Klein: The greats and me
An elite cadre of withered, wizened greats walks among us here at Yale. Few have access to them, and most have never even met them. Their undergraduate classes? Few and far between. Their seminars? By 1000-word application only. Yet, their collegiate repute is unparalleled. Chipper, over-qualified graduate students climb over one another to research minutiae, and recommendation-letter-courting undergrads jostle to the front of lecture halls in desperate search of small talk.
These are the celeb-professors, the bespectacled Mick Jaggers of the academic world, scholar-superstars...
since when does Bloom not like Foucault?
Hey Alex, get some perspective... can't you recognize the "big frog/little pond" phenomenon? And Charles Hill a "thinker"... get real.
there are some words in here from which even the SAT would shun.
stick less to the thesaurus than to legitimate trains of thought.
what you think makes you sound "witty" or "clever" actually only reveals an embedded insecurity with how witty or clever you want to make yourself sound.
try sounding more real. your point would be heard and understood by so many more people.
Examples: cadre: (clique, clan maybe?); repute? just go for reputation/renown; minutiae (this word tends to have a "the")
What is the point of this article, exactly? That being a groupie of celeb profs is kinda-sorta-maybe not a bad thing? How is this a viewpoint that necessitates an opinion piece? No real opinion is being advocated here.
Great piece. I hear you. Brush yo shoulders off, Klein.
all commentors above are stupid. alex klein rocks.
alex, please stop writing.
insufferable piece.
Alex--you got it wrong.
Bloom is ignored by Yale. That's why he gave his papers to St. Michael's.
Preach? He doesn't preach, he pontificates.
And well he might.
The shilly-shallying dilletantism that masquerades for scholarship these days needs a few words spoken ex cathedra to shake it up.
Paul Keane
M.Div'80
http://theantiyale.blogspot.com