 History in the Comic Mode
Remarks by Caroline Walker Bynum
[These remarks were written by Bynum and read on her behalf by Jeremy duQuesnay Adams at the conclusion of the last session of the symposium] I've never been a good after-dinner speaker or at home with the middle-American custom of "roasting." And I find it especially hard to speak lightly or humorously of those I love. Hence I feel a little tongue-tied (or maybe it's computer-froze) at the idea of writing a few words about Charlie Wood. Charlie has been a friend for 39 years and he was an important part of the experience that made me a historian. Since being a historian has always seemed to me a sort of "grace" -- something that could so easily not have happened to me, with a resulting incalculable loss to my well-being and happiness -- I find it hard to come up with words strong and direct enough to say an appropriate "thank you." Charlie was my "sectionman" in Soc Sci 1 in 1959-60. I had gone to college intending to major in English, and the New Criticism of Harvard's English department, which I encountered in Hum 6, put me off very badly. The approach I was taught in Hum 6 (by a sectionman whose name I have long forgotten) seemed to strip the literature I loved of its context and ideas, its humor and pathos. (I'm not saying I was right, just that I was heart-broken.) I couldn't -- wouldn't -- do what they wanted in Hum 6; what therefore was I to do? I began a search for a major. I thought of Philosophy and took a survey, but the Plato and Aristotle I encountered there, although fascinating, had no more context than the poems of Hum 6. I toyed with pre-med (if literature failed me, maybe I could help others) and took some science; the legacy of a bad southern high school told too heavily; I didn't have the confidence I could catch up. Then I took Soc Sci 1 to meet a requirements. (I had hated history in high school.) I'll never be sure exactly what it was that caught my love so firmly. It was some combination of Charles Taylor's dry but deep lectures, Ruth Benedict's notion of "culture" we began reading, Augustine's Confessions, which seemed to articulate the sense I had had my entire life of being trapped by what I cared about most, and Charlie Wood's discussion sections, where we talked about the past with enthusiasm and total seriousness. Whatever exactly the cause was, I was converted: I knew I wanted to be a historian. And mostly, I think, because Charlie was serious. Sure, he was also funny and very, very kind. He linked students and we trusted him, although we were a little scared of him too -- he seemed so wise. But most of all he treated the texts with such respect. I think what had troubled me about my other survey courses -- and the New Criticism of Hum 6 most of all -- was that it seemed to make the life of the mind a game. (I know now that, in part, it is, but then I was 17!!!!!) Charlie encouraged me to major in History. Then I left Harvard and transferred to Michigan. When I came back a few years later to graduate school, Charlie had been promoted to Instructor and I was able to study with him again. The intellectual history course I loved best among my first year courses was taught by a duo we affectionately referred to as "Peggy and Charlie." (If this were a tribute to Peggy Brown, I'd have a few words to say about how much she also inspired me in that course.) So as a graduate student, I had a chance to profit from Charlie's high seriousness, which I by now knew enough to see as not just serious. Charlie could also have fun with history. Ever since those days he has been in so many ways my role model -- because of his love of teaching, his wit and intelligence, his ability to see ahead of time what the important problems are going to be, his gifts as a generalist as well as a specialized researcher, and above all his deep, deep kindness. In the past few years I have known Charlie as the Treasurer of the Medieval Academy and have come to trust his sanity and wisdom in matters of money and personnel. He will now be serving on the search committee to find a new Executive Director for the Academy, and every member of that organization who knows anything of its history and politics is extraordinarily grateful that he is willing to take on this task. He brings to it his abilities as a historian (we can trust Charlie's memory of the past twenty-five years better than anyone else's), a teacher (if we listen he'll show us exactly what we should do simply by asking us a few seemingly obvious but actually very acute questions), and a diplomat (no one has a wider friendship group than Charlie or excels him in keeping all those friends trusting each other). So I find that, in 1998 as he was in 1959, Charlie Wood is an important figure in my life and in the welfare of organizations and enterprises I care about. I am deeply grateful for the friendship he has offered me for so many years -- a friendship in which there was never a trace of condescension (although I was a very callow sophomore when I first knew him, and most Harvard professors of that day were either sexist or at the least patronizing). Ruth Benedict and Augustine of Hippo on the printed page, and Charles Taylor's model of an analytical mind, might have lured me to major in history without my sectionman "Dr. Wood" to explain my excitement into clear prose. (I remember he told me early on that I wrote as if I were translating myself from the German -- and I thought it was a compliment!!) But without "Dr. Wood" I do not think I would have believed that I might become not just a history major but a historian! In a world where women didn't go to graduate school or expect careers, it made more difference than he can ever have known to have a young intellectual take me absolutely seriously as a student and for my mind!!! So I want to thank you, Charlie, most of all for the gifts you are too modest to admit you have -- gifts of generosity, kindness, and the ability to encourage other people to be the best they can be. Caroline Walker Bynum |
