Word: suleiman
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INSTRUCTOR OF ENGLISH Allison W. Phinney didn't quite know what to do Neither did Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities Susan R. Suleiman. Both were more than a bit surprised to see in excess of 60 students at the first meeting of their classes this term. Both wound up excluding most of those in attendance the first week, because they really had no other choice; there was no way to accommodate all of the prospective students. After all, neither English 288 nor Literature 104 was designed to admit all interested, or even all qualified undergraduates: Phinney...
...glimpse of. These four courses, including one each on "Semiotics" and "Deconstruction" are all no older than last year's catalogue "Deconstruction" remains bracketed this year, and those itching to study "Semiotics" (also presently bracketed) will have to hold out until '86-87. No wonder Phinney and Suleiman found themselves over-whelmed by hordes of theory-hungry students--of all levels, from more concentrations than could be counted...
Phinney, who is teaching "Introduction to Modern Critical Theory," was just hired this year as the English Department's sole theorist. The Literature Department, which offers Suleiman's "Modern Literary Theory," is itself the youngest of Harvard's concentrations. Things really are looking up, what with Harvard's nabbing Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Barbara E. Johnson from Yale and with Assistant Professor of the same Alice A. Jardine teaching something exciting each semester in that department. But the fact is, judging from student interest and enthusiasm, as well as the attention devoted to literary theory in universities...
...point, attempting to fulfill elusive distribution requirements. What the University should find exciting about this interest is that it's an example of what every liberal arts education is supposed to contain and so sporadically does: study for study's sake. Those who flock to hear Jardine and Johnson, Suleiman and Phinney know that lit crit is a combination, in its broadest description, of such disparate disciplines as linguistics, philosophy, and traditional literary analysis. And they want to study it because it's interesting and important. It's move than a shame that there isn't enough room for them...
...Obviously there's a lot of frustration--things are getting more available, but there simply aren't enough courses," says Phinney, who wound up accepting three of the 30 undergraduates expressing a desire to enroll (one also got into Suleiman's course and opted for it instead). Unfortunately, Phinney has no immediate plans for an undergraduate lecture course on theory, let alone a smaller, more intense version of the kind Suleiman had originally planned. So those motivated to do so will continue to slug it out for spots in other courses. Those motivated and in the English Department will have...