November 1

Yes, I know I’ve done it again: I’ve let another two weeks slip by before writing this entry. And again, it’s Sunday.

Why do I feel guilty about writing this on Sundays? I don’t feel guilty about writing anything else on Sundays. Of course, I haven’t been writing all that much recently. And that's something I feel less guilty about than anxious since the end of the semester is not all that far away.

Although the little papers we’re supposed to do for Asquith’s methodology class are irritating, they’re not hard since he basically tells us what he wants for them. Writing for Trizenko’s class isn’t hard either. But I’d been having a hard time coming up with major paper topics both for Briggs’s seminar and for Saltz’s class at Harvard. And it’s important to me that both these papers be good.

Having Shivvy to talk about this with, though, has helped me reach a breakthrough. I had been seriously considering handing in a revised version of my senior thesis to Briggs, but Shivvy persuaded me that Briggs might not be open to a critique from me during my first semester with him. But she has come up with a brilliant alternative. I should write something based on my senior thesis critiquing Briggs for Saltz, and a paper critiquing Saltz for Briggs! Isn’t she brilliant?

The idea really is brilliant since, in that I’m in both of their classes, I’m becoming quite familiar with each’s thought processes. As a result, I not only have a strong basis for critiquing them each, but also for doing so in a way that the other is likely to appreciate. Yes, after talking this out with Shivvy, I am no longer facing the task of writing these papers with dread, but with relish! Like no other woman I have ever met, she is truly my intellectual soul mate!

Speaking of Briggs’s thought processes: as one might expect, I have learned far more about them by studying directly with him than I ever did studying with Cohen back at Barstow. For Cohen, the key to understanding Briggs (or any other theorist) was a close reading of what he had written. Since being here at Charles, though, I have learned that Briggs does not feel bound by anything that he has written previously. Since he is the “father” of neo-radicalism, neo-radicalism can become anything he wants it to be! God, I’d love to have that power!

What this means, of course, is that sometimes things he wrote in his great book seem inconsistent with things he says now. Craig Hatfield seems to delight in pointing this out to Briggs in class. (I can’t tell whether Craig is brave or whether he’s foolish. Either way, he certainly is irritating with his constant reference to methodological issues a la Prof. Asquith.) But as Briggs invariably responds, his neo-radicalism is not static, but dynamic and evolving. He sees no reason why he shouldn’t refrain from changing his mind about various things. What does not change, though, is the basic, humane tenets of his neo-radicalism. And as Briggs has pointed out, while there may be some small inconsistencies between his past and present statements, there is a larger overall consistency to his neo-radical thinking. That always shuts Craig up.

Briggs himself acknowledges one seeming inconsistency in his exposition of his ideas. Although, as he himself stresses, neo-radicalism is a deeply humane body of thought, Briggs does not hesitate from disparaging or ridiculing the ideas of others. But as Briggs points out: people are all unquestionably equal to one another, but their ideas are not. Nobody benefits by treating bad ideas as if they were in any way the equivalent of good ones. Indeed, bad ideas must be pitilessly exposed as such to stop whatever pernicious effects that adhering to them may result in.

Thus, when Briggs heaps scorn and ridicule on ideas he disagrees with, he is actually exhibiting a profound degree of humanity. For by ridiculing the works of others, he acknowledges his concern for the harm their ideas can—or actually do—cause.

Still, despite the humane nature of Briggs’s ridicule, I would not (as I mentioned before) want to be on the receiving end of it—as was, much to my surprise, Professor Trizenko.

I clearly have much to learn about academia. In my last entry, I wrote about how great it was that Trizenko testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and appeared on ABC News and all. I began to learn just how wrong this assessment was the very next morning in Briggs’s seminar.

Briggs came into class angrier than I have ever seen him. He immediately launched into a diatribe about how the only academics whom the simple minds in Washington and in the news media could understand were “the most primitive descriptivists.” Those who did theory, by contrast, were almost never asked to testify or give interviews.

He then offered a two-part explanation as to why this was the case. For the vast majority of legislators and journalists, he said, the explanation was simple: “Theory was just too damn complicated for their pretty little heads.” But, he insisted, not everybody in Washington was stupid. “Contrary to what you might think, there are some very, very clever people there.” It was these, he explained, who were the most determined to exclude theorists from the policy discourse on international relations. For if the theorists suddenly began appearing on Capitol Hill and on the talk shows, they would unquestionably crowd out the descriptivists. Those who now dominate the Washington discourse on international relations would soon lose control over it, thus paving the way for the adoption of a neo-radical foreign policy agenda.

Briggs never mentioned Trizenko by name. He didn’t have to: we all knew who he was talking about.

Craig Hatfield chose this inopportune moment to ask why it was that a neo-radical agenda would emerge if IR theorists came to dominate the foreign policy discourse in Washington. There were, after all, several contending schools of IR theory.

Briggs stared at him for several seconds and finally replied, “Your question is so ridiculous that it isn’t even worth addressing.” He was that angry!

Craig, though, pressed on. “Surely,” he claimed, “our Senators and Congressmen would mainly adhere to the realist/neo-realist or the liberal/neo-liberal schools, and almost none would embrace neo-radicalism—just as virtually none embraced radicalism in the past.

Briggs just shook his head, saying, “I think it’s time we got to the subject of today’s seminar.” It was clear that Craig had gone too far. He seems to think that he can say anything he wants to just because he’s gay.

Briggs, though, wasn’t the only one whom Trizenko had offended by getting so much publicity in Washington. In the methodology class later that same day, Prof. Asquith also made derisive comments about the “unsound pop scholarship” that Washington seemed addicted to. “The trouble with Washington,” he said, “is that the people there can’t distinguish between good and bad scholarship the way highly trained academics can.”

“I haven’t done a scientific study,” he added, “but I suspect that someone who did would find that Washington tends to lionize those academics who tell them what they want to hear, and shun those who dare to tell them anything different.”

Craig, I noticed, did not argue with Asquith the way he did with Briggs. Indeed, he didn’t say anything at all. [Please note, though, that I make no inference as to why.]

The very next week, I was told, Trizenko’s situation deteriorated dramatically. I don’t know how he knows these things, but Michael Radkowski said that the tenured faculty of the department voted on Trizenko’s tenure application this past Wednesday. According to Michael, the vote was against him by a small margin. And also according to Michael, getting more than one or two negative votes from the department faculty is the kiss of death for a tenure application.

I don’t know how much of what Michael said is really true. Certainly, though, Trizenko was uncharacteristically subdued in class this past Friday.

Even more than Trizenko, Danielle appears to be extremely unhappy. I know that she was planning on doing a dissertation on some aspect of Russian politics, and was counting on Trizenko to be the chair of her dissertation committee. If he ends up leaving, there is nobody else in the department for her to work with on Russia.

Michael says that if Trizenko ends up being turned down for tenure this year (and Michael thinks he surely will be), Trizenko can stay at Charles one more year and appeal. But if he loses the appeal, he’s out altogether.

Here’s the problem Danielle faces: she can still work with Trizenko on a subject she likes and hope that he somehow gets tenure this year or on appeal next year. The risk she runs here, though, is that he might not and so would have to leave one year after she takes her comprehensive exams this coming summer. This would probably not give her enough time to write a dissertation with him. If she began it, she would then have to start working with a new dissertation committee chair, who would undoubtedly insist that she alter her dissertation from whatever she and Trizenko had agreed upon.

But even if she did manage to write a dissertation for Trizenko in less than a year, it would be a wasted effort if he was forced to leave: who’s going to give a job to someone who got a Ph.D. from someone who was denied tenure?

I feel very sorry for Danielle. Michael, though, does not. That’s the risk she ran by attaching herself to someone who hadn’t gotten tenure yet, he argues.

Fortunately for me, I’m not running any such risk in working with Briggs; he’s long been a tenured professor. In fact, he’s a full professor.

Yes, I have certainly learned much about academia during these past two weeks. I wonder what other lessons are in store for me.

October 18

I really am getting lax. Not only is this entry being written on a Sunday instead of a Friday, but it is also being written two weeks after the last entry instead of one. I would like to be able to say that this is due to the press of my course work. In fact, getting through all the reading is a struggle. But the truth of the matter is that I have mainly been distracted by Shivvy.

I had not realized just how narrow and lonely my life was. Before Shivvy, all I did was study. I continue to study now, of course. But it’s nicer because we usually study together. Being a grad student, I have an efficiency apartment on campus. She has gradually moved more and more of her clothes and other stuff over here from her dorm room. Whenever she comes over, she also brings her laptop, which is more powerful than the one I brought with me from Barstow. As a result, we each take turns on it while the other is reading. It’s fun because she keeps making wisecracks about whatever she’s reading or writing.

It’s not all fun and games, though. We each read and critique what the other one writes. I, of course, am able to help her considerably. What is truly wonderful, though, is that she is not only able to understand what I write, but she thinks it’s interesting too! Yes, I think Shivvy is my intellectual soul mate!

She even read (or at least skimmed) my senior thesis critiquing Briggs. She asked many intelligent questions about it too. She warned me, though, never to show it to Briggs. “If he sees this,” she said, “he’ll cut off your cock and make you eat it!” (Seeing my shocked reaction, she added, in a much sweeter voice, “And that would be a real pity.”) I told her that while I was sure his reaction wouldn’t be quite so extreme, perhaps it would be prudent not to show it to him before getting my Ph.D.

Not that we agree on everything. She says that we “neo-rads” go “too far,” that things really aren’t “as bleak” as we seem to think. She has a far more optimistic outlook on the world. Well, she’s young. And although she’s not really conscious of it, she’s really something of a “neo-lib.”

Some of her ideas I really don’t understand. For instance, although she’s never had a class with Professor Briggs, she insists that he is a “jerk,” and that “everybody” thinks so. No matter what I say, she will simply not be reasonable on this point. She has to take his undergraduate international relations class for her major, but has been postponing it, she says, until someone other than Michael “the Rat” Radkowski is Briggs’s TA.

While she thinks Briggs is bad, she is certain that Michael is truly monstrous. Again, although she has never had any interaction with him, she insists that he is a “total jerk” and that “absolutely everybody” thinks so. Very puzzling.

Some of her views are also contradictory. She has liberal views on everything (she wouldn’t be my girlfriend for long if she didn’t), including race relations. On the other hand, she has a deep, abiding fear of young African-American males. A girl she knew in high school was (perhaps I should add, allegedly) raped by one and ended up HIV positive. Shivvy is deathly afraid that the same thing might happen to her.

Ever sensitive to even the faintest whiff of racial intolerance, I tell her (whenever this topic comes up) that just because one African-American male allegedly raped someone she knew doesn’t mean that all African-American males are rapists. Her usual response is: “What the fuck do you mean, `allegedly?’ It happened!” And then she usually adds, “It’s easy for you to talk; you’re not the one they want to rape!”

One other thing that I find somewhat troubling about Shivvy: after she gets her B.A., her ambition is to go to business school and then be an international banker like her Mom! I keep telling her that this is really quite reactionary. As neo-radicalism proclaims, big multi-national banks and businesses are the exploiters of Third World peoples. Shivvy counters by saying that it is Western investment that provides jobs, taxes, training, and a host of other benefits to the Third World—benefits that they would not have otherwise. She likes to quote a saying of her Mom’s: “The smartest people in the Third World tell me that the only thing worse than being exploited by the multi-national corporations is not being exploited by them.”

Like I said: Shivvy is young. I’m sure, though, that exposure to me will eventually raise her consciousness.

We do other things besides study together. We are, of course, both in Trizenko’s class (unlike Briggs, Shivvy claims that he is very popular with the undergrads). We go out to all kinds of bars, pubs, and nightclubs with Shivvy’s friends. I seem to have a certain degree of standing with them. I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m a grad student or just because I’m Shivvy’s boyfriend.

Shivvy and I seem to be settling into something of a routine. She stays with me here on Friday and Saturday nights, but goes to Belmont to see her folks on Sunday afternoons. She then goes directly from there back to her dorm room Sunday evenings. That way, we both catch up on our studies. Shivvy, though, has the endearing habit of leaving one of her scrunchies under a pillow on Sundays for me to discover. I don’t know whether she does this deliberately or by accident. We sometimes study together weekday evenings, but she usually goes back to her dorm room for the night. Not always, though!

Shivvy and I threw a little party here at my place this past Friday night. Several of Shivvy’s (all very attractive and very animated) girlfriends came with their (less attractive and less animated) boyfriends. Doug came with his wife, Angie. Lisa Dudwick came by herself. I had invited Craig Hatfield, but he said he had another engagement. At Shivvy’s insistence, I did not invite Michael.

Shivvy herself invited Danielle—who showed up for the party with Professor Trizenko! They didn’t stay long, but they were the hit of the party while they were with us. As I have mentioned before, Danielle is a popular TA, and Trizenko is a popular professor.

As those of us in his Friday morning class knew, Trizenko had just been in Washington where he had testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the latest crisis in Russia. I had seen clips of his remarks on the ABC Evening News, as well as a long interview with him on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer. He told us that CBS and NBC had also carried clips of his testimony. How fantastic! It was like having a TV star in our midst.

I hadn’t realized it before, but Danielle told me while she was at the party that this was Trizenko’s sixth year at Charles, when he had to go up for tenure. Not that there was any doubt anyway, said Danielle, but Trizenko’s Senate testimony and media appearances would undoubtedly clinch tenure for him. It was all great publicity for the university too.

After Danielle and Trizenko left, one of Shivvy’s girlfriends, Lisa, speculated aloud on whether they were engaged in an “inappropriate” relationship. Doug’s wife, Angie, commented that surely that was nobody’s business but theirs. Lisa explained how, in fact, such a relationship between a TA and the professor she worked for would be inappropriate. Shivvy said that Danielle was obviously old enough to decide what was appropriate for her. I interjected that this viewpoint was incorrect, but that I, for one, would never presume to instruct Danielle in this realm. Doug said he doubted that anything was going on between them anyway; they were both too old for that. The conversation continued on in this vein. Everyone seemed to be having a good time—even Angie, who as only the spouse of a student, and not a student here herself, really didn’t quite fit in.

Before I forget, there’s a couple of things that Michael told me last week that I should note down. He said he had come back to the office one day at the end of Danielle’s office hours and saw that she was having a very unpleasant conversation with an African-American male student over a grade she had given him on a midterm for Trizenko’s lower division comparative politics course. He was telling Danielle that she had graded him down because he was black. She was telling him that this was not so, and that she had graded him down because he had written a poor essay. But the student, Michael said, was not convinced and ended up stalking out angrily.

I was really sorry to hear about this. I would have thought that Danielle would have treated a person of color with greater sensitivity.

In addition, Michael said that Prof. Asquith had come in to the office when Craig Hatfield was there. Michael said he overheard them have a little talk about the propriety of consensual sex between students and professors. Asquith was saying how while he agreed it should not be allowed between heterosexuals, prohibiting it between consenting homosexuals was unjust. Craig, however, argued that the rules should apply to everyone equally. Michael said that Asquith was obviously disappointed when he left, and that it was very clear what he wanted from Craig.

I’m not sure if Michael’s inference was accurate. Perhaps they were genuinely discussing this issue in the abstract. Abstract intellectual conversation does take place at universities sometimes, after all. Assuming Michael’s rendition of the conversation was accurate, though, I could see both sides of the issue. Given the past discrimination toward homosexuals practiced by heterosexuals, heterosexuals should not be telling homosexuals how to behave. On the other hand, I very much admire the principled position of a homosexual such as Craig (as I assume he is) that the same rules of conduct should apply to everyone.

Re-reading this diary entry, it strikes me that a future biographer or intellectual historian might not think what it discusses to be particularly interesting or important. It is human concerns such as these, however, which loom large in day-to-day life, and thus I believe they are worthy of preserving for posterity.

October 4

I find, once again, that I am writing this entry two days late—on Sunday instead of Friday. Not that it really matters, I suppose.

Now that the fourth week of the semester is over, the office I am in has settled into something of a routine. Since it would be extremely useful, I am sure, for my future biographers to understand my milieu, I will describe it. As I mentioned before, the office contains six carrels. As you enter the door, there are three on the right and three on the left. Michael and Danielle each occupy the carrels furthest from the door, by the window. Michael is on the left (naturally) and Danielle is on the right. I am also on the left, in the carrel next to Michael’s. Doug is also on the left, on the other side of me and close to the door. Across from him on the right is where Lisa Dudwick sits. Between her and Danielle, and just across from me, is Craig Hatfield’s carrel—although he is hardly ever there.

Each of the carrels is equipped with a computer. There is, however, only one telephone for the entire office. This is located on a small table at the far end of the room between Michael’s and Danielle’s carrels. Both told us four newcomers that they have to be near the phone since they are TA’s. Both claim that their cell phones don’t work well in this building (though none of the rest of us had this problem), and that they needed to have priority access to the office phone for work-related calls anyway.

What is especially curious is that the telephone table does not stay in one place. Michael usually has it next to his carrel if Danielle is not around, but she always moves it to a point equidistant between them when she comes in. She does this even if Michael is there, and even if he is talking on the phone, without saying a word to him. I have noticed that Michael will not touch the table while Danielle is in the room, but as soon as she goes out, he moves it back closer to him.

Each of the carrels has a swivel chair. Michael and Danielle have the two newest ones; the rest of us have somewhat older models. In addition, there are two “guest” chairs in the office. Michael and Danielle each keep one next to their carrels, citing the need to accommodate undergrads who come to see them during their office hours.

Let me explain about “office hours:” as TA’s, Michael and Danielle are required, just like professors, to be available in their offices for a couple of hours each week for students to come visit or call. These office hours are posted just outside the door and on the syllabi of the classes for which they are the TA’s.

All the rest of us, including Michael, usually go to the library or somewhere else during Danielle’s office hours. There’s always a steady stream of undergrads coming by to visit her during them, and often for some time afterward, making it hard for the rest of us to concentrate. Sometimes when I have come back to my carrel, supposedly after the end of her office hours, she’ll still be patiently explaining various concepts to two or three undergrads. They are grouped around her carrel in her guest chair, Michael’s guest chair, and sometimes even Michael’s swivel chair. Michael always looks about to explode if he comes in and one of Danielle’s students is in his swivel chair, but before he can say anything she always asks the student to give Michael back his chair and grab another one that’s unoccupied.

By contrast, there’s no problem at all concentrating on work during Michael’s office hours, since almost nobody comes to see him during them. I wonder why this is. Maybe it’s because the professor whom he is TA for, Briggs, explains everything so very clearly that the undergrads don’t need to come see Michael.

Except during Danielle’s office hours, our office is a relatively quiet place. The six of us with carrels in it are almost never there together; our varying class schedules make this impossible most of the time. I almost never see Craig Hatfield there, except just before and just after his classes. Lisa Dudwick spends time at her carrel, often fiddling with a strand of her long brown hair. But she is so quiet that I hardly notice her.

Michael, Doug, and I are often there together, and when we are, we sometimes hold an impromptu seminar on international relations theory. If she is in, I sometimes try to draw Lisa into the conversation since she’s in the Briggs seminar with Doug and me, but she usually won’t say more than a few words, if that. I think Michael intimidates her. Danielle doesn’t join in either, but not because she’s intimidated. If we’re debating while she’s there, she usually tell us that she’s interested in the reality of international relations, not theories about it invented by a bunch of narcissistic males.

Lisa usually shouts, “Hooray!” if she hears Danielle say this. I think Lisa would like to be friends with Danielle, but Danielle doesn’t seem particularly interested in her. Although I would describe Danielle as a feminist, she’s not at all interested in feminist theory the way Lisa is.

Now that I’ve described my routine, I turn my attention to a non-routine event—which will explain why I am writing this two days late.

When I went to Trizenko’s class on Friday morning, I sat next to the same black-haired, blue-eyed babe I described before. I could not help but notice, though, that she was wearing a short navy blue dress, even though the weather has gotten somewhat cooler.

At the end of class, she actually spoke to me! She asked where I had been the previous Friday. I told her that I had been at the International Relations Association annual conference with some of the other grad students.

“Oh, you’re a grad student!” she responded. “Hey! Maybe you could give me a little help with this class!”

I said I’d be happy to. She asked if I was free for lunch. I said I was, and she said, “Let’s go!”

As we walked along, she told me that her name is Siobahn (pronounced Shi-vawn) O’Keefe, but that her friends call her Shivvy. She is from nearby Belmont, Mass., which even I knew to be an affluent suburb of Boston. And she is a junior majoring in political science, with an emphasis on international relations.

She seemed to think that it was really cool that I come from California. She apparently didn’t know that Barstow is regarded as California’s unwiped rear end—even by many of the people who live there.

We went and got sandwiches and sat outside eating them in the cool sunlight. I can’t remember much of what we said, but do remember how much I enjoyed our conversation. She seemed to like my sense of humor. I liked saying things that made her laugh.

She obviously didn’t know as much as I did about international relations. But she was able to understand what I told her about it and make good points herself. On the other hand, she has certainly seen much more of the world than I have. Except for driving down to Mexico, my only foreign travel was a student tour to France, England, and Ireland that my folks gave me as a reward for graduating from high school. Shivvy’s Mom, though, does a lot of traveling on her job (something to do with investment banking or something bourgeois like that), and she and her Dad have been able to meet up with her in a lot of places, including Kenya, South Africa, Thailand, Poland, Brazil, Argentina, and several others I can’t remember. Shivvy’s been to Europe not just once, but many times, and has friends over there whom she is in contact with. That is cool!

Shivvy soon discovered that I really didn’t know much about the Boston area beyond the confines of Charles and Harvard Universities. She asked if I wanted to go with her downtown in the evening to an Irish pub and listen to some music there. That was an offer I didn’t refuse!

We had a great time that evening talking, drinking, and laughing together. We both commented how even though we’d never spoken to each other before today, it felt like we had known each other forever.

On the way back, we decided to buy some wine and continue talking back at my place. Once there, however, our communication soon moved into a non-verbal realm. Privacy concerns prevent me from saying anything more, but let me just say this: Shivvy demonstrated that she can provide me with both types of stimulation that I seek.

We then spent yesterday and most of today together, with her showing me her favorite restaurants, shops, museums, and other places in the area. I hadn’t realized that all these things were even out there.

She stayed with me again last night. One thing I will say about Shivvy: while I clearly dominate her intellectually, I must confess that she dominates me sexually. She’s the one who tells me what I am going to do to her or what she is going to do to me, and that’s what happens! She’s incredible! [Check with Shivvy at the appropriate time on whether I should delete this paragraph. I wouldn’t be surprised if she told me to leave it in!]

We both decided that if we were going to have any chance of being ready for class on Monday, we’d better spend the evening apart, and so that’s why I am only writing this entry now.

September 27

I am writing this entry two days later than usual—on Sunday instead of Friday—since I have been incredibly busy attending the annual conference of the International Relations Association. The IRA, as my future biographers will surely know, is the academic association for specialists in international relations. Like other such associations, it holds an annual conference at which hundreds of scholars (not just professors, I found out, but even advanced graduate students) present research papers. The annual conference is never held in the same city twice in a row. It was fortunate that the conference took place in Boston this year. Prof. Briggs encouraged all his students to attend.

The conference began on Thursday and ran through noon today. I went over early on the Thursday morning, stood in line twenty minutes waiting to register, and then spent twenty minutes looking through the huge program (bound like a book!) that was given to me along with a name tag by the registration desk attendant.

I picked a panel on alternate conceptions of international security that sounded interesting, and found my way to the room where it was being held. I was a little surprised because although the program said the panel would consist of four people presenting papers and two more discussing them (plus a chair), only two paper presenters and one discussant were actually there. I would soon learn, however, that this was par for the course at these panels—which was frustrating because the one or two paper presenters I wanted most to hear were usually the ones that didn’t show.

I would also learn that attendance at these panels varied widely. The first one I attended, for example, was in a room with about fifty chairs, but there were only ten of us in the audience—at most (people felt free to come in late or leave early). The audience for some panels, though, was huge. I think it all depended on the prestige of the paper presenters. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that everyone would want to hear the stars of the field, while next to nobody wanted to listen to grad student presentations. Not that the grad students minded. The ones I talked with were quite happy with a small audience, since their presentations tended to get harshly criticized by discussants.

I kind of felt sorry for the older professors who obviously were not stars. For a grad student, there is no shame in not attracting a large audience for his or her presentation. But for senior professors not to be able to do so just showed what duds they are. I attended one panel on revolution where although—surprise, surprise—everyone listed in the program for the panel (three full professors, one associate, and one grad student) showed up, I was the only person in the audience—until I left. To their credit, though, they proceeded with their panel, acting as if everything was normal. Maybe it was, for them.

After the first panel I attended, I went over to the book exhibit room, where fifty or so publishers had booths displaying all their latest releases. Just as among professors, there appears to be a pecking order among publishers. The booths of the most prestigious publishers were always crowded with people wanting to buy their books at the conference discount or trying to get an acquisitions editor interested in whatever they were writing. At the other end of the scale were the publishers’ booths that nobody seemed to visit and where those manning them were sitting around reading novels or just looking bored—if, that is, these unprestegious booths were manned at all, which some of them were not. The prospect of anyone even stealing their books was apparently not a concern.

I shouldn’t have used the word “manned” in the previous sentence. Although there are more men than women in academia, from this book exhibit it appeared to me that there are more women than men in academic publishing. And the women appear mainly to be young and attractive. I have to admit, I visited a few booths mainly to get a closer look at the pretty women running them. I wonder if publishers send them to these conferences specifically to lure the predominantly male participants over to their booths? [I’d probably better delete this paragraph, even if it does point out an interesting example of reverse exploitation]

At the book exhibit, I ran into Prof. Cohen from Cal State Barstow. He pumped my hand and declared loudly how great it was to see me—a little too loudly, for my taste. He insisted on taking me to lunch. But since he was on a tight budget, we didn’t eat at any of the expensive restaurants in the hotel, but went outside of it altogether to a fast food restaurant he’d already found.

I felt more comfortable talking with him there. It was fun hearing about people I knew back at Barstow as well as telling him about my classes and professors at Charles. It was nice, actually, that he was so genuinely interested in what I was doing.

Brendan, as he insisted I call him, asked if I was going to the Charles University reception at the conference tomorrow evening. I replied that I didn’t know there even was one. He then got out his copy of the conference program and showed me where it was listed. He’d clearly studied this a lot more closely than I had.

I wondered aloud whether the reception was intended for grad students like me. He assured me that all receptions listed in the program were open to all conference participants. In that case, I said, I’d probably go. He then said he’d be going too, and asked if I would please introduce him to Prof. Briggs. I said, “Of course.” What else could I say?

He thanked me, and then asked, “Are you coming to the panel I’m giving a presentation on this afternoon?”

“Sorry,” I replied, “but I have to go to my class at Harvard.” I don’t know why I said that, but it felt good. I had actually been thinking of skipping the class and staying at the conference.

Cohen took it well. In fact, he said he wished we could switch places, with him going to Harvard for me, and me giving his presentation at the conference for him. “After all those lectures of mine you listened to, you could probably give my presentation for me without even reading the paper!” he said enthusiastically. He was probably right.

He then asked if I’d be at the big IR theory roundtable tomorrow morning which Briggs, Saltz, and Arch Faircloth would all be on. I hadn’t heard about this either. He showed it to me in the program. I said I’d definitely be there. As we parted company and I walked to the T station, I realized that I’d have to miss Trizenko’s class to attend the roundtable, but I knew it would be worth it.

The next morning, I met up with Michael Radkowski and Doug Terenti (Brigg’s other first year grad student, as I thought of him) just before the big IR theory roundtable. It was being held in one of the hotel’s large ballrooms with hundreds of chairs. Even before it started, the room was pretty full. Yes, everyone wanted to see the stars! And Michael, Doug, and I all felt great being the students of one of them.

We were having a good time together when Brendan Cohen came and sat with us. It was annoying: he didn’t understand all of our “insider” talk and kept asking me to explain what we were saying—which embarrassed me a little in front of Michael and Doug. It was like going on a date and running into an aunt who then decides to tag along.

Fortunately, the roundtable soon started up. Briggs, of course, gave a masterful presentation. Although I didn’t agree with them, both Saltz and Faircloth also did very well. In fact, after their presentations, the two of them engaged in a spirited impromptu debate which Briggs was notably left out of. Similarly, people in the audience mainly addressed questions and comments to them and not Briggs. Toward the end, Cohen (who had been raising his hand in vain up to now) was finally recognized. He started by noting (again, to my annoyance) that Briggs had not published much since International Relations: A Neo-Radical Interpretation came out in the last decade, but then asked (to my relief) when we could expect his next great pronouncement on international relations.

Briggs brightened up considerably at hearing this, replying, “It should be released at next year’s IRA conference in Washington.” He then went on to give a neo-radical critique of the Saltz-Faircloth debate until the chair interrupted him and declared the session over.

I managed to ditch Cohen, going with Michael and Doug to a nearby Indian restaurant where we heaped scorn on Saltz and Faircloth and came up with lines that Briggs should have delivered in response to them. After lunch, we went back to the conference and split up. The two afternoon panels I attended were dull, and I left both early to wander around the book exhibit. We all met back up in the evening at the Charles University reception where we told Briggs what we had decided he should have said at various points during the roundtable that morning. He laughed at some of the things we had come up with and said he wished he’d thought of them. “The reason why I was so quiet,” he explained to us, “was that everything Saltz and Faircloth had to say was so dull and boring that I could barely stay awake listening to them.” We felt most uplifted by this.

Cohen suddenly appeared, clearly waiting to be introduced to Briggs. I obliged. Briggs remembered him from the question he asked this morning and seemed pleased to meet him. Briggs repeated his line about not saying much due to the other panelists having bored him, and Cohen laughed loudly. Cohen was really obsequious toward Briggs; I’d never seen him like this before. Cohen made me uncomfortable again when he started to go on about how I had been his star pupil back at Barstow. Briggs was clearly losing interest in him. Michael and Doug seemed bemused.

Fortunately, Cohen’s elegy came to an end when a remarkably beautiful blonde girl came up alongside Doug and put a lovely bare arm around his waist. Caught by surprise, it was Doug’s turn to be embarrassed. He quickly recovered, though, introducing her to us as his wife, Angie. She, then, became the focus of attention. I had not met her before, and apparently Briggs and Michael hadn’t either. Briggs asked the standard questions: where had she and Doug met, and how long had they been married. She responded in a lovely southern accent (why is it that men who speak with a southern accent sound stupid while women who speak with one sound sexy?) that they had met while students together at New Dominion University in Northern Virginia. They got married shortly after they had both graduated this past summer.

“So what do you do while Doug studies?” Briggs asked.

“Oh, I’m just a waitress now. But Doug and I have a deal: I support him while he gets his Ph.D., and then he supports me while I get mine. Right, Doug?” she asked teasingly, pinching his arm. He nodded, clearly somewhat embarrassed.

I have to admit, I envied Doug a little. It must be nice having the company of such a lovely woman.

I attended conference sessions all day Saturday and Sunday morning as well. It was exhausting, but nothing stands out in my mind that is worth reporting—except that I attended a panel where Danielle Stephens (Trizenko’s TA and one of my office mates) presented a paper. Fortunately for her the audience was small, because she was being lambasted by the discussant.

The trouble with doing area studies, as she does, is that it is just not theoretical. And so nobody who does theory can respect it. Yet while the discussant’s criticisms of her paper were undoubtedly valid, it seemed to me that he didn’t have to be so harsh in delivering them.
But being lambasted appears to be the lot of grad students who deliver papers at academic conferences. And to her credit, Danielle responded with a spirited, good-humored defense. I only hope that I can exhibit such a degree of “grace under fire” when it’s my turn—as I both hope and dread it will be at next year’s IRA conference in Washington.

September 18

Although the professors and grad students here at Charles are always finding fault with Harvard, I have to admit: I find taking a class there to be quite thrilling. The class I’m in is one on international security with Tim Saltz. Like Trizenko’s class on Russia here at Charles, both undergraduates and graduates attend the lecture sessions, which meet Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. While the undergrads also meet with TAs in very small sections of four or five students (as apparently is Harvard’s custom), the graduate students meet with Saltz himself for an hour and a half shortly after the Tuesday lecture.

Our class meets on the main campus, right on Harvard Square. I went over early on the first day the class met and walked around a little bit. The campus certainly is beautiful with its old buildings, which really are covered with ivy. I saw that there was a demonstration against the conservative Harvard professors who advised the Bush Administration on the war in Iraq. I joined the demonstration for a few minutes myself. I was glad to be a part of it. It felt good to be alive!

There were about a hundred students at Saltz’s opening lecture—which was extraordinarily well polished. At the end, the students applauded—another tradition at Harvard, I was told. Afterward, there were eighteen or so of us graduate students who met with Saltz. He had us go around the room and introduce ourselves. Most were from Harvard, a few were from M.I.T., and only two of us were from Charles: Michael Radkowski and me.

Saltz’s lectures with the undergraduates are mainly descriptive: the history of war and that sort of thing. His sessions with us graduate students, though, are more theoretical. Back at Barstow, I remember Cohen describing Saltz as a neo-realist. I was surprised to learn at the very first graduate seminar that he is a critic of neo-realism. Not only that: he appears to consider himself a classic realist! I didn’t think there were any of those left, except for a few ancient right-wingers. I’m surprised that Cohen apparently missed this about Saltz.

The grad students have to take two midterms and a final just like the undergrads. But in addition, we have to write a major paper, while the undergrads do not.

There were a few more surprises: the Harvard grad students in the class appeared to be seized with the classic realist vs. neo-realist debate, with only a few neo-liberals sprinkled in. At one point, Michael Radkowski introduced a vigorous Briggsian neo-radical statement into the discussion. What really shocked me was that at the mention of Briggs, several of the other graduate students either laughed or smiled derisively. Saltz himself shook his head, and countered Michael with a statement indicating that he did not take him seriously. Disagree with Briggs, yes. Even I did so in my senior thesis. But dismiss him? I couldn’t believe it! Things are clearly not right at Harvard.

The biggest surprise of all, though, is that Saltz is an African-American. There is, of course, nothing surprising about being an African-American. I was just surprised to find that an African-American professor could also be a conservative. It seems to me that, considering the discrimination and injustice that African-Americans have experienced, they should all be liberals, at minimum.

Michael had not looked pleased when he first saw me at Saltz’s seminar. Afterward, though, we went back to our office together on the subway (known in the Boston area as “the T”). Along the way, Michael ripped in to Saltz, describing him as a “reactionary realist reptile.” He said he wished that Briggs himself could have been there to put him in his place. He called the Harvard grad students “nothing but a bunch of upper classholes.” He said most of them were too afraid to stray too far from their “realist—neo-realist reservation” for fear of jeopardizing the job at State, Defense, or CIA that awaited “all good little Harvard boys” who successfully avoided saying anything intelligent, which would automatically disqualify them.

Although Michael criticized Saltz severely, I was gratified that he did not once refer to his happening to be an African-American. I, of course, didn’t either. After his tirade subsided, Michael asked me about the other classes I was taking. We both agreed that Briggs is the absolute greatest. He advised me to read everything on his syllabus, even if it meant going without sleep, so that I could fully appreciate Brigg’s critique of everyone on it.

“How am I supposed to get through my other three classes if I do that?” I asked him.

As far as Asquith’s methodology class was concerned, Michael advised me not to bother doing any of the reading at all, and claimed that he had certainly not done so. “Just talk the methodology talk with him and he’ll be happy. The one thing you must never do is tell him that any of it is bullshit, even though most of it is.” Michael assured me that this is what he had done, and that he’d gotten an “A” for the course.

I asked him about the mock research proposal we were supposed to do for the second semester of the class. Michael’s response was that by then, Briggs would have taught me as much as I really needed to know about methodology to get me through it with flying colors.

Michael indicated that he had never taken any classes with Trizenko, but he assured me that I wouldn’t have to do any real work to get through the one on Russia. “Don’t bother with his reading list; just keep up with the news. That’s all he teaches anyway, from what I hear,” said Michael.

I wouldn’t say so to Michael, but I was actually enjoying Trizenko’s class. Listening to him made me understand what an incredibly complicated country Russia is—so complicated that applying any sort of theory to try to understand it would not be easy. Maybe that’s what I’ll try to do in the paper for his class.

There is, however, another reason why I am enjoying this particular class: it just so happens that there are some really good looking undergraduate females in it. With the weather still warm here, they come to class in shorts or miniskirts. There’s one girl in particular who’s been sitting in the desk beside mine whom I find it very difficult not to look at. She has long black hair that falls half way down her back. But despite her dark hair, she has pale skin and haunting blue eyes. And what incredible legs! I like listening to her talk with her friends before class starts; she seems to have a mischievous sense of humor and is always laughing. Yes, I’d much rather look at her than at Trizenko during the lecture, but that, of course, would be inappropriate.

On this note, I would like to state here that, like other men, I am attracted to beautiful women. But unlike most other men, I seek both intellectual as well as sexual stimulation from a woman. Indeed, I have found that for me, sexual stimulation leads to intellectual stimulation. Thus, unlike other men whose interest in a woman might be limited to her body, I am just as interested in her mind—and I seek stimulation from both.

The problem I have found, though, is that it is difficult to find both sorts of stimulation to the high degree that I desire together in one woman. So many of those who could obviously provide sexual stimulation just as obviously cannot provide intellectual stimulation. And sadly, those who can provide the latter often seem unwilling or unable to provide the former.

Back at Cal State Barstow last year, I had a relationship with a woman from whom I did derive a tremendous degree of both sexual and intellectual stimulation. Unfortunately, my own intellectual development was proceeding much faster than hers, and after awhile I no longer received the intellectual stimulation from her that I needed. It was necessary then for me to end the relationship. She was very hurt by this. But as I tried to explain to her, she had disappointed me in not sharing my enthusiasm for my senior thesis project, which meant so much to me. Our relationship ended in bitterness. I must admit, though, I still do think about her sometimes.

I wonder if I’ll ever find out whether this girl I sit next to in Trizenko’s class can provide me with both the sexual and the intellectual stimulation which I crave. I have no doubt that she could provide the former. But could she—would she—provide me with the latter?

[Some might advise me to delete the last five paragraphs of this entry, but I will not. In addition to my intellectual life, I want my future biographers to understand the rich, complex nature of my emotional life.]

September 11

I am writing today at the end of the first week of classes. I’m taking four courses this semester. First and foremost is Barrington Briggs’s graduate seminar on IR theory, which meets Monday mornings, from nine to eleven. (Graduate courses here meet once a week for two hours.) The syllabus that Briggs passed out is twenty pages long!

Only a dozen students showed up for the class, but three of these did not come back after the break at ten. I must admit that even I felt a little intimidated. Cohen warned me that the reading assignments for graduate students are much, much greater than for undergraduates. He wasn’t kidding!

The overall structure of Briggs’s course is not all that different from the one I took with Cohen. Just as at Barstow, we will go over all the major schools of IR theory. The difference, though, is that Briggs will cover them in extreme depth, looking at all the different nuances within each school. As well versed in this subject as I am, I have not even heard of—much less read—over half the authors listed on his syllabus.

The requirements for the class are: three critical book reviews (Briggs is big on this sort of thing) and “a major paper in which the student shall set forth his or her own theory of international relations,” as the syllabus put it. Maybe I can submit my senior thesis from Barstow for this—appropriately revised, of course. Please note, biographers: I would never submit the same work for two different classes. That would be totally unethical.

I already know I’m going to love this seminar. Briggs has some of the same qualities that I used to admire in Cohen, only more intensified: he does not shy away from employing sarcasm to expose shoddy theorizing. Yet far from being intimidating, he has a way of making students feel that they are part of an in-group of cognoscenti with him. At least, that’s how he makes me feel. I would certainly hate to be on the receiving end of his sarcasm! But that will never happen, I am sure. [I won’t delete these last two sentences: I feel it is important for my future biographers to know that even with all my intellectual strengths, I too possess certain feelings of anxiety and uncertainty]

The second class I am taking is Elton Asquith’s political science methodology course, which is required for all graduate students in the program. It meets Monday afternoons from two to four. All of the incoming graduate students who were at the orientation session last week are in this class—and nobody else. The syllabus for this course is fifteen pages long. I have to admit: I recognized only a handful of the authors listed on it. [delete this last sentence later]

In the first semester of this year-long course, Asquith is requiring us to write seven—yes, seven—short papers employing different methodological techniques. The papers only have to be about five pages long each, but this is very annoying. He wants us to become familiar with many different methodologies—whether we’re going to need them or not for our dissertations. There will also be a final exam. During the second semester, all we will have to do is write up a mock research proposal and present it in class. That actually might be useful.

This semester, though, I think this class is going to be something of a trial. From his first lecture, it appears that Asquith’s main theme is going to be that no matter how sophisticated the methodology we may employ, it will always have flaws, or “threats to validity.” This being the case, we really can’t know anything for certain in political science.

After Asquith had made this point several times, one student asked a question that was probably on all our minds: “If we can’t know anything for certain in this field, then what is the point of developing increasingly complex methodologies?” Asquith responded testily that if that was his attitude, then what was the point of going to graduate school or doing anything in life since we all had to die some day anyway. Unlike Briggs, Asquith appears to have no sense of humor. Yes, this class is definitely going to be something of a trial.

The third class I’m taking is Ilya Trizenko’s politics of Russia and Eurasia course. I wouldn’t take a class on this ordinarily, but I have to for my field distribution requirements. It is different from the other two classes I am taking in that it is open to undergraduates as well as graduates. It meets Friday mornings, from nine to eleven. There are about sixty students in the class—most of whom appear to be undergraduates. The syllabus he passed out was only three pages long. But he also handed out an extra reading list for the eight or so graduate students in the class. The undergraduates have to take two midterms and a final. We have to take these also, plus write a book review and a research paper.

Unlike Asquith, Trizenko definitely has a sense of humor. His sense of humor, though, is very different from that of Briggs. Where Briggs is sarcastic, Trizenko is self-deprecating. As I anticipated, he is an excellent lecturer. Having grown up in the former Soviet Union during the turbulent eighties and nineties before coming to the U.S., he has an insider’s feel for the terrible problems of this region. I can see why he is so popular with the undergraduates.

I don’t think, though, that he will have much to offer to me and the other graduate students. His work is obviously highly descriptive and not at all theoretical. Still, I’m not complaining about a class that will not require much effort but will still be interesting.

The fourth class I am taking is one at Harvard. Students from Charles, Harvard, and M.I.T. can all take classes at the other two schools. I’ve signed up for a class there on international security with Tim Saltz, which I’ll describe later.

I wrote last week that I would say something about the “colleagues” whom I share my office with. It is important to do this so that future intellectual historians will know who my interlocutors were during what will undoubtedly be considered a crucial year in my intellectual development. Some of them may also become famous scholars—who knows?

Three of them, like me, are first year grad students. Doug Terenti is one. He received his B.A. from New Dominion University in Northern Virginia. I think I’ve heard professors from there interviewed on National Public Radio. He is taking both the IR theory seminar and the methodology class with me. He is also hoping to write his dissertation with Briggs. He seems like a smart, friendly guy. I am sure that we are going to be friends.

Another is Craig Hatfield. He’s also in the IR theory seminar and the methodology class with Doug and me, but I haven’t talked with him, so I don’t know where he did his B.A. He really appears to be into methodology. He spoke up more about it than anyone else in the first session of Asquith’s class this past Monday anyway. He and Asquith seem to know each other already. I have a feeling that Craig may be gay. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. But somehow I don’t think he and I are going to have much in common. [consider deleting this later if it turns out not to be true]

The other first year grad student in our office is Lisa Dudwick. She’s in both the methodology class and the Briggs seminar. She is rather thin, has long brown hair, and seems very quiet. She did tell me, though, that she is from Iowa, where she went to Grinnell College, and that she is into feminist theory. She plans on writing her dissertation with Theda DeKlerk. She is obviously very bright, but I don’t think we will have common intellectual interests.

The two second year grad students in the office are Michael Radkowski and Danielle Stephens. Michael is currently the TA for the lower division undergraduate international relations class Briggs teaches. Michael got his B.A. here at Charles, and so has known Briggs for quite some time. He told me that he will be writing his dissertation with him too. Michael is obviously a bright guy (he couldn’t be working with Briggs if he wasn’t), but he is not very friendly. I hate arrogance.

Danielle is the TA for Trizenko’s lower division undergraduate comparative politics class. She is really into Russian politics and plans to write her dissertation with Trizenko. She has been very friendly and welcoming toward us first year grad students. She is also something of a tease: when I asked her where she got her B.A., she said she wouldn’t tell me. “As grad students here at Charles, we’re all here on an equal basis. It doesn’t matter where we came from or what we did before,” she explained.

I, of course, knew this already. Danielle appears to be older than the rest of us. Maybe thirty? I didn’t ask her her age though: if she wouldn’t tell me where she had been an undergrad, I knew she wouldn’t tell me that!

September 4

I am pleased to be writing this entry from my Charles University-supplied computer in my new office. I don’t actually have my own office, but one of six cubicles inside Case Hall, Rm. 304. Case Hall is where the political science department is located. Rm. 304 is one of the offices reserved for graduate students. This is one of the benefits of being a graduate student here that I didn’t realize I would receive until the department’s new student orientation session, which was held today.

I was surprised that there were only a dozen or so of us new political science graduate students at the orientation. But as the department chair, George Stavros, explained in his talk, the department only offered admission to the very top applicants, and the students in this group tended to be admitted to several programs. Not everyone offered admission to the program at Charles accepted it, just as, he noted graciously, “each of you probably turned down offers from several other universities.”

Stavros was very welcoming, but I must admit, I didn’t pay close attention to him. For one thing, his specialty is the U.S. Congress—a subject which holds no interest for me. For another, being an administrator, I assume that he must either be past his prime or that he never had one. Cohen used to always say that about academics who became administrators.

Several other professors gave brief talks about the courses they teach, the research areas they are interested in, and what sort of dissertations their students are working on. Again, I didn’t take much note of the specialists on American politics. Why, I wonder, do political science departments in the U.S. have so many specialists on American politics, all doing basically the same thing, when they barely cover other areas of the world with just one specialist—or don’t cover them at all?

I was, naturally, more interested in those professors who share my international interests. One of these was Ilya Trizenko, an assistant professor (i.e., someone who does not yet have tenure) originally from Ukraine who teaches the politics of Russia and Eurasia as well as comparative politics. He is a relatively short man with thick hair both on his head and his face. The large amount of gray indicates that he is relatively older—certainly older than an assistant professor normally is. He speaks well, with an ironic sense of humor. I’ll bet he is a very engaging lecturer.

Another was Theda DeKlerk, an associate professor who teaches both women’s politics and feminist theories of international relations. We studied some of her writings in Cohen’s class back at Barstow. She is a short, thin, middle-aged woman with closely cropped brown hair. If it wasn’t for the fact that she wore two earrings, I might have mistaken her for a man before she was introduced. She appears to be very soft spoken, and I couldn’t quite catch everything she said—especially her witticisms which she herself had the habit of laughing at through her nose while saying them. But while short in stature, I know that she has the reputation of a giant in the field of feminist IR theory. [delete the two penultimate sentences later, but keep the last one]

Yet another professor, whom I realized I would have to pay attention to, was Elton Asquith. Asquith, a full professor, teaches the year-long political science methodology class that all entering graduate students are required to take. He also teaches classes on the role of ethnic, cultural, and (as he said knowingly with arched eyebrows) “other” minorities in international relations. Although he did not say so explicitly, it is obvious just from Asquith’s voice that he is gay. I wish someone would explain to me why it is that gay men—no matter what their ethnic or regional background—all speak with the same artificial, universally recognizable accent which they clearly did not have as small children. There is, of course, nothing wrong with being gay. [delete the penultimate sentence later, but leave in the ultimate]

For me, though, the highlight of the day was the talk by Barrington Briggs. I recognized him immediately from his picture on the back of International Relations: A Neo-Radical Interpretation, though he appeared somewhat older in real life. Of course, that picture was taken back in the mid-1990s. But even though he might look a little older now (as befits a full professor), the youthfulness of his spirit was evident when he spoke. He was, just as I anticipated, supremely self-confident with an incisive wit that some might mistake for mockery.

Right at the outset of his talk, he warned those of us here to study international relations that if we didn’t want to work too hard, we should tell him now and he’d supply us with one-way bus tickets to Bellevue, Washington, so we could study with Arch Faircloth at Gates University. There was no need to send us by air, he continued, since no matter how long after the start of classes there the bus took to arrive, we still wouldn’t have missed anything. Some in the room seemed a little flustered by this, but those of us in the know all laughed heartily. Yes, this was the Barrington Briggs I was hoping to find here.

In a more serious vain, Briggs told us that the political science department here at Charles observed the very highest standards of sensitivity with regard to the treatment of ethnic, cultural, and (I saw him glance at Professor Asquith as he too emphasized the word) “other” minorities. He went on to say that no sort of harassment or misconduct—sexual or otherwise—was tolerated here. This not only applied to relations between professors and students, but also—he wanted us to know right up front—between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates. “We’ve had to get rid of a few bad apples in the past,” he told us. “And if we need to, we’ll do so again.”

It appeared to me that Briggs was eyeing Asquith while he said this. I think it appeared that way to Asquith too. There was clearly some bad blood between these two. Some might say Briggs was being needlessly provocative, but there is nothing wrong with being provocative for the purpose of eradicating racial or sexual harassment or misconduct, as far as I am concerned.

For the benefit of my future biographers, I wish to emphasize my principled viewpoint on this matter. Racial and sexual harassment and misconduct cannot be tolerated anywhere at any time. Even consensual sex between a supervisor and subordinate cannot be allowed since this involves an obvious conflict of interest. It is especially important that universities maintain the highest standards in this regard. For it is the university which creates the values to improve society. If those in the university do not maintain these high standards, the rest of society can hardly be expected to either. I am deeply gratified that Professor Briggs shares these principles with me, and that he outspokenly defended them. I did not, however, expect anything less from him.

I won’t describe any of the other professors. After they finished their presentations, sandwiches and sodas were brought in and we had the opportunity to talk informally among ourselves and with our new professors. I was deeply gratified that Professor Briggs knew who I was when I introduced myself to him. He said he recognized my name from reviewing the applications, and welcomed me to the program. I told him that I hoped I would be writing my dissertation under his direction. I decided not to mention my critique of his work that I wrote for Cohen back at Barstow. There really was no opportunity to talk about it anyway since other students and even other professors were crowding around him. Being the start of the new year, many of the professors had apparently not seen one another for several months.

After lunch, the professors all sat at tables around the room and the incoming grad students were able to consult with them about what courses to take. For those of us, like me, who just came in with our B.A. degrees, this process was fairly clear-cut: we had to fulfill all the course requirements for the degree. For those, however, who came in with M.A. degrees, the process was more complicated. They wanted to have some—or even all—of their previous work at the universities where they got their M.A.s count toward the course requirements here. I could here several of the Charles professors explaining that even though graduate courses taught elsewhere might have the same name as those taught here, their content could not possibly be similar. Some of these conversations grew quite testy; not a smart way for incoming grad students to start off.

As we each completed this process, we then went to the department office to be issued our office key. I’ll describe my office mates—my colleagues, as I need to get used to calling them—in my next entry, after I’ve had a chance to get to know them a little.