Interview conducted by: Octavia Washington, Madeline Goldberg, Julia Johnston
Laird’s renovations call for celebration! We English majors have finally been rewarded for the endless time we spent writing essays (which are ruthlessly nitpicked) with a brand new lounge, full of puzzles, dice, and board games galore. (Have you seen the Jane Austen match one? If anyone wants to play, hit me up.) And yet, it’s not all fun and games in the new building. For some, these renovations have come at great cost.
I was “banished,” Susan Jaret McKinstry tells me, emphasis on the ending, as we wait for the other editors to arrive. The new and improved Laird necessitated a new (but not enough) suite of offices; as such, in Katniss Everdeen-esque fashion, Susan volunteered to transition out of Laird and into the Weitz.
Julia sprints to meet us from Anderson — none of us can account for this non-Zoom time, according to Susan, but she’s had much practice getting used to time-optimistic students. Now teaching Creative Writing and The Art of Jane Austen, Susan resides in a little nook, living in peaceful company with paintings of the Rossetti siblings and all of Shakespeare’s texts. It’s awfully convenient for her, as someone who lives across the street. (Hopefully, this will convince her to bring her dog to campus as much as possible.) However cozy, though, this feels like an unfortunate fracture for the English department… Unless moving Beth and Susan is part of a larger plan to have the department infiltrate every building, which we would strongly support (Susan did not confirm this suspicion of ours, but it was not denied, either, if you catch our drift).
Susan lets me hold onto her stereoscope, as you can see in our photo (or her Spooky Looky thing, as I refer to it). When we’re finished poking just about all of Susan’s items, we sit her down and ask: How did you feel when you heard you wouldn’t be returning? “I miss my attic,” comes out first. Even I miss Susan’s attic. If you’re a sophomore and can’t remember the Before-Times, Susan’s abode was the attic of Laird, characterized by its slanted ceilings. Her office actually used to belong to Timothy Raylor, but she insisted on switching. For his own good. No, seriously — Tim, being overly polite and British (is that redundant?) would stand up every time a student entered his office, and every time he would smack his head against the afore mentioned sloped ceiling. But now it’s RIP to the attic. When we recover from the mental image of Tim repeatedly bonking his head, which absolutely did not have us in hysterics, we continue our hard-hitting investigation: Were you responsible for the lack of a lap pool on the roof? Susan denies the allegation, insisting that she was one of the primary supporters of that plan. The attic was facing an inevitable death, being so out of code that there no longer was one to adhere to, but apparently these builders have some new standards. Which means no illegal roof pools. Still, our grief is eternal. Susan’s Weitz windows don’t have the same Christina Rossetti flair as her attic once did, but they definitely let in much better sunlight. Plus, her new office is the same one she got for two years when the Weitz opened, so it’s all very serendipitous.
Susan was part of the Weitz’s original conception and grant, so maybe she belongs here. “It’s jarring, as well as intersecting,” she notes, describing the Weitz’s amalgamation of the old and the new. In the fall of its opening, the Weitz hosted a national Visuality conference, mixing artists and academics in one place, with Scott McCloud as keynote speaker (Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art). By the time she finished describes the Weitz’s glorious beginnings, we’re starting to get the impression that Susan is actually enjoying her time away from Laird. Have students found you here and do you want to be found? Julia is justifiably suspicious, but Susan’s answer is a strong yes. She meets students on the Weitz patio (and I would know, given that’s where our advising meetings are), and her freshman advisees explore the Weitz in an attempt to find the only English professor in the building. But does she miss the being surrounded by fellow English professors? Yes. Kofi, George, and Nancy get special shoutouts, as Susan admits she misses hearing them laugh. (“I don’t think I’ve ever heard George laugh,” Julia remarks, sending Susan into hysterics.) If she could send another English professor on a timeshare and return to Laird, however, it would have to be Greg Smith, because his space gives her both window and shelf envy.
Susan’s position as the only English professor with food options and much more tea than Laird is certainly brag-worthy, and perhaps inspiring (warning: do not ever give Susan Earl Grey). She tells us, “don’t you think Laird would improve if it modeled itself after the London Review Bookshop, and also had Tim’s cocktails?” I’m convinced Laird should take her suggestions.
If this talk of Susan moving is getting you down, perhaps you’ll be comforted to hear that for some, Susan never left. Jessica Leiman confessed recently that she still assumes she’ll walk up the stairs and Susan will be there. There’s something sort of delightful about that — it sounds like the nicest haunting we’ve ever heard of. Come to think of it, perhaps that was Susan’s parting gift and the perfect finishing touch for the new Laird, all in one. What could be more appropriate than a Victorianist haunting an attic that no longer exists? When you walk by Laird at night, keep an eye trained on that top window, and see if you can catch a glimpse of Susan. (But if that fails, you might want to try the Weitz, and take her Pre-Raphaelites and Bloomsbury class in Winter).