LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: 'Misinterpretable' Comments

To the Editor: I would like, in closing, to call for an open, public, "civil" forum on the future of the liberal arts and sciences at Penn, to be attended by University trustees, administration, faculty and staff. President Rodin has urged us to such forums. (I have more to say about the prospects of such a forum in the forthcoming Almanac.) And I believe a forum on SAS might serve not only to address academic issues, but also to clarify standards of "civility," collegiality and parity with respect to the excellence of the arts and sciences at the University of Pennsylvania for the twenty-first century. Again, to my esteemed colleague Dean Rosemary Stevens, I say I am deeply sorry for any pain I have caused. Houston Baker Professor of English n To the Editor: Regarding Mike Nadel's column ("Rosemary's Time," DP 3/24/95), we would like to call attention to SAS Dean Rosemary Stevens's strong commitment to developing Penn's curriculum in Asian American Studies, a program inaugurated during her tenure. This is an interdisciplinary field that has attracted superb scholarship in recent years, and Dean Stevens's response to the need to staff this vibrant new area reflects her understanding of the educational and scholarly opportunities inherent in it. The current effort to hire new faculty has had her enthusiastic support from the outset, and a careful search is being conducted with an unrelenting insistence on excellence by this committee and by the dean. The assessment of Dean Stevens's attitude toward Asian American Studies in the DP column is inconsistent with her record and with our experience. Elisa New Associate Professor of English SAS Asian American Studies Search Committee Chairperson (8 signatures follow) The Other Side To the Editor: Chris Iorillo is certainly right that people with psychological eating disorders need professional help and unqualified social support, that the media should celebrate the variety of human body types without idealizing any one, and that we must show advertisers that their models and actors do not represent and address who we are ("A Deadly Disease," DP 4/4/95). But we will not get anywhere by valorizing statements like, "My entire aesthetic sensibility has been formed, or more accurately, deformed, by Madison Avenue." My family was quite poor (in American terms, of course) when I was growing up. Do you think that advertising makes people who have to buy all their clothes at rummage sales, season their potatoes with salt because there's no money for butter, and have no education beyond high school (like my parents) feel adequate? The thinness obsession of popular culture is part of the larger arrogance of middle-class advertisers and audience, who are always beside themselves to come up with exclusivist, idealist "right" ways of doing everything. Carping and finger-pointing alone will not correct this. In the last fifteen years, I have been exhilarated to see proletarian American women like Chrissie Hynde, Madonna, Camille Paglia and Roseanne, who boldly assert their individuality while acknowledging that they are part of a larger social structure. Roseanne, in particular, defies anyone to take issue with her body. Madonna, on the other hand, has mocked us with our own beauty ideals, and challenged anyone to top her ambition in any sphere. It is this take-no-bullshit fishwife model that I have also seen in my mother, who in her forties decided to stop worrying about her weight and start worrying about getting her GED and taking a diploma in business operations. My aunt recently opened a home business to make attractive, dressy clothes for large-sized women so they wouldn't have to settle for synthetic prints from the Fashion Bug. Come to think of it, why do people writing about eating disorders never locate them in context with other social tyrannies over the body? How many of my waitress friends have work-related back problems that will never heal? Why, in this advanced civilization, was my father still seriously burned in an industrial accident in the 1970's? Bodies are abused in ways that many pampered college students, clucking tongues over Vogue ads, never realize. A bank analyst who learns her trade, dresses appropriately for work, and beats the establishment at its own game is a laudable business woman. A bank analyst who lets her upper-income job dictate her body size or cultural identity -- getting along to get ahead -- is a sell-out (c.f. Bernadine's husband in Terry McMillan's Learning to Exhale). Protests against advertisements do not empower in and of themselves. They must be matched, if this really is a community of "education and personal development," with an unwavering sense of conviction in and responsibility for self that we will not let Kate Moss reach. Sean Kinsell College '95 Blake visits Krypton To the Editor: In respose to Ian Blake's column ("Walk on the Ocean," DP 4/5/95), I fully agree with him that Professor Boyajian is an excellent educator and rightfully deserves tenure. I cannot agree with Mr. Blake's knowledge of geology. The earth is 4.5 billion years old, not 3.8 as he had stated. Mr. Blake must have been visiting Krypton during those lectures. Charles G. Bronk Director of Facilities Management, School of Arts and Sciences Continued Support for Camfield To the Editor: I am writing you regarding the English Department's recent decision to deny Professor Gregg Camfield tenure. I graduated from the College in 1992 as a double major in English and French and took two courses with Professor Camfield in 1990, my sophomore year and his first year at Penn. I wish to make public my support for Professor Camfield, a devoted and important teacher of American literature and a talented writing instructor. I was an Al Filreis devotee freshman year and was heartbroken to learn Professor Filreis would be taking a sabbattical my sophomore year. I talked to Al and he told me about Gregg Camfield, an exciting young teacher from Berkeley he had just interviewed. I signed up for Professor Camfield's "19th Century American Fiction: Humor" course and introduced myself on day one as a disciple of Al Filreis. Professor Camfield opened a collection of Twain short stories and began his teaching career with an inspired performance of "Jim Baker's Bluejay Yarn." I stayed with Professor Camfield second semester to participate in his love for Mark Twain and I am grateful to him for opening up Twain's life and times for me. I was extremely disappointed to hear of the English Department's denial of Professor Camfield and offer my full support in his struggle to remain at Penn. Students are really the only people capable of deciding these things. Add my support to Professor Camfield's backers. Eric Stern College '92