Bastion of Conservatism

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The idea of publishing a journal for "undergraduate scholarship" seemed a promising one when it emerged last year. So the appearance of The Harvard College Forum (reported in the April 22 Crimson) was, to me at least, disappointing, owing to the new magazine's capitulation to a narrow-minded definition of such scholarship and of the role of a student publication devoted to it. I don't mean to attack any of the essays contained therein as such (nor have I or any of my friends had anything rejected by the Forum), but to question some unfortunate presumptions made in its assembly.

The Forum's problems can be located at their source with a look at the editorial board: of eleven editors, nine are men--including those holding all five of the most important positions--and your live in Adam's House; I am also aware that groups like that tend to be self-selecting, not a conspiracy to keep other types out of power. However, it is not a coincidence that a relatively homogeneous board has produced a very homogenized magazine.

First, to the title: surely the inclusion of the word "College" after "Harvard" is meant to emphasize the undergraduate character of the publication. But by drawing attention to Harvard College, the Forum, inadvertantly spurns Radcliffe, which is mentioned--nowhere in the journal. A more pompous indication of the institutional and hierarchical instincts of these editors comes in their calling themselves "the President and Fellows," a parroting of the University's power structure which one can only wish were satirical. From parroting to sycophancy, there is the spectacle of the Forum's "Advisory Board," a cluster of Harvard's brightest superstars, linked only by the instant recognizability of their names. Do only such prestigious tenured professors make fitting advisors? Or do their names look great on the masthead? (That eleven of the twelve advisers are men and all of them white is, to be honest, more representative if Harvard then of the overt prejudices of the Forum's editors.)

Five of the six essays included were written in 1984 at the latest. This lag is not surprising, given the time it takes to produce such an attractive and largely error-free publication. More notable is the exception to this time frame a quite excellent paper on the fat Middle Ages. Interestingly, the paper was handed in January to Professor Ozment, identified by the Crimson as a major source of funding for the Forum (and identified in the magazine's acknowledgements only by his administrative title, Dean for Undergraduate Education). The President and Fellows of the Forum would do well in the future to avoid the appearance of such an editorial conflict-of-interest.

Inevitably, the mind-set represented by all of the above has had some bearing on the material selected for inclusion in the Forum's first issue. All six essays are well-written and interesting. This is not all they have in common. All six are to a greater or lesser degree about Great men, be they poets, scientists, apostles or philosophers, and their Great Ideas. Ordinary human beings appear fleetingly: as an historical abstraction in a Gov paper and in passing references to "the common man" in the above-mentioned medievalist paper. The only women even mentioned are two Marys (as possible mothers) in the essay on Jesus' brother, and some of Andrew Marvell's mythic nymphs.

Of couse no one should be required to write "politically correct" term papers. But the President of the Forum, who claims that essays "were chosen to represent a range of academic disciplines," clearly complied the selections with a very narrow and conservative outlook on what constitutes quality and what is appropriate in academic writing. Perhaps these papers are their own best defense. But what of the hundred others rejected by the Forum? Were there no worthy hard social science or Women's Studies papers among them? The Forum at least attempts to excuse itself for excluding natural science papers as being insufficiently "accessible to the general reader." But many of the papers selected (I think especially of the ultimately rewarding essay on Marvel) are technical and allusive enough to warrant either hard work or skipping over by readers not familiar with the work or field treated. Who says that every essay has to be read by everyone who picks up the magazine?

The talented students whose work appears in the Forum are each worthy of commendation. Thankfully, their papers are not nearly the moral discourses on "the questions of life" which the "President's Statement" promises. My complaint is with the editors, who in putting together a journal so bursting with the familiar, so lacking in youth, have done a disservice to the varied and adventurous scholarship which I continue to believe exists among Harvard-Radcliffe students. Harry M. Browne '85