Department's Views On Paulin Not Unanimous

To the editors:

I am writing in order to address a wrong impression that some have drawn from your front-page articles about the decision, mutually agreed upon with the noted Irish poet Tom Paulin, not to hold his poetry reading under the Morris Gray lectureship originally scheduled for Nov. 14 (News, “Controversial Poet Will Not Give Lecture” and “Poet Flap Drew Summers’ Input,” Nov. 13 and 14). The Crimson coverage can easily be read as giving the impression of a unanimous department position on the subject. Such was not the case.

It should not come as a surprise to Crimson readers to hear that department faculty views were not unanimous. Strong differences of opinion on controversial matters are to be expected in a community of serious-minded thinking people, as our department faculty is. In the present case, some members of the department did in fact strongly object to the decision not to hold the reading as scheduled, even as others believed that the end result was the best result under the circumstances.

Lawrence Buell

Nov. 15, 2002

The writer is Harvard College professor and Marquand professor of English and chair of the Department of English and American Literature and Language.