An Experiment in Democracy: Kenyon College

Money, Tenure, and Tuxedo Literature
Well, the sudden idea to write each of you actually put a grin on my face, though short lived. My question is simple: might there be one—yes, just one—English Department member at Kenyon College who might be able to perceive, even if but for a brief moment, beyond the paradigm of established-order literature? Might there be one of you—yes, just one of you—who might actually be willing to “listen”—not necessarily agree with, but just “listen”—to what is not within that paradigm?

As a professor (when employed, that is), I fully understand the expectations of tenure, which render taboo the questioning and challenging of ones colleagues, department, institution and, in the case of literature, the canon. University life from grad school on up is a kind of subtle and sometimes not so subtle indoctrinating process. If a student, question and challenge your professor’s fundamental aesthetic tastes and you will likely not obtain a letter of recommendation. It has become a bite your lip, shut your mouth culture. Few escape established-order indoctrination, though many will argue they’ve not been infected. The rewards are too great to escape.

In any case, nine months ago I sent the editors of The Kenyon Review a not very fawning email asking why the need for self-vaunting, which seems to have become all too commonplace in the milieu of poets and professors. “Always dazzled by its riches, when it arrives, I grab it and read it no matter what else there is to do,” states Susan Hahn on the review’s website.

What are Kenyon College English professors teaching students today? I asked the editors. Icon worship, icon ingurgitation, literary networking, self-aggrandizement, and self-congratulations? Shouldn’t professors be teaching students rigorous questioning and challenging of the academic/literary established-order instead? Shouldn’t they be teaching that vigorous debate is the cornerstone of democracy?

Nine months later, yesterday in fact, I received an email (not a response) from The Kenyon Review, which startled me: “The Board of Trustees of The Kenyon Review is pleased to honor Richard Ford as the 2008 recipient of the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement at a gala dinner on Thursday, November 6 at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York City. Tickets are $1,000 per person and include dinner and cocktails, with proceeds benefiting The Kenyon Review.”

Wow, has it really gotten that bad? A literary journal with a board of trustees and hosting a thousand-dollar per plate cocktail dinner at the Four Seasons! Writers in tuxedos! Poets in tuxedos! Professors in tuxedos!
If indeed you are teaching—exclusively teaching—the kind of tuxedo literature evidently promoted by Kenyon Review, perhaps one of you—yes, just one of you—might be daring enough to stretch your ears just a little beyond the walls of that comfortable tuxedo paradigm, listen, and even better yet encourage your students to do the same. You might wish to begin by introducing them to this open letter, which, since it is “open,” is posted at wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com. You could encourage them to even respond to it. You could even encourage your colleagues to respond to it.

Finally, you might also wish to get Kenyon College’s library to subscribe to The American Dissident, a journal of literature, democracy, and dissidence, which stands in direct opposition to the Kenyon Review in its open critical stance of the academic/literary thousand-dollar dinner established order. A one-year subscription costs only $16.

Your students deserve to be introduced to all points of view, not simply those approved by the Chamber of Commerce, pillars of the community, and bourgeois suburbanites.

Will one of you actually surprise with a response?

Sent to: boeckelere@kenyon.edu, carson@kenyon.edu, clarvoe@kenyon.edu, davidsoa@kenyon.edu, fernandok@kenyon.edu, garciai@kenyon.edu, hawkst@kenyon.edu, heidts@kenyon.edu, hyde@kenyon.edu, klein@kenyon.edu, klugef@kenyon.edu, laycock@kenyon.edu, lentzpe@kenyon.edu, lobanovrosto@kenyon.edu, lynnd@kenyon.edu, mankoff@kenyon.edu, masonte@kenyon.edu, matzj@kenyon.edu, mcadamsj@kenyon.edu, mcmullen@kenyon.edu, schoenfeldj@kenyon.edu, smithju@kenyon.edu, vigdermanp@kenyon.edu, kenyonreview@kenyon.edu