Monday, October 20, 2003
Bloom asks "why you?" to YU
Harold 'cant go a minute without bashing everything post-modern' Bloom, product "of a very poor, Yiddish-speaking family in the old east Bronx," has decided to bequeath his literary estate to St. Michael's, a small Catholic university in Vermont. Yeshiva University president Richard Joel personally vented his frustration to yours truly early this summer over what he perceived to be an affront to YU. After all, according to the recent Boston Globe interview with Bloom, Bloom's reasons for choosing St. Michael's include the college's rep for being a place "where the current political-theory garbage is not welcome," and for housing a relatively small library that would benefit from the acquisition, both of which reasons would apply to YU just as well. What makes the affront exponentially worse is that Bloom notes that his decision is also guided by a personal connection with St. Michael's, a former student who USED TO teach there. Yet Harold Bloom is none other than President Joel's uncle!
Accordingly, we must look to Bloom's first reason, which undoubtedly caused him to overlook YU: "I wanted a place that would maintain my library as a kind of humanistic legacy after I go on." The question, accordingly, poses itself: Is YU capable of maintaining a humanistic legacy?
I humbly defer to the folks over at Protocols for a moment's reflection...
(for a lengthy interview with Bloom, check out the Atlantic Monthly's 'Ranting Against Cant' from this summer)
Harold 'cant go a minute without bashing everything post-modern' Bloom, product "of a very poor, Yiddish-speaking family in the old east Bronx," has decided to bequeath his literary estate to St. Michael's, a small Catholic university in Vermont. Yeshiva University president Richard Joel personally vented his frustration to yours truly early this summer over what he perceived to be an affront to YU. After all, according to the recent Boston Globe interview with Bloom, Bloom's reasons for choosing St. Michael's include the college's rep for being a place "where the current political-theory garbage is not welcome," and for housing a relatively small library that would benefit from the acquisition, both of which reasons would apply to YU just as well. What makes the affront exponentially worse is that Bloom notes that his decision is also guided by a personal connection with St. Michael's, a former student who USED TO teach there. Yet Harold Bloom is none other than President Joel's uncle!
Accordingly, we must look to Bloom's first reason, which undoubtedly caused him to overlook YU: "I wanted a place that would maintain my library as a kind of humanistic legacy after I go on." The question, accordingly, poses itself: Is YU capable of maintaining a humanistic legacy?
I humbly defer to the folks over at Protocols for a moment's reflection...
(for a lengthy interview with Bloom, check out the Atlantic Monthly's 'Ranting Against Cant' from this summer)
