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Good news on the legendary professor front

By 19 July 2010 2 Comments

A quick scan of the Fall 2010 classes shows relatively few changes from years past; most of the big names you expect are there, and many of the courses have been offered in recent years. One promising trend that pops out? Sterling Professors Donald Kagan and Harold Bloom, who’ve both been in and out of the classroom due to illness in the past several years, are back in a big way. Kagan (a former dean of the College) is teaching his landmark Intro to Greek History and his revered seminar on Athenian Democracy. Bloom, meanwhile, is taking a break from the classes he’d taught for years during fall semester, The Art of Reading a Poem and Shakespeare: Histories, Comedies and Romances. Instead, he’s offering “Shakespearian Character: Falstaff, Hamlet, Iago, Cleopatra” (his four favorite characters in Shakespeare) and “Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Hart Crane” (the four American poets he thinks of as the strongest). Note to all: I will kill to get into the latter class. Don’t stand in my way.

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2 Comments

  • great news:)

    and thanx for the warning!

    no, one’ll, of course, not stand in your way; but do u mind if one stands right behind u?

    sidra at 11:19 am on August 11th 2010

  • Have these classes ever been recorded? Bloom lovers exist far from Yale. I would pay a large sum of money for a copy.
    I am a devoted follower and reader from Pine Mountain Valley, GA.

    Universities in need of funds should begin to think beyond the four walls of a lecture hall. Some of us no longer have interests in credits or degrees; however, lovers of knowledge never outlive the passion. May the gods help us when Professor Bloom and the others like him are no longer in the classroom. Today’s students and their instructors worship information and technology. Today’s learners and their teachers are imprisoned by political correctness. There is a sadness in the loss of deep reading and fluid thinking. Indeed, a sadness in the loss of deep readers and fluid thinkers.

    Marie Bettes at 10:38 am on February 20th 2011