johnnies are the worst example of this: we
have all these opinions, these thoughts, these morals
that we insist are “important” and “basic human
rights,” but who amongst you has lived in the real
world? Who amongst you can be trusted to have your
own good in mind? It should not be controversial,
when you go out on the quad on a Friday night and
think to yourself, amongst the boozing and bad music
circa 1970, that we might just need a parent state.
This is particularly true of certain unnamed
institutions. If we were, as a college, to hypothetically
have a newspaper place for communicating with each
other, for sharing opinions that genuinely matter (and
often those that do not at all), I am of the opinion that
such an institution must be, in its very form,
censored: we can’t be trusted not to insult each other
and hurt our own little feelings and certainly cannot
be trusted to deal with the problems that are most
important to us. And, hypothetically-allegedlypotentially, how would we control this institution? In
the classic American fashion: money. Just fund this
diabolical thing with school cash and then claim that
it now reflects on the college in some way and thus
must be censored to absurd standards. It’s perfect,
will never get out of hand, and would certainly never
have any effect on me in particular (so who cares if it
hurts everyone else?). We need to be coddled. It’s for
our own good.
Anyways, I need to go finish reading this
book on Russian history. This new Lenin guy seems
really cool.
Yours patriotically,
B.S.
17
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
half gone
By Natalie Goldman
Lightly treading,
Lightly treading on a road somewhere
Is December half gone
And for more hours with it.
A journey backwards is more than enough.
Adding my own hat to the ring
Was once a thing thought grotesque,
But I have managed to turn the hands
In a way that people could recognize.
I’m not sure anymore
What happens after it rains.
I don’t think we’re absolved,
Like people say.
I don’t think our sins are washed away.
Maybe we’ll just feel cold.
It’s December and it’s cold
And it won’t matter if we try.
18
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
A Student Climbing on the Bookshelves of the Woodward Hall Library (From the SJC Digital Archives)
19
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Translation of the First Seven
Stanzas of Valéry’s
“Le cimetière marin”
By Luke Briner
This quiet rooftop where doves walk and plume
That beats between the pine and solemn tomb;
The just noon by his fires does there compose
The sea, the sea, with all renewal’s sense!
O contemplation’s noble recompense,
Nought but a long look at the gods’ repose!
What sinless work consumed by lightning fine,
Abundant jewels of evanescent brine,
And what an idyll seems to be conceived!
When over the abyss a sun takes pause,
The sacred work of an eternal cause,
Time shines and fancy’s knowledge is received.
Abiding treasure, sanctum of Minerve,
Accord of calm and visible reserve,
Proud water, guarding by internal sight
Such great repose beneath a veil of fire;
O silence!...soul’s consecrated spire,
Roof with a thousand gilded tiles alight!
20
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Time’s temple, comprehended by a sigh:
I climb and custom to that summit high,
Flanked on all sides by this Neptunic gaze;
As to the gods my offering supreme,
So soweth luminosity serene
Upon the sovereign peak’s disdainful haze.
Just how fruit melts into a sweet enjoyed,
As in delight it makes its presence void
Within a mouth that’s soon deformed by death,
Here I detect the smoke of future time,
And to the rapt soul Jove recites his rhyme
Of shores reduced to nought but murmured
breath.
O fairest, truest sky, see how I change!
At end of such pride and of life so strange
And indolent, but still of power full,
I cede myself to this supernal space;
O’er houses of the dead my shade makes pace,
Enthralling me unto its gentle pull.
The soul claimed by the fires of apogee—
O justice most august, I honor thee,
To vicious weapons sunk from brighter start!
I hold you pure in your primordial height;
Look at yourself! but cease not to make light
Conjecture of a shadow’s dismal part.
21
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
The Feeble Human Mind At Last Comprehends Infinity
By Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
I tried so hard, for so long.
I read Leibniz, Newton, Dedekind.
I was a fool to think I could find it there.
All I had to do was think about that day.
Adonis Restaurant, a simple thirty minute drive.
Slipping into politics as we coast down Interstate 5.
An hour later, realizing we should already be there.
Shamefully accidentally turning into a military base to turn around.
What should’ve been a short trip, tripled.
We joke that you’re a terrible driver; I’m a terrible navigator.
We know this isn’t true. The real reason we always get lost?
“Talking to you is addicting” ‒ your favorite line.
I grew up learning that all things have an end ‒
people most of all, and love long before that.
I don’t expect anything to last these days;
most of the time, I hope that they won’t.
Things can be flawed if they aren’t forever.
In reality, this ends, too ‒ maybe.
In reality, you can never hold infinity.
Even in theory, my imagination falls short.
Yet in my little fractured heart, I see it with clarity.
Within this dream alone, no one gets tired of the other;
Only in this complete safety can I relax into eternity.
The ceaseless process of creating something infinite,
The beauty of building a better and better life together,
Begins in this little sedan while we converse
as if the wild world could terminate
and still we would go on talking without limit.
Only this time we never wake up;
we don't stop at Camp Pendleton.
We just keep on going.
And as long as we’re together,
everything is indefinite,
the sun never sets,
and time is kind to our old regrets;
the road never ends,
and we never go back to being just friends;
the geese never stop flying through the clean blue air,
and the wind never stops messing up your hair;
you never stop joking about my love for fries,
and so my laughter never dies;
the light never stops raining golden on your face,
and we never stop talking about how to make this world a softer place;
the sky remains forever blue,
and I never, ever stop loving you.
22
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
February 15, 2024
Good luck to all seniors with orals in the next few
weeks! You’ve made it this far; you can do it!
23
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
Lunar New Year was on February 10, 2024.
Welcome, Year of the Dragon!
(Photo by Abigail Poppleton)
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
PDF format.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
24 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XLV, Issue 7
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XLI, Issue 7 of The Gadfly. Published February 15, 2024.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Briner, Luke (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-02-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
College students' writings--Periodicals
College student newspapers and periodicals
St. John's College--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gadfly Vol XLV Issue 7
Gadfly
Student publication
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/7d91245b07bfa16f10f59425ec890e98.pdf
9ec74e040292be5ec212af7b3bfbcdff
PDF Text
Text
THE
St. John’s College
Annapolis, Maryland
GADFLY
Snow Days & St. John’s Ways
January 25, 2024
Vol. XLV, Issue 6
�Letter from the Editor
CONTENTS
Λόγος :
Dear Polity,
Greenfield Library Announcement
3
An Interview with Delaney Costello, Founder of the
Feminist Reading Group by Natalie Goldman
3
Interviews with the Washed-Up Crew Captains by Bennett
Scott
5
ΣυμπόσιονÊ:
Thoughts on the St. John’s Class by Luke Briner
Insider Ethnography: An Alumna’s Exploration of a
College Tradition (Part One) by Maura Sugg
7
10
ΠόλιςÊ:Ê
Be the Problem Child by B.S.
16
On the Greenfield Library’s “Quiet Zone” by Molly Sprout
17
“A Junior’s Plea” from the SJC Digital Archives
18
A Reflection on Winter Break by Vivian Miyakawa
19
SJC Mystery #6: Trapped by Bennett Scott
20
Photography Highlight: Winter & Writing by Abigail
Poppleton
22
We at the Gadfly hope that you’ve
had a wonderful break, and an
equally wonderful beginning to the
second semester!
As always, my most sincere gratitude
is extended to our managing editor
Mr. Nichols-Kaufman, our designer
Ms. Nghiêm, and our entire fantastic
staff. It’s because of them that our
little publication is able to go along
as it does. I would also like to briefly
update that I now have the privilege
of both formally and functionally
continuing this semester as sole
editor-in-chief.
Please enjoy!
Luke Briner,
Editor-in-chief
THE STRUCTURE
Λόγος holds news reports and narratives
of immediate relevance to the Polity.
ΣυμπόσιονÊoffers strong, developed
opinions regarding various topics.
ΠόλιςÊserves as a platform for elevating
voices in our community.
THE GADFLY STAFF
COVER
EDITOR-INMANAGING
EDITOR
STAFF
Abigail Poppleton
Luke Briner
El’ad NicholsKaufman
Benne Sco
Vivian Miyakawa
Tamar Pinsky
Louis Rosenberg
YOUT
Tuyết-Nhi Nghiêm
CONTRIBUTORS
Natalie Goldman
Maura Sugg
Jacob Klein Snowman by McDowell Hall, circa 1949-1958
2
Molly Sprout
�Λόγος
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
A Message from the Greenfield Library:
Exciting News! Greenfield Library is implementing The Quiet Zone
in the basement of the library, beginning at the start of the Spring 2024
semester. Perfect for those seeking a serene and focused environment, this
space will provide a tranquil place to concentrate and work without noisy
disturbances. We understand the importance of uninterrupted, quiet, study
time, and this zone has been designated with your academic success in
mind.
Plus, we've got you covered for group study, or a friendly chat, with
our Cohen Group Study Room, which you can reserve by using the QR
code below. Whether you need solitude or collaboration, your library is
here to support your academic journey. Drop by today!
An Interview with Delaney Costello, Founder of
the Feminist Reading Group
By Natalie Goldman
A new Feminist Reading Group was recently created
on campus by freshman Delaney Costello, with the
support of tutors Ms. Nelson and Ms. Spearman. The
first meeting took place on December 13th, seminar
style, drawing from the works of poets Anyte and
Emily Dickinson. I asked Ms. Costello a few
questions about her experience starting the group.
Goldman: How did the idea to start the reading
group come to you?
Costello: The idea to start the reading group came
around the time of the first all-college seminar on
Ecclesiastes when I realized that Johnnies were
willing and excited to read and discuss works
outside of the curriculum entirely. Personally, I
had been feeling frustrated with just how male The
Great Books Program is, with a grand total of
maybe five books written by women in our entire
time at the college, and the way those rare gender
conversations had gone in my classes. The few
times an interesting female character would come
up, I often felt a lack of interest or empathy from
my classmates, and those conversations would
quickly dissipate. I think you miss out on so much
if you never read or consider the perspective of
half of the population, so I thought if we could
create a space where everyone in the room really
wanted to read and discuss women, we could
supplement what the curriculum was missing and
benefit from the opportunity of learning from each
other.
G: What made you think to get Ms. Nelson and Ms.
Spearman involved? How did they help you in the
planning process?
C: I adore Ms. Nelson and Ms. Spearman! I had
coffee with each of them, and to both I expressed
my interest in reading more about women, and we
had the kind of engaging and honest conversations
I'd been wanting in class. Ms. Nelson was so kind
as to email Ms. Munsey and come back to me with
a group of students who'd want to start a feminist
reading group, and Ms. Spearman had told me that
she and Ms. Kirby were thinking the same thing, at
which point came the exciting part of working
together to envision what we wanted the group to
be. I came up with an idea of a reading list of
works from ancient history to now that I wanted to
read and sought their advice and input, and Ms.
Spearman created her own list of suggestions that
we're incorporating into a plan for second
semester. And of course, they both made time for
an extracurricular seminar in their busy schedules,
which I appreciate very much!
G: Tell me about how you decided on which readings
to start with.
C: The idea for the group would be to work
chronologically through history, just like the Great
Books program, and Ms. Spearman suggested
3
�Λόγος
THE GADFLY
Anyte as a great ancient Greek poet to start with,
and kindly provided her very own translations! We
thought it may be interesting to pair her with the
more modern and popular Emily Dickinson, as a
reading that would be short enough to be
accessible and entice people to come, because who
doesn't love Emily Dickinson?
G: What are some of your goals for the group? What
do you hope attendees will take away from their
experience?
C: My main goal for the group is just that we make
time to work together respectfully and read works
we might not read otherwise. I hope to explore
gender roles and study the impact and development
of feminism throughout time, and I hope as
attendees we each can exercise our empathy to see
where these women were coming from and think
about how we can apply their ideas to today. I also
notice that in class, women are often talked over
and interrupted, and maybe don't feel confident in
their ideas, and I hope we can create an
environment where that is not the case.
G: Could you sum up your feelings about how the
first meeting went?
C: I was happy with how the first meeting went! I
really didn't know what to expect, but I was so
pleased that we had a group that filled a seminar
table and didn't feel too large or too small. I was
grateful that two other tutors came, and that almost
half the seminar were men who were just as eager
to read women as I was! Of course there were
bumps in the road that we'll smooth out, like the
group just being unfamiliar with each other and six
poems being way too many for one seminar, but
most attendees seemed to enjoy it, which is all I
could ask for! I love reading Emily Dickinson, but
she can be wildly confusing, so I really appreciated
hearing what other people thought of her poems,
and it was special to take our time and work our
way through each line, a kind of close reading we
don't always get to do in seminar. We paid her such
attention that we unfortunately didn't even get to
the Anyte poetry, but that just gives us more to look
forward to next time!
G: Do you have any readings picked out for future
meetings? Can you give us any hints as to what we
can look forward to?
C: Yes! I have this fantasy of creating a reading list
in the exact same format as the Great Books
curriculum, on official letterhead, working
chronologically from my freshman to senior year,
4
January 25, 2024
just completely women of course, though I realize
we may be a bit more flexible than that. We want to
work in a balance of both explicitly feminist theory
and just literature by women, and hopefully it can
be a group that continues throughout the next few
years, since we'll start with much older works this
semester and probably not get to the modern day
for a while. For this semester, some ideas include:
more Anyte, Sappho, Marie de France, Hildegard
of Bingen, Christine de Pizan, and some other
mystics. In the later history, some ideas I'm ecstatic
about are: Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, the
Bronte sisters, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, bell
hooks, Simone de Beauvoir and Toni Morrison. But
there are so many more, and I want to read as much
as we possibly can!
G: Is there anything else you'd like the Polity to know
regarding the club or future meeting dates?
C: We will publicize future meeting dates through
email and posters, but generally, we're thinking of
meeting twice a month on Wednesdays. I would
like the Polity to know that meetings are open to
anyone who wishes to engage with the text, no
matter who you are or how many meetings you can
come to! As long as you've read the text and want
to talk about it, you should feel welcome to come!
And if you have any questions or suggestions,
please email me [at dmcostello@sjc.edu].
Three Female Students Discussing a Book
�Λόγος
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
Interviews with the Washed-Up Crew Captains
By Benne Sco
Crew is an essential institution at St. John’s
College. They meet at ungodly hours for months on
end (I know because my roommate’s alarm goes off
at 4:50 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, Friday
during those months) and really put their hearts into
it. For some people, crew becomes essential to their
personalities, it becomes their whole personality. And
then the season ends. Worst of all are the senior
captains who, without a firm stick to grab while
someone yells at them, retreat into the lonely sadness
of winter. I tracked down two of them to ask the hard
hitting questions.
Hannah Chavers; from @sjcaxolotlrowing on IG
“She Caught Crabs”: Hannah Chavers
So Hannah, who are you?
My name’s Hannah Chavers…uh yeah. [Ben Maier
in the back: I can fact check anything she says.]
What’s your favorite kind of oar?
I like a nice silicone grip.
How do you feel about boats?
I love boats, boats of all kinds. I spent my summer
on a boat, a different kind of boat, but a boat.
Why do you go to regattas?
Not to win. To prove…not to prove…to scout out
the competition and I don’t mean in a rowing
sense. I mean in a physical way. Is that making
sense?…Yeah I just like to see the difference in
physical stature between St. John’s College
athletes and Georgetown college athletes. There’s
just something so remarkable about how big a
man’s quad can be.
How do you feel about the swim test?
I feel like it’s life-threatening, kind of. Y’know, the
swim test made someone convert to orthodox
Christianity. Don’t take the swim test in jeans,
cause then you might drown. And then find Jesus.
You might not have walked on the water, but
Jesus did one time.
Who are the best four people to have in a boat?
I’d say Barack Obama is quad material. And he’s got
good quads. Mary Magdalene. She would have
passed the swim test. Me. Certainly me…Who’s
problematic but really muscular?…I’m just
saying the only reason anyone shows up to crew
is because they in some capacity don’t like
themselves.…Anyways, Ringo Star. Mixed quad.
If you don’t know what a mixed quad is, your
hands are full at all times. It’s really hard to
focus. How do you keep your eyes on the prize?
[Ben Maier: And you can’t see anyone’s butts.]
She caught crabs?
First of all, it has nothing
to do with sex. It’s
when somebody doesn’t
move their oar in the
correct manner [she
says a lot here about
oars and shit idk]. It
could be taken as a euphemism. It’s a way of
trying to make you feel better that you fucked up.
We’re blaming this tiny creature that has no way
of making you mess up that bad. But everyone
knows you messed up. I caught a crab once.
Have you ever had religious experiences in a boat?
Like the face of God looking down on me? Staring
at me? Gazing at me? No. No I have not. Do I
think I could? One day, maybe. Have you ever
seen God in a boat? Let’s interview you. Have
you ever caught a crab? Do you have crabs?
5
�Λόγος
THE GADFLY
Peter Boersema; from @sjcaxolotlrowing on IG
“What Do You Do with a Sober Sailor?”:
Peter Boersema
January 25, 2024
I don’t feel self conscious about the equipment… I
feel self conscious about…[everyone, in sync:]
us. I rowed freshman year in an old four called
the Scott Buchannan and it’s a very heavy boat
and I remember saying: “Light boats breed weak
crews.” These other school’s boats are named
after random donors; I bet none of them are as
cool as Scott Buchannan. But I do remember
when the Arby’s boat was passing us. [laughter.]
Who are the four worst people to have in a boat?
I’d say Odysseus because all the other people will
die. And I would say probably Gilligan from
Gilligan’s island. Captain of the Titanic? No…
Dictators. If you look on the Wikipedia page for
“rowboat,” the first picture is of Khrushchev
[update: the page is "watercraft" and this
apparently has not been true since June 2023
thanks to the no-fun attitude of Wikipedia editor
Iljhgtn]. So he’d be bad. A gorilla would be the
fourth worst person because…I think the power
of a gorilla would not be enough to overcome
their bad technique.
What is the liquid you most want to row on?
Wow…yeah…[long contemplation with everyone
giving input: vodka, liquid nitrogen, ethanol]…
What’s really smooth? The real question is what
liquid you want to be splashed by. I’d say water
but it’s the type of water at fancy events with
cucumber in it. Rose petals. Something like that.
I’d like to row on a lake of cucumber water.
What do you yell at people?
I don’t yell. If you’re yelling while you’re rowing,
you’re not spending enough energy on rowing.
But if I did…because of that principle, I would
yell “Shut up!”
Do you fear the cold hand of death?
No.
What boats could you beat in a fight?
I’m not actually going to give any details, but I beat
the boat called the Jim Beall in a fight. I do not
care to clarify.
Have you drowned?
Yes. I am in fact the reincarnation of Herman T.
Wooters.
Does the beard help with air resistance? Follow up:
does it make you feel like a real sailor?
No and no, but it helps keep my face warm.
Can you walk on water?
Only for a little bit, but as soon as I look down, I
fall. You probably read about the incident in
Sophomore year.
What do you think about when rowing?
You always have to be focusing on your technique
and how it’s syncing up with the technique of
other people in the boat and how you’re
conveying power from your legs to the oar.
Do you think about anyone’s ass? Your own?
My own? It starts to hurt after a while on that
wooden seat.
Do you feel self conscious during the regattas when First Secretary of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev, Swedish
high schools have more modern equipment than Prime Minister Tage Erlander, and an interpreter in a rowboat;
from an older Wikipedia page for “Watercra ”
SJC?
6
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
Thoughts on the St.
John’s Class
By Luke Briner
EDITOR’S NOTE:
This essay was originally published in issue XLV.4 of
the Gadfly under the same title. It is reproduced here,
with some adjustments and additions, for the
consideration of Polity at the beginning of our second
semester.
-LB
What is the nature of the St. John’s class, and
what attitude should we, as members of the St. John’s
community, take toward it? These two questions are
points of great dissent among students and faculty
alike, and the way in which each person answers has
radical effects on how they behave in their classes
and what they intend to get out of them. Recognizing
this, I’ve felt the desire to formally work through
both of them, looking to the philosophy of the
College itself as well as to the firsthand experience of
myself and others. I hope that by setting out on this
inquiry, and by attempting to shed light on the
principles upon which our classes seem to be based
as well as their natural consequences for our own
behavior, I can help the Polity come to a clearer and
more beneficial understanding of them, or at the very
least deepen the discourse surrounding them.
We will begin by setting out the foundations
upon which the College’s pedagogical philosophy is
based. I take the first and ultimate principle of the
Program to be “the liberation of the human
intellect.”1 This liberation is not simply freedom from
previous ignorance or bias, but is, more profoundly,
the achievement of a self-consciousness, mental
autonomy, and intellectual virtue through the sincere
application of one’s mind to what’s most essential
and worthy within itself. Our method for achieving
this ultimate kind of liberation is the study of Great
January 25, 2024
Books. Since these books, as Buchanan observes,
“communicate with great skill ideas that human
experience has taught us are important,”2 and thereby
allow us to “tune in on the Great Conversation that
we call civilization,”3 the hope of the Program is that
their sincere and sustained study will produce in the
student the eminent qualities of “an educated man—
that is, one who has learned to read, to use his mind
imaginatively and rigorously.”4
I take the second principle of the Program to
be that this liberation is to be pursued communally.
“Liberal learning,” as Brann observes, “is by its
nature conversational….the student is not the passive
recipient of knowledge but an active participant in a
common search.”5 By participating in this search, we
do more than simply “tune in” to the Great
Conversation the each text is a part of; instead, we
actually simulate our own conversation around the
Books themselves, and thereby give our ourselves a
the opportunity to exercise our minds in a way that
surpasses the limitations of solitary thought. Since
classes thus centered around dialogue and intellectual
community can “reach insights far beyond the views
of any of its members,”6 the Program makes them the
sole vehicle of our education; our colleagues are
made our very means of liberation, and we are
equally made theirs.
Accepting these principles, the ideal nature of
both the St. John’s class as a whole as well as that of
the individual student naturally begins to take shape.
Recognizing that their ultimate objective is the
liberation of their own minds, and that communal
dialogue centered around Great Books is the way to
achieve this, the ideal student will work as hard as
they can to promote the well-being, the efficacy of
that dialogue. In understanding that the
conversational Whole is by nature greater than
themselves, and that their good is to be found only
within that Whole, they will therefore always act in
accordance with what’s best for that Whole. If each
student commits themselves earnestly to this
responsibility, then the class becomes effectively its
own organism: a living, breathing Order in and
through which “harmony is actual and immediate.”7
This is the ideal of every class, and each student
should therefore consider working toward the
1
Statement of the Program, 3.
Buchanan, “Now and to Come: Liberal Education: A Common Adventure,” The Antioch Review, Autumn, 1955, Vol. 15, No. 3, 302.
3
Buchanan, ibid.
4
Buchanan, 304.
5
Brann, A Manifesto for Liberal Education, 2015.
6
Statement of the Program, 5.
7
Luchene, Beginnings of Community, 1999, 4.
2
7
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
realization of that ideal as their highest
responsibility.
However, by virtue of the very communal and
voluntary nature of our classes, many if not most of
them will fall far short of this ideal. A near-total
freedom from explicitly enunciated structure and
rules, as well as from objective criteria or judgements
of academic performance, makes it very easy to fall
from the discipline that those classes demonstrably
both require and aim to instill. But if genuine moral
liberation remains our ultimate goal, and if communal
inquiry around Great Books is our only means of
attaining to that end, then the fact that such inquiry
easily and often fails to maintain its integrity, and
thereby that such attainment is rare and by no means
a foregone conclusion, is a clear indication of the
fragility of the Program itself.
An understanding of this seems to be the
foundation for the Programs’ reasoning behind the
institution of tutors. Just as a polyphony, in order to
achieve the supreme interpersonal and suprapersonal
Beauty it’s so capable of, requires a conductor to
keep each part in its place and preserve the νόμος of
the whole, so too the intellectual polyphony of
dialogue requires an authoritative presence capable of
setting and enforcing its own necessary νόμος.
If this is right, then it follows that the role of
tutor as a laissez-faire facilitator, so often referenced
and praised by students and faculty alike, is greatly
overemphasized. Tutors should not, as Luchene
notes, “merely facilitate conversations.”8 Rather, they
should “guide the conversation, sometimes steering it
in a particular direction, sometimes listening and
letting it take its own course, and occasionally,
steering it around an unpromising detour.”9 If tutors
were only facilitators or democratic participants, then
they would be just another student; and if that is the
only capacity in which they act, then what’s the point
of having them in the class as tutors at all? Rather,
tutors are and should be understood as authoritative
figures capable of acting outside the specific context
of the conversation in order to ensure that it proceeds
in the appropriately respectful and equitable way. If
they aren’t, then the polyphony will lack a conductor,
and so will be exposed to the danger of falling into
the cacophony that we are all far too familiar with.
We should, then, resist the temptation to interpret the
Statement’s assertion that “the primary role of the
8
Learning Through Conversation at St. John’s College, 2015.
Learning Through Conversation at St. John’s College.
Statement of the Program, 5.
11
Learning Through Conversation at St. John’s College.
9
10
8
January 25, 2024
leaders [tutors] is not to give information, nor is it to
produce the ‘right’ opinion or interpretation”10 as
claiming that tutors simply shouldn’t assert anything
in class, but instead carefully distinguish between the
two modes of assertion that the tutor is capable of
operating within. While tutors should of course avoid
dogmatic assertions about the text insofar as they are
simply another participant in the conversation, they
should actually at the same time quite dogmatically
assert the bounds within which that very conversation
must take place, e.g., keeping it “cooperative and
respectful, not competitive,”11 and ensuring that no
one person takes away from everyone else’s
education by their obstinacy or negligence.
This perspective on students and tutors is not
only wholly consistent with the stated ideals and
doctrine of the Program but also readily confirmed by
our personal experiences. Recall to yourself the petty
bickering that so conversations devolve into when
left unchecked, or the student who believes, God
knows why, that he’s the smartest person in every
room and dominates every discussion regardless of
how much his bluster exasperates his colleagues and
disrupts their learning, or the tutor that actively
derails the intellectual work of their own class by
constant interruptions and digressions, or, inversely,
allows student-originated derailment to persist and
worsen by doing nothing at all—recall, and then ask
yourself whether you’ve felt liberated by the classes
where such behavior was allowed to occur and
persist. I’d venture to say that, on the contrary, the
classes which really have been liberating for us are
exactly those in which all its participants
conscientiously submit themselves to the common
good rather than to their own egos, and in which the
tutor, sometimes joining as a humble participant from
within and sometimes acting as a firm but beneficent
guide from without, ensures and enhances the
conversation’s civility and fruitfulness. We should
say, then, that those who refuse to submit to that
unspoken but strict order which a good class
necessitates on the grounds that it “doesn’t personally
benefit them” completely fail to understand that their
benefit is derived entirely from the excellence of that
very order, and, likewise that tutors who are
unwilling to correctly assert their authority for the
sake of that order do both their students and the
Program itself a disservice, since they damage the
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
education of the former and contradict the intent of
the latter.
I want to add to this my conviction that
students who participate too much in class are
significantly more harmful than those who participate
too little. Although both obviously do a disservice to
the class, their nature and intensity are of entirely
different orders. While silent students harm the class
passively by withholding contributions they might
have improved the conversation with, the student
who dominates conversations actively derails and
often outright destroys the very cohesion and equity
that any successful class requires. If this is true, then I
can’t help but question why many tutors and the
College itself tend to review and grade silent students
more harshly than toward students that refuse to ever
be silent, given that the latter is a much worse citizen
in our intellectual πόλις than the former. In short, the
“sons of pride”12 in our classes should be humbled,
not enabled.
On the same principles, we should view with
skepticism Barr’s suggestion that interrupting
colleagues in conversation can be acceptable or even
beneficial.13 Perhaps in some exceptional cases a few
quick interjections might really be a “point of
order”14 in dialogue; but this is a dangerous precedent
to set generally. Internalizing the idea that
interruption is even conditionally acceptable will
inevitably lead most of us, inexperienced and
inconsiderate as we are, to feel bolder in crudely
interrupting others, and thus only cause further
disorder and resentment.
We should likewise be very careful about how
we take Kalkavage’s15 exhortation to “not despair”16
when conversational degeneration occurs, since, he
claims, this is a part of the way in which “we learn
the art of using our freedom.”17 While certainly some
space should be given in which classes may do better
or worse, since openness and spontaneity is always
the lifeblood of dialogue, this must be kept firmly
within the realm of genuine dialectic rather than
allowed to degenerate into what Barr calls the
“eristic.”18 To tolerate the flagrant disregard of the
conversational standards which we have all elected to
submit ourselves to in the name of “freedom” is, at its
core, just as nonsensical as believing that laws should
January 25, 2024
be established but never enforced, since if society
didn’t have the “freedom” to collapse at any moment,
it would also not have the “freedom” to prosper in
peace. No—our freedom, our liberation does not
consist in anarchy or in trying to live and learn under
the constant and unchecked threat of it, but precisely
in the continued and safeguarded existence of a
genuine πόλις between ourselves and others.
Finally, I want to sincerely apologize for the
times that I have failed and will fail to meet the
standards set out above. I am genuinely ashamed of
these failures, and will continue to try to make up for
and move past them to the very best of my ability.
What I want to communicate through all of this,
above all to myself, is the necessity of taking
responsibility for our own education. What we give to
the Program is what the Program will give back to us,
and if we want to have better classes, then we have to
begin by holding ourselves to a universal standard of
academic and conversational excellence. Let me, and
let us all, then, aspire to this standard, and to more
liberating classes for everyone.
12
Job 41:34 (ASV).
Barr, Notes on Dialogue, 3-4
Barr, 4
15
Since I’m dealing with Mr. Kalkavage as a thinker here and not as a tutor, I have omitted the typical honorific.
16
Kalkavage, “Winged Words: On the Importance of Reading and Discussing Great Books,” 2003, 15.
17
Kalkavage, ibid.
18
Barr, 2-3.
13
14
9
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
Maura Sugg leads St. John’s students in the singing of “Sicut Cervus” from Tim Pra ’s article on sjc.edu on Oct. 7, 2016
Insider Ethnography: An Alumna’s Exploration
of a College Tradition (Part One) By Maura Sugg
EDITOR’S NOTE:
This inspiring essay was offered to the Gadfly by
Maura Sugg, a recent alumna of the college (A17).
With her gracious permission, it will be produced in
two parts over this and our following issue.
-LB
It’s 2:15 on a Wednesday, and the sounds of
chatter and footsteps reverberate up and down the
stairwell. Some people rush through, eager to get
wherever they need to be. Others stop on the main
landing, finding friends and forming themselves into
a circle. Maybe they are just passing through and stop
because they see others gathering. Or, maybe they are
there because they know what is about to begin.
10
Suddenly, an A-flat rings out from the piano on the
landing, once or twice to get the group’s attention and
again to provide the starting pitch for the now-hushed
crowd-turned-choir. The hand that had pressed the
piano’s key moves in time in the air, down, up, down,
up. Then, the singing begins. The motive passes from
tenors to altos to sopranos to basses, and soon the
stairwell is filled with glorious polyphony. Some
people brought music with them, but many are
singing from memory. They make eye contact with
each other and smile, or they close their eyes and
sway with the contour of their voice part. After three
minutes, they reach the final chord, holding out the
consonant sonority until the conducting hand gently
cuts them off. Another brief moment of silence,
stillness. Seemingly as if nothing had happened, the
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
before-noises are back, the crowd disperses, and its
members go about the rest of their day.
That is the typical experience of “Sicut Sing,”
a tradition at the Annapolis campus of St. John’s
College during which students convene to sing Sicut
cervus, a piece of sacred Renaissance polyphony by
renowned composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.
Students learn the piece in Freshman Chorus, a
required part of the curriculum in which all freshman
meet weekly to learn—broadly—how to sing.1 They
again encounter it in Sophomore Music, when they
study it in the context of Renaissance theorist
Gioseffo Zarlino to learn the conventions of
counterpoint. It was after analyzing Sicut cervus in
this context that then-sophomore Eric Fricke fell in
love with the piece and wanted to sing it with others
more often, leading to his creation of Sicut Sing
(Pratt 2016). I personally consider Sicut Sing an
integral part of my experience at St. John’s, which I
attended 2013-2017. As a prospective student, I
already knew Sicut cervus from a high school choir,
and Sicut Sing was a factor in drawing me to the
school. I then truly fell in love with the piece as a
freshman, and I was lucky to have been handed the
torch to lead Sicut Sing at the beginning of my junior
year. I recognize that my experience with it was
unique among most Johnnies, especially those
uninterested in singing. And yet, sometimes as many
as forty students, and not always the same students,
would show up at Sicut Sing each week.2 There is
something special about the tradition that draws
people to it, and this “something special” is what I
wish to investigate.
Why did Sicut Sing stick? Why do students,
under no formal obligation, continue to take time out
of the middle of their Wednesday and congregate to
sing a piece of Renaissance polyphony? These are the
guiding questions of my inquiry. Drawing on my own
experiences and recollections, as well as interviews
with four members of my graduating class who
frequently attended, I seek to uncover the layers of
meaning involved in the tradition.3 Based on what
observations I did gather, however, a number of
interesting themes emerged that resonate with
modern philosophical and ethnomusicological
discourses. Through a combination of primary and
secondary literature, I invoke Michel de Certeau,
Mircea Eliade, Émile Durkheim, William James, and
January 25, 2024
Susanne Langer, among others, to try to make sense
of why Sicut Sing is so beloved. My conclusions
weave together my ethnographic findings with
discussions of space and place, the sacred and the
profane, collective effervescence, affect theory, and
religious experience. The resulting tapestry reveals
that the particular conditions of Sicut Sing can
engender the engagement of the individual with the
collective in a manner akin to religious ritual through
a musical semblance that affects its singers while
simultaneously making them aware of their
affectivity. Because of the nature of the school, its
students—whether they know it or not—seem to
crave this kind of event, which is both a respite from
and reflection of the St. John’s experience.
ContextÊandÊaÊNoteÊonÊEthnographyÊandÊ
Methodology
As with any tradition, Sicut Sing can only be
understood in its context. While a full description of
the St. John’s College environment would take too
long to include here, nor would it be necessary for the
Gadfly’s readers, a few details about the school are in
order to highlight the facets that make Sicut Sing
such a natural part of the school. Tucked away in a
little corner of the historic city of Annapolis, MD, the
college occupies its own version of reality that many
have come to call the “Johnnie Bubble,” a selfcontained community that operates separately from
the world around it. Part of this is due to the school’s
size; with less than five hundred students, most
people know or at least recognize each other, and
every student develops their own role within the
fabric of the polity. Another contributor to the
atmosphere is the seminar-style nature of the classes.
Every course at St. John’s is based on the discussion
of primary texts, with ten to twenty students sitting
around a table conversing freely with only slight
direction from the tutor, who may ask an opening
question or guide the discussion when students hit a
snag. The discursive, student-led spirit of the
classroom setting extends to extracurriculars, which
are powered by student initiative, and to the casual
conversations of daily life. The strongest force that
creates the Johnnie Bubble, though, is the St. John’s
curriculum itself. Called the Program, it includes
foundational texts of the Western canon in a number
1
Pieces in the Freshman Chorus anthology include chant and traditional monophonic songs or rounds, Renaissance polyphony, Bach chorales, Mozart’s Ave Verum
Corpus, and a few more ambitious choral works.
2
Out of a student body of less than 500, this is not a small percentage.
3
In a different context and with more time, I know that expanding my pool of interviewees would nuance my discoveries.
11
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
of disciplines, and it does not afford any
specialization or consultation of secondary literature
in class. All students take the same classes, read the
same texts, grapple with the same questions, and earn
the same degree. Given these aspects of the Johnnie
Bubble, it makes sense why Sicut Sing was ever able
to work in the first place. It is a time for people to
experience an enhanced version of the college’s tightknit community and to participate in a quasiconversational process by singing a polyphonic piece
that everyone knows.
This paper is, in a sense, an ethnography of
the St. John’s community through the lens of Sicut
Sing. I want to understand why the tradition works so
well in its environment. As I mentioned, though, this
environment is one in which I have insider status.4
My observations and analysis are shaped by a deep
love for St. John’s that I developed through my years
as an undergraduate there. Because I was not
planning to write this paper while I was a student, I
am working from my memories in a much less
systematic way than I would if I were an outsider
approaching this topic or if I were conscious of
gathering evidence during my time at St. John’s. I
also know that my relationship to music and to Sicut
Sing at St. John’s was not typical of other Johnnies’
experiences. While I think this perhaps makes me
uniquely qualified to study this tradition, it also
primes me to find, or want to find, positive value in
Sicut Sing. To temper this bias, I reached out in the
private Class of 2017 Facebook group to recruit
volunteers I could interview about what Sicut Sing
meant to them. I developed a list of prepared
questions and was able to conduct four interviews.
While I recognize that this is a small group, I was still
pleasantly surprised to learn that my interviewees’
observations and opinions about the meaning of Sicut
Sing lined up with my own. With more time, I would
have liked to reach out to more people both within
and outside my graduating class to gain a more varied
and nuanced set of responses. As it stands, my paper
presents only some of many possible ethnographic
facts.
SpaceÊandÊPlace,ÊSacredÊandÊProfane
The physical setting of Sicut Sing is a
noteworthy part of the tradition, and it is one that my
4
January 25, 2024
interviewees described as indispensable (Anonymous
2020). Sicut Sing takes place on the first-floor
landing of the Pendulum Pit, a wide, multi-level
staircase in Mellon Hall, one of the two academic
buildings on campus. Its name comes from the
Foucault Pendulum hanging from the ceiling and
extending to a large hole in the floor of the basement
landing. One wall is entirely made of frosted
windows, allowing softened sunlight to stream in.
The physical glow and superb acoustics are
reminiscent of a cathedral where Sicut cervus might
more traditionally be sung. One interviewee
described the atmosphere as “ethereal” (Anonymous
2020), and others commented on the similarities
between the Pendulum Pit and a church. There is
more to just the physical resemblance to a religious
building, however. I posit that through the ritual of
Sicut Sing, its participants actively create a sacred
space.
In distinguishing space from place, Michel de
Certeau writes:
A place (lieu) is the order (of whatever kind) in
accord with which elements are distributed in
relationships of coexistence. … A place is thus
an instantaneous configuration of positions. It
implies an indication of stability. A space exists
when one takes into consideration vectors of
direction, velocities, and time variables. It is in
a sense actuated by the ensemble of movements
deployed within it. On this view, in relation to
place, space is like the word when it is spoken,
that is, when it is caught in the ambiguity of an
actualization, transformed into a term
dependent upon many different conventions,
situated as the act of a present (or of a time),
and modified by the transformations caused by
successive contexts. … In short, space is a
practiced place. (Certeau 1984, 118)5
This is a fitting description of the special
atmosphere Sicut Sing creates. Without the tradition,
the Pendulum Pit is a stairwell, a place on a map of
Mellon Hall that contains the pendulum and offers
access to other parts of the building. It is stable,
fixed. When students gather for Sicut Sing, they
transform it into a space, a thing contingent on
movement, experience, and intention. Like an
Different degrees of insider status in ethnography are possible, but not many ethnographers actively study their own communities. See Henry Kingsbury’s Music,
Talent, and Performance: A Conservatory Cultural System for a discussion of this and an example of someone investigating a setting with which he is familiar
(Kingsbury 1998).
5
All emphases in the quotations cited in this paper are original to the text.
12
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
inanimate object (a “place”) given a particular role by
“a determination through operations which …
specify ‘spaces’ by the actions of historical
subjects” (Certeau 1984, 118), it comes to life as a
space fulfilling a certain purpose. In this view,
though, Johnnies could transform any place into a
space by singing Sicut cervus there. What about the
Pendulum Pit bears particular significance?
Through Sicut Sing, the Pendulum Pit serves
to separate the sacred from the profane. As mentioned
above, the physical place itself is similar in
architecture to cathedrals and temples. Anyone
familiar with religious places might ascribe to the
Pendulum Pit a reverence fitting for the text of Sicut
cervus. According to interviews with ensemble
directors such as Peter Phillips of The Tallis Scholars
and Harry Christophers of The Sixteen in Jonathan
Arnold’s investigation of the roles of sacred music in
secular settings, singing in a venue designed for their
sacred repertory is part of the magic (Arnold 2013, 67
-75). But the Pendulum Pit was not created for
singing Renaissance polyphony. Rather, its
architecture lends itself to the transformation of the
Pendulum Pit as a place to a space for singing, a
space for ritual.
A Man on the Stairs near the Pendulum Pit
January 25, 2024
The peculiarity of the Pendulum Pit as a space
has several resonances with what Mircea Eliade
would describe as sacred. For Eliade, the “first
possible definition of the sacred is that it is the
opposite of the profane” (Eliade 1959, 10). Through
the process of hierophany, the sacred reveals itself in
“the manifestation of something of a wholly different
order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in
objects that are an integral part of our natural
‘profane’ world” (Eliade 1959, 11). A sacred space
can reveal itself to religious man in a number of
ways, and it demarcates qualitative differences in a
nonhomogenized space allowing him to orient
himself around a center. A cosmic pillar (axis mundi)
stands at this center representing communication with
the heavens, and the break in the homogeneity of
space is “symbolized by an opening by which
passage from one cosmic region to another is made
possible” (Eliade 1959, 37). In addition to the
creation of a cosmos through the axis mundi, the
transformation of space can occur by “repeating,
through a ritual of construction, the paradigmatic acts
of the gods” (Eliade 1959, 52). Through these ritual
acts of creation, man expresses his desire to be close
to the gods, who enacted the first separation of space
in its primordial form.
The space and ritual of Sicut Sing are startlingly
evocative of Eliade’s formulation. A fundamental
feature of the Pendulum Pit is the pendulum itself.
There is a literal compass etched into the marble of
the floor where one can observe the direction of the
pendulum’s swing, and the thin cable from which the
ball hangs extends from the ceiling of the fourth floor
to the basement. Though not in the geometrical
center, it positions itself as a metaphorical center of
campus, of the world. It is, in a sense, an axis mundi.
That the Pendulum Pit is a stairwell is also important.
Like the threshold of a temple or the towering
column of a cathedral, it is a liminal space, a
passageway between places on different planes.
Through the ritual of turning the Pendulum Pit from a
place into a space via Sicut Sing, its participants
situate themselves “at the very source of absolute
reality” (Eliade 1959, 65) and experience the act of
creation. This creation is twofold here; not only do
participants create by differentiating the sacred from
the profane through space, but they also create
through song. It is an aural consecration that brings
Sicut cervus to life, separating it from other sounds or
silences through our perception of it as a designated
musical event.
13
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
Religion,ÊCommunity,ÊandÊCollectiveÊ
Effervescence
The act of Sicut Sing also invokes an
experience of the sacred through its resemblance to
the collective effervescence of religious ritual. As I
discuss in this section, the text and music of
Sicut cervus represent individuals
merging with each other and
transcending the limits of
their own subjectivities. This
piece is a symbol of the ritual
act itself in which collective
effervescence, according to Émile
Durkheim, occurs and fixes itself
around that symbol. Ephemeral
in nature, the ritual requires
periodic repetition so that the
deep
experience
of
community can balance the
alienation of life in daily social
structures. At St. John’s, this
alienation can be surprisingly but
deeply felt, and Sicut Sing serves
to offset it through its weekly
occurrence.
The text of Sicut cervus,
taken from Psalm 42 of the Old
Testament, has overt religious connotations: “As the
hart longs for running streams, so my soul longs for
you, O God” (Ps 42: 1). Students are provided with
this translation on the score they use in Freshman
Chorus and Sophomore Music, and they also
encounter it in Sophomore Seminar when they
discuss the Bible. Many of them are not Christian, so
singing the text does not have special personal
meaning for them in a traditional religious sense. This
does not mean that they do not get anything out of the
lyrics. One of my classmates who does not have a
Christian
background
commented
on
his
interpretation of the text, saying that he values the
kind of “spiritual substance” (Anonymous 2020) it
provides by representing the “positive good we can
do by coming together as a community” (Anonymous
2020). He connected this with the broader goal of the
St. John’s Program, which, as described above,
values community spirit and collective contemplation
of what it means to be human and to live a good life,
whatever “good” may mean.
The music also symbolizes the act of communal
unity. Typical of Palestrina’s style, Sicut cervus opens
14
January 25, 2024
with a point of imitation that each voice part takes up
in succession until the full texture takes shape. We are
pulled in and wrapped up by this unfolding,
becoming immersed in warm consonances, tugging
but controlled dissonances, and perpetual motion of
overlapping lines. At times, the voices arrive together
on certain words, creating a rich,
powerful sonority. During Sicut
Sing, these moments usually elicit
natural crescendos accompanied
by smiles and shared glances
between singers. At the end
of the piece, the voices back
off one by one, landing on a
final
consonance
before
eventually
dissolving
into
silence. In their interviews,
my
classmates
all
commented on the equality
between the voices. There
is no one melody, but instead
successive motives that different
voices carry at different times as
if reacting to one another. The
piece does not work without all
the parts, and participants in
Sicut Sing can feel a sense of
personal responsibility to make
sure their part is heard. At the same time, they also
like hearing the voices “connect” (Anonymous 2020)
and mix together in the fabric of the piece and the
resonance of the Pendulum Pit.
This idea of coming together for a common
goal is represented in writings on religious ritual. As
quoted by Tim Olaveson, who links Émile
Durkheim’s “collective effervescence” to Victor
Turner’s “communitas,” Durkheim describes the
result or experience of ritual in religious life as
collective effervescence:
The very act of congregating is an exceptionally
powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are
gathered together, a sort of electricity is
generated from their closeness and quickly
launches them to an extraordinary height of
exaltation. Every emotion expressed resonates
without interference in the consciousnesses that
are wide open to external impressions, each one
echoing the others. Every communion of
conscience … must possess a degree of unity, of
intimacy, and the forces which it releases must
�Συμπόσιον
THE GADFLY
be sufficiently intense to take the individual
outside himself and to raise him to a superior
life. Also, the sentiments so roused must be
fixed on an object or concrete objects which
symbolize them. (Olaveson 2001, 99-101)
This communion is ephemeral and must be
repeated (“re-creative effervescence” (Olaveson
2001, 102)) for its participants to “become aware of
and revivify their common bonds” (Olaveson 2001,
102). Both Durkheim and Turner posit this
phenomenon as the opposite of daily social structure,
which is “in its intrinsic nature alienating. The
experience of collective effervescence/communitas is
a fundamental human need which acts to
counterbalance this alienation” (Olaveson 2001, 107).
Multiple interviewees noted that, despite its focus on
community, there is something about life in the
Johnnie Bubble that can be extremely isolating
January 25, 2024
(Anonymous 2020). We are constantly going through
the motions of daily life while simultaneously
reflecting on our experiences, our place in the world,
our being. Even though we are all working from the
same texts, we still feel lonely in our individual
subjectivities. For the classmates I interviewed, Sicut
Sing offered them comfort and a sense of belonging
that combatted even the darkest feelings of alienation.
In accordance with Durkheim’s notion, participants at
Sicut Sing fix themselves upon Sicut cervus, which
textually and musically symbolizes the essence of the
ritual activity. Although Durkheim’s descriptions of
how this manifests in culture point to more intense
and exhausting ritualistic experiences than Sicut
Sing, the basic principles of transcending oneself,
merging with the collective, focusing on a symbolic
object, and balancing the structures of everyday life
do reflect the sentiments expressed by my
interviewees.
Students Taking Refuge from a Storm and Singing Christmas Carols, Circa 1960
15
�THE GADFLY
Πόλις
Be the Problem Child
By B.S.
Be the Problem Child
‘Cowards are easier to love,
Though they deserve it not.’
—Me.
My friends,
Returning home for winter break, I was able
to reminisce in my childhood home with my mother
and sister. I looked back with fondness on my youth,
those days when I was so much happier and life was
so much simpler. Then I grew up and took off the
fucking glasses and looked at it straight. Here’s the
truth: I was the problem child. My childhood best
friend’s first memory of me was when I walked into
my new elementary school and promptly got my
finger stuck in the door, screaming at near
weaponizable ranges. My parents could hear me
“playing” several houses down the street. I wasn’t
allowed into the advanced math class because I was
“too loud” (I may proudly claim to be the only
student I know of from Rich Kid Elementary who
was both Gifted and Talented and Special Needs and
thus the most expensive on record). When, I saw a
problem, I chose neither fight nor flight but
FUCKING YELL.
In atonement for my sins, I have spent much
of my young adult life trying to speak more softly
and kindly (with variable success). I try to not talk
over people in class, try to ask questions, try to be a
good, respectable little introvert. That’s who I was
when I spent the week before Christmas with my
sister and all her millennial friends. They were all
incredibly kind and considerate. They respected my
choices and preferences before I even knew I had
them. I went along with it, trying to be just as aware
of other people. And you know what I realized?
It was all bullshit.
I am the problem child down to my very
fucking core. I love attention for making a joke in
front of the whole class (about how during one
seminar only three people should read the book and
the tutors’ job is to figure out who did and didn’t),
attention for terrorizing drunk people with questions
(if we were to name a challenge after you, what
16
January 25, 2024
would it be?), attention from all the people trying to
not laugh through their scowls (Mr. BS is interrupting
the senior class meeting by taking control of the TV,
that’s very bad, very bad, but god damn it he’s
making jokes), attention, attention, I love attention!
Of course I’m playing a character! Of course I’m not
“really like this”! Miss be with that millennial
sincerity, being-true-to-yourself, honesty bullshit.
You’re gonna die one day and so am I, but I’m not
gonna die in the way you do (boring, lame). Why?
Because I fuck shit up. And you know what? You can
too! Go take your white picket fence and burn that
bitch to the ground, pull pranks of real scale, be the
problem child.
I’m already hearing excuses: “but what if I
hurt someone? what if I get in trouble? what if I can’t
think of anything?” Yeah, and what if you die like
this, afraid and unrealized? If you make a truly great
bit (which, if you can’t think of one, can be
conceived of by sitting all your friends in a room and
riffing at various levels of sobriety for an hour) it
won’t involve hurting anyone (except yourself) and
will be so god damned good that either the people
who would get you in trouble have to shrug and laugh
or, better yet, the punishment will become an
essential part of the story.
These are the best/worst years of your life and
you can either let them fade into obscurity’s cold
night or you can be the bad bitch you were born to
be. I expect you’ll do the right thing (and tell me
about it!).
And don’t you worry, I’m putting my
madness where my mouth is (you’ll see <3).
Yours untruly,
B.S., the Sinfluencer
Students Marching on Maryland Avenue
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
On the
Greenfield
Library’s
“Quiet
Zone”
By Molly Sprout
On Monday, January 8th, The Greenfield
Library designated the basement to be a “Quiet
Zone.” In an Instagram post made on the same day,
they suggested to students who would like to work
collaboratively or have a “friendly chat” with others
to reserve the second floor Cohen Study Room. Staff
and student workers have been directed to
“recommend other spaces on campus for people who
want to socialize or who need to work together more
collaboratively.” While a seemingly harmless new
rule, it is a stark change from how the library has
been run in the past. Is this truly a mundane new
policy? Or is it a sinister coverup for tyranny?
The Greenfield Library has had no strict
enforcement of a noise policy in the past, and has
mostly relied on specific staff members, namely the
higher ups, to give warnings to people who are
making too much noise. This has left the library with,
for the most part, an honor code-based noise policy.
And how has that worked out? One would assume,
with such a rule put in place, that the honor code has
been a failure. The law ought not be created but out
of necessity, so was the necessity there? As someone
who is in the library at night when no non-student
staff are working, I saw for myself. And surprise
surprise! Aside from the occasional racket, the library
has always been a quiet place to work, even without
the leering eyes of the quiet police or without the
word of the law. Nor have there been consistent
complaints from patrons at the library. So, with no
real prompting of this rule, why has it been instated?
Here I am reminded of Tacitus and his
sentiments on a heavy-handed governing body:
“When the state is most corrupt, then laws are most
multiplied.” (Annals, Book III, 27) What we have
before us is a library, funded by our tuition, that is
limiting our right to have a “friendly chat.” Our
college, I will remind you, is a talking college, and
we cannot even talk with our peers. What we are
seeing is our freedom being ripped away from us
with the help of fun fonts and Instagram posts. What
we are are lobsters being put into a cold pot that is
slowly heating up to our deaths. What’s next after
this? No speaking at all? After that, cameras in the
bathroom probably. And then they will start banning
books. They always end up banning books. We are
prompted as a student body to stand up to this. We
must revolt. Talk louder! Yell! Start blasting TikTok
on your phone! Anything but let tyranny roll right
over you and the college you have given your life to.
17
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
A Junior's Plea from the St. John's College Yearbook; From the SJC Digital Archives
18
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
A Reflection on Winter Break
By Vivian Miyakawa
The moment I opened my front door and saw
my dog jumping up to greet me, I knew I was in far
too deep to quit. All I could think about was Erwin
Straus and his essay on “The Upright Posture” and
the way I would never be as connected to the ground
as my dog is. Running on his four-footed posture, he
is a horizontal axis to the earth. When I took a stroll
around my hometown of Seattle, I recognized the
faces of my classmates in every stranger that passed
me by. I marveled at the lack of navy colored
peacoats and the air felt strangely fresh and devoid of
cigarette smoke. I giggled uncontrollably as my best
friend raved about joining a sorority, and I told her
the same stupid joke every Johnnie makes about “our
kind of Greek Life.” Over the holidays, I devoted a
good chunk of time to explaining the curriculum to
curious relatives, and reminding my parents that yes,
every grade is reading the same books, and no, I’m
not throwing my future away with a liberal arts
degree. I know everyone’s experience is different, but
there is a certain unity that comes with being so
deeply entrenched in such a unique form of study.
You never really realize that you’re living in a bubble
until it pops. Finally, it’s time to return. Suitcase
weighed down with Mollin and Williamson, a
fragment of Plato’s “Euthyphro” to clumsily translate
on the plane… it’s surprisingly easy to feel so deeply
changed in so little time. Eighteen years of my life
weighed against one semester at college, and it’s the
latter which feels more like home to me.
Students Participate in a Snowball Fight near Randall Hall during a Snow-Storm, February 1979
19
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
Front Campus with Cannon in Foreground
SJC Mystery #6: Trapped
By Benne Sco
Where does a man flee to when all doors are
open to him save for the one that leads homeward?
Does he stay, pounding at the entrance to the
familiar, demanding in, in, in please just let me in?
Or does he venture out into the dark, willing to live
and die in the unfamiliar halls, trying to make a home
of what will not accept him? And who the fuck has a
third option? Would really appreciate any
suggestions.
I fear that things have gotten out of hand
recently. For those of you who are new here: Hi!
Hello! (he shouts into the void) I’m being chased by a
demon/specter/monster (but only slowly. Man kinda
just walks) in the empty abyss of this town. I call
them The Friend.
Now, I may be a liar, but I figure this is not
the ideal moment to withhold: I’ve spent my days
wandering these empty streets (winter is here; I used
to love it so, but it is not cold, even when snow falls.
It is a burning winter) checking door after door. I
thought, last time, that all the doors were open. I can
get into basements, backdoors, all this. But some are
locked: churches, random dorms, many of my
friends’ houses, places I know aren’t normally
locked. I’m too tired to figure out patterns.
The doors in my house are the real problem:
for The Friend, they’re always unlocked. Most of the
time they’re unlocked for me too, but sometimes I
can’t open them, stuck in- or outside. I try to keep
20
January 25, 2024
track of the hours when they’ll be locked, but there is
no pattern (unless you count the worst possible
moment as a pattern).
My room only gets hotter with each passing
day. The windows have never worked. I don’t like
using the AC (it’s too loud). I’ve taken to sleeping
with a knife. At first, for some goddamn reason, I
decided to keep it under my pillow (I woke up
bleeding but confirmed in my suspicion that I only
sleep on my left side). Now it’s next to my bed.
The Friend’s orbit seems to be getting tighter
and tighter. That time I tried to drive away, I was a
few miles away before he started showing up. Now I
can’t go any further than a mile radius around the
stone. Or is it a mile radius around the yellow house?
I can’t tell. I’d rather not be outside in the unending
dark when I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to get back
into my own house when I come back. So it’s me and
my knife inside for days on end.
What do you do with this much time? I have
about a thousand books to choose from at the
wonderful St. John’s College library, but for some
reason the walls of old books on “Comparative Racial
Psychology” and German history up to 1939 just
don’t appeal to me. I end up reading the same things
over and over: Calvin, Milton, Dante. So damn much
Dante. As if I’m trapped in a demon inhabited
alternate reality because I don’t know my theological
fanfiction well enough. I wasn’t even raised in any
sort of faith. My mother is a generation off of
anything like real Christianity and my father leaned
mystic-scientific, a fun way of saying: he believed
one thing systematically and its opposite when it felt
right. Not to place any blame on them, but I feel like
it would be nice to know a couple of words of Latin
at this point. Would make all my exorcism attempts
sound a lot more legitimate. Instead I am left with old
doctors of the church, making up my own fun little
theology which would get me burnt at some stake
somewhere some time long ago. There are no
burnings here at least.
I don’t know if
I’m hearing things (my
own heartbeat has been
getting to me recently,
the way it sounds like
footsteps, faster and
faster), but I swear
something is coming.
I’ll try and record it.
Maybe it’s time.
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
The Cupola of McDowell Hall in Snow, circa 1980; From the SJC Digital Archives
21
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
Photography
Highlight:
Winter &
Writing
By Abigail
Poppleton
As the first snow of the
year falls, students get to
work while staying cozy
inside.
Top: Senior Writing Lounge
Middle: Ms. Ceci & Mr.
Rosenberg hard at work in the
Fishbowl
Bo om: Mr. Selway jammin’ and
writing in the FSK Lobby
22
�Πόλις
THE GADFLY
January 25, 2024
Seniors: Final Stretch!!!
We’re almost there! We can do it!
Good luck to all seniors!
Burning Notes for Senior Papers in Common Room Fireplace, April 1974; From the SJC Digital Archives
23
�THE STUDENT
NEWSPAPER
OF
ST. JOHN’S
COLLEGE
Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the
student newsmagazine distributed to
over 600 students, faculty, staff, and
alumni of the Annapolis campus.
Opinions expressed within are the
responsibility of the author(s). The
Gadfly reserves the right to accept,
reject, and edit submissions in any
way necessary to publish a
professional, informative, and
thought provoking newsmagazine.
Submissions sent to the Gadfly
should either be in Google Docs or
PDF format.
For more information, contact us
via email at lbriner@sjc.edu.
60 COLLEGE AVENUE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401
Photographs without a listed source are from the
St. John's College Digital Archives.
St. John's College owns the rights
to these photographs.
Illustrations without a listed source are by Takashi
Mifune from Irasutoya.com and are free to use for
non-commercial purposes. All rights to these
illustrations still belong to the artist.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>The Gadfly</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Founded in 1980, <em>The </em><em>Gadfly</em> is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the <em>The Gadfly</em> Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
thegadfly
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
24 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Gadfly, Vol. XLV, Issue 6
Description
An account of the resource
Volume XLI, Issue 6 of The Gadfly. Published January 25, 2024.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Briner, Luke (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2024-01-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Subject
The topic of the resource
College students' writings--Periodicals
College student newspapers and periodicals
St. John's College--Periodicals
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gadfly Vol XLV Issue 6
Gadfly
Student publication