Hello Miscellany readers, and welcome to the first of our new series: Paired Professor Profiles! (P to the 3? Let us know what you think). We, your faithful editors, were browsing through some Miscellanies of old when we discovered that this blog once featured “Faculty Profiles,” wherein a professor would be asked a few fun questions and their answers would be published for the enjoyment of all.
Our professors are the perennial stars of the show, so we’ve decided to revive and expand the section — with our own twist. Armed with some truly absurd questions, we’re setting ourselves loose on the department and publishing the resulting mayhem. And for our very first profile, we couldn’t be happier to announce Constance Walker (this term teaching The Art of Austen) and Timothy Raylor (The Craft of Academic Writing, Princes. Poets. Power, The Faerie Queene, and Plague, War, Crises: Reading Hobbes Reading Thucydides). On to the fun!
Interview conducted by: Julia Johnston, Octavia Washington, and Madeline Goldberg
We decided, not being particularly kind interviewers, to pose our most difficult question first. What book, we asked, would they have all the students on campus read? We gave Tim and Connie the rest of the interview to ponder, though, and we’ll extend the same opportunity here, if you’d like to consider along with them — their answers will be at the end!
Then we reversed the question, to get the real scoop: which book, preferably that they teach, do they most dislike?
Connie declared, “I would probably not go into deep mourning if I never had to read any of the minor Beat Poets again in my life.” Poor Jack Kerouac in particular was singled out, but as Tim put it, Connie was willing to “cut an entire constellation of authors” immediately. Tim, on the other hand, swooped in with a humble brag: “the problem is, I’ve arranged my teaching in such a way that I never have to teach anything I don’t really like anymore.” You heard it here first: Tim is a master at cultivating course readings. But your editors can’t be bought off that easily, and we pressed on until we had an answer: Milton’s political prose, Tim eventually admitted, he disliked. Why? “Because Milton’s a sneaky cheater of an arguer.” Let it be known that neither professor was judging based on literary merit, but solely on personal taste.
Upon being asked which course at Carleton they would like to teach, Tim and Connie came to an agreement: they would murder Larry Cooper of the Political Science department and teach his Political Philosophy course together. Tim also made up two courses he’d like to teach: a deep dive into the Court Masque, culminating in an actual performance, and The Art of Hobbes, a multidisciplinary affair. Connie called him out for evading the question, we expressed concern about hoisting students up in wooden seats, and we all hurried on.
But the topic of murder had been broached, which led us beautifully into our next question: “who in the English Department could you beat in a fight?”
Connie dove right in, asking “what kind of weapons can we bring?” A very pointed question, we thought, but luckily she didn’t keep us in suspense for too long. “I have a rapier in my basement,” she said, in a casual sort of way. Before we could ask too many follow up questions about this rapier, Tim joyously announced that he had an air rifle. He insisted that he “didn’t need a license” for it, but, perhaps in an attempt to steer us away from some dubious legality, he quickly submitted that he could “pretty much take anyone down with his tickling.” Except for Connie, of course, with her rapier. That led to a sudden partnership: “we could team up!” exclaimed Tim. “We’ve done it before. Last time it was a course on Milton and the Romantics, but next time it will be rapier-tickling.” And when the rest of the department has been defeated, they can turn on Larry Cooper.
All this talk of teaming up led us into our next question: “if the English department, as a whole, were to go up against another department, which one do you think we have the best odds of beating?”
Never accuse the English profs of overconfidence, but Tim’s immediate response was “who couldn’t we take down?!” Apparently we were being too modest, and so he reversed the question for us. “Maybe PEAR” (that is, Physical Education, Athletics, and Recreation) would prove a challenge, Tim admitted. “They actually work out,” agreed Connie. We asked if they weren’t being just a little cocksure. The dance department? No, Tim was sure that their greater “skill, agility, and elegance” would be overcome by the sheer numbers of the English department. Geology? They could hurl rocks, but the new second Laird is apparently rock-proof. Music? “They could play really loud and horrible music outside,” said Tim, but ultimately the windows would do them in, too. When asked about the English department’s secret weapon (besides, apparently, the fortress that is Laird), Tim and Connie were close-lipped. “Isn’t that by definition a secret?” asked Connie. We’re sorry, dear readers, but as students we’re only trusted so far. Tim gave us one enigmatic hint: “you may want to think about why they’ve closed the entirety of the third floor for renovations.”
Next up? A personalized round of Date, Marry, or Kill. It was at this point Connie asked about our “peculiar obsession with physical violence,” which we eagerly blamed on Pierre Hecker, despite the fact that none of us are currently taking his Murder course.
Tim’s choices were Hobbes, Milton, and T.S. Eliot, and he started off with a definitive “Hobbes — marry” before lapsing into contemplation. “T.S. Eliot,” he sighed. “Oh, dear.” Eventually, he settled on dating Milton (“one date would be enough”), but refused to kill Eliot. “Send Connie on a date with T.S. Eliot,” was his workaround, much to Connie’s horror. But as Tim was once again trying to cheat, we gave Connie her real options, which were Byron, Austen, and Keats. She, too, had an instant pick for marriage: “Keats!” When Tim pointed out it would be a brief arrangement, Connie prophesied it would be “perfect in being much too short.” But that left Austen and and Byron, neither of whom she was prepared to kill, so she settled on polygamy. Having thoroughly destroyed the game, we moved on.
Do either Tim or Connie have any hidden talents or secret hobbies? Delightfully, they do!
Connie has been perfecting a recipe for cullen skink, which she explained, when we looked blank, is a “Scottish delicacy made with finnan haddie,” but that brought us no closer to enlightenment. It is apparently a sort of fish soup, and finnan haddie is cold smoked haddock. Tim, sticking with the culinary theme, proclaimed to be “really good at making cocktails,” and Connie backed him up, adding that he “specializes in martinis.” In other words, if you’re planning a dinner party, you want Tim and Connie on the guest list.
For a change of pace, we asked what decade they would like to have grown up in, and not to sound like a click-bait headline, but their answers will surprise you.
Connie’s first thought was “6th century Byzantium,” as Yeats suggested it was “the perfect civilization,” and Tim hopped in with “8th century Japan,” for its monasteries. Upon further consideration, though, he switched his answer to the early 17th century, where he could see, first-hand, everything that most interests him. He gave us one warning: “if I go to the 17th century, I’m not coming back.” Good thing then, for our department, that time travel hasn’t been invented, or we’d be two professors down.
A previous president of Carleton was known to ask “what a place like this was doing in a place like this,” and that homily inspired our final question: if you could move Carleton anywhere in the world, where would you put it?
Connie asked the most logical of follow-ups: “why not London?” The three editors admit to a partiality here; having all accompanied Connie on Carleton’s London Program, we’ve fallen in love with the city, so there were no objections to be had from us. Tim, though, thought we ought to preserve some of Carleton’s “rural flavor,” and so opted for the Scottish borders — Northumberland, in particular. The rest of us, however, would not be swayed from London. If Tim wants to be rural, he can “bring a cow” to Carleton in London, as Connie suggested. Delightfully, our new school’s motto will then be ‘cow, college, and contentment,’ which is even more pleasingly parallel than the original.
To anyone who is still reading, your patience will now be rewarded with Connie and Tim’s responses to that very first question. Tim would have every student read Winnie-the-Pooh, promising that “its characters stay with you as a lens through which to understand the world,” and Connie had two suggestions. First, Seamus Heaney’s North, for those interested in seeing the English literary tradition subverted and grappling “with the moral and aesthetic paradoxes of beautiful art fed by the ugliness of atrocity.” And second, “for the more practical,” is How to Cook Everything — despite a tragic lack of cullen skink recipes.