Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer? —T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

I spent forty-four years teaching Literature at the college level, first at Harvard and then at Claremont McKenna. Introducing young people to humanistic inquiry was for me a perennially rewarding activity, and I especially loved the rhythm of the academic calendar. At each semester’s close, I had the pleasant feeling of another job not too badly done, satisfaction with my students’ achievements, and a blessed release from the day-to-day demands of the College. In the summer, though, after a couple of months of blessed release, I would find myself missing the classroom, giving small lectures in my head, and looking forward to the rush and bustle of starting up again. Now, as I head into retirement, there will be no more starting up again and no more jobs to be released from. Stranger still, there will be no more Spring Breaks or summer vacations. I won’t even be getting a weekend off! Instead, what I see stretching ahead is one unbroken summer of the Life of the Mind for however long the mind may last. Is this the “unimaginable Zero summer” T. S. Eliot wondered about?

I can continue producing scholarship, of course, but teaching and scholarship are very different things. Scholarship demands a targeted, competitive form of thinking that addresses the current state of an expert field. Teaching is broader and more generous. It takes little for granted, gives space for matters large and small, and once you have gotten a taste for it, the daily outlet for your thoughts is hard to give up. Delightful as it will be having all my time to pursue my intellectual in whatever direction I choose, I will miss the conversation and the daily pushback to my thinking that my students always gave.

Hence my decision to create Thinking Out of School, offered free of charge to the digital public. Under that title, addressing a non-captive audience, I plan to continue sharing my thoughts about Literature and the questions it raises, and to do so more in a more personal voice than I could do in formal scholarship. Thinking Out of School will be a space in which to put questions without giving answers. I cannot even guarantee that everything I say will be absolutely serious! Still, I believe the Humanities do have a serious mission, which is to foster as wide an understanding the world we live in as possible. If that mission interests you, please subscribe.

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