Fifteen Minutes: Professor Fun Facts

FM sent Harvard Professors an email listing personal questions. Covering a wide range of fields, these are the Professors who responded:

Robert Coles--

Professor of Social Ethics

William Todd--

Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature

Deborah Foster--

Lecturer on Folklore and Mythology

Bert Vaux--

Asst. Professor of Linguistics

James Kugel--

Professor of Jewish, and Hebrew Literature

Mark Kishlansky--

Professor of History

Robert Brustein--

Director of the Loeb Drama Center

Richard McNally--

Professor of psychology

Robert Levin--

Professor of music

FIRST JOB?

Coles: Cutting grass for neighbors

Todd: Caddy

Foster: Avon Lady

Vaux: Babysitting when I was 8 or 9. They must have been pretty hard up because I wouldn't let anyone who was nine, and/or male baby-sit for me

Kugel: Writing obits for a daily newspaper

Kishlansky: Flipping burgers-I was 14 and lied about my age. I earned minimum wage, $1.25 an hour and had to join the Teamsters

Brustein: My first job, aside from working for father in the shipping room of a wool yarn business, was playing clarinet and tenor sax with a swing band at a high school junior prom.

McNally: Little League baseball coach

FAVORITE BOOK IN COLLEGE?

Coles: Tolstoy's War and Peace and William Carlos William's Life along the Passaic River

Todd: The Brothers Karamazov

Foster: Season of Migration to the North by Tayib Saleh and Collected Stories by Paul Bowles

Vaux: When I first started college there was a book called "Hammer of the Gods." ...I also was profoundly impressed by the Kama Sutra, which has many useful insights into the workings of relationships and social structures. Everyone should read it.

Kugel: Walker Percy, The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman (still like them both); Martin Buber, Good and Evil and The Eclipse of God (the beginning of the latter still tolerable); books of poetry by Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, W.B. Yeats, James Merrill, Alan Dugan, Randall Jarrell, John Hollander. Oh, also Rimbaud, Mallarme. (All still great.)

Kishlansky: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Brustein: My favorite book in college was not Catcher in the Rye, since it wasn't written yet, but Barefoot Boy With Cheek, a lunatic satire that had me in stitches

McNally: Goethe's Faust

Levin: Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

FAVORITE ERA: 60's, 70's, 80's, or 90's?

Coles: The 60s (Civil Rights Struggles)

Todd: 60s

Foster: I liked the 70s, but not because of what was happening globally so much as what was happening in my own life--graduate school, followed by research in Kenya on Swahili storytelling.

Vaux: The 70s were the best by far. People have mocked the 70s incessantly since the fall of disco, but the passing years have made it clear that it was a quality decade. Both the music and the fashions have stood the test of time, which can't be said of the 80s--just watch any old episode of Dynasty or The Fall Guy to see how horrendous the outfits and hairdos were. And it was a painful time for music, too--sure, there were one or two good groups, and I like 80s classics like "Too Shy" and "867-5309", but genres like hair metal (Stryper, Dokken, etc.) were a travesty, and those fake drum sounds that everyone used in the mid and late 80s were god-awful. Bear in mind though that I'm biased in judging decades by the fact that my fashion and music tastes froze in about 1982. However, to my credit I do find the 90s fashion and music quite palatable on the whole.

Kugel: 60s were too frightening. 70s were okay, but then it started to get a little old. Isn't this still the 80s?

Brustein: The sixties, of course

McNally: The 90s. The 60s were just plain nuts.

Levin: It's been a wild roller coaster ride--do I prefer sushi or venison? (yes)

FAVORITE CHARACTER FROM STAR WARS?

Coles: Chewbacca

Todd: Jabba the Hut

Foster: R2D2

Vaux: I remember seeing Star Wars when it came out. I was in fourth grade, and it was a double feature with Bambi. Harrison Ford is one of my favorite actors, and I think he is the reason that Star Wars (and Raiders of the Lost Ark and Bladerunner) succeeded, but when I watch the movie again these days I'm most pleased by Alec Guinness' performance. Ewan MacGregor's imitation of Guinness' way of speaking in the new movie was a nice touch, though it didn't quite cancel out Jar Jar.

Kugel: Hated those movies. I had to see every one of them, too.

Kishlansky: Either Lando Calresian or Han Solo

Brustein: Jabba the Hut

Levin: Don't be aghast. I saw only the first SW. If I liked Alec Guinness (Obi Wan Kenobe), it was probably because I am an unconditional fan of his, especially his earlier work (Kind Hearts and Coronets, Ladykillers, Lavender Hill Mob, Horse's Mouth, etc.).

FAVORITE SONGS or FAVORITE TYPE OF MUSIC?

Coles:Jazz

Todd: Mozart, Stravinsky, Ray Charles, The Doors

Foster: Classical, Jazz, Blues (how predictable)

Vaux: I like music that everyone else hates, like Journey, Chicago, Yes, and King Crimson. Among the new bands, I really like Jamiroquai. I also listen to a lot of jazz guitar (George Benson, John Pizzarelli) and Armenian folk music.

Kugel: I only listen to one thing, Mozart's Flute Quartet in D Major (K. 285). I have four or five different versions of it, which I alternate. Kishlansky: Old rock n' roll.

Brustein: Mozart and Shubert and Bach; vintage Simon and Garfunkel; and The Grateful Dead, when I'm in the company of my son

McNally: Whew! Too many ties for first place

Levin: On different days Penny Lane, Body and Soul, Summertime, Crazy Rhythm, Just the Way You Are...

FAVORITE SPOT ON CAMPUS?

Coles: Walking through the Yard

Todd: Murr Tennis Center

Foster: Does Mount Auburn Cemetery count?

Vaux: I like the top level of that parking complex on the corner of JFK and Eliot St. It's always abandoned, and you have a nice overview of the campus. I also love to hang out in Charlie's Kitchen and the 7-11, because they're so far removed from Harvard's obsession with bow ties, titles, high tables, and celebrities.

Kugel: Never thought about it. Maybe...Did they close Lucy's?

Kishlansky: The Widener Library

Brustein: My favorite spot on campus is Toscanini's

McNally: The Old Yard

Levin: The College Pump

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO ON WEEKENDS?

Coles: I like to ride my bike.

Todd: Play tennis, bicycle, go to movies, read

Foster: Spend time with my husband and children! And read, hike, dance, photograph, cook, etc., etc., etc.

Vaux: I try to meet with my friends who speak endangered languages.

Kugel: Saturdays: Sabbath rest. Sundays: recuperation from the same

Kishlansky: Watch sports

Brustein: Write plays, preferably on Martha's Vineyard

McNally: Weekends?! What weekends?

Levin: ...or what I actually do?