All in the - American University of Beirut

Beyond Bliss Streetr e f l e c t i o n sThose were the DaysAfter completing a BA at the BeirutCollege for Women (BCW, currentlyLAU) and an MA in philosophy at AUB,Luba Sinclair (then Luba Khairallah)taught at AUB between 1967 and1976. She went on to study Plato,teach French literature, the classics,political science and brush up on herArabic before finally settling in Austin,Texas, a university town which sometimes“fleetingly reminds [her] of Beirut,although never quite.” In 2000 shereturned to academia as a part-timemulti-lingual library assistant at theUniversity of Texas (UT). She writes,“I’m still at UT 11 years later and havebecome a recidivist student, attendingpostgraduate courses, mainly inpostmodern thought. I practice yogaand modern dance. It’s a great way togrow old, [spending] more time withmy children and grandchildren.”MainGate: When did you firstarrive at AUB and what were yourfirst impressions?Luba Sinclair: I came to AUB as agraduate student in philosophyin 1965. After I received my MA, Istarted teaching in the Cultural StudiesProgram in 1967. I had just graduatedfrom BCW and found the atmosphereon the AUB campus wildly excitingand intellectually stimulating. We weresurrounded by so much innovation andrenovation in all fields: music, art, literature,theater, politics—even furnituredesign. All of us were redecorating ourhomes with splashes of hippy orangeand pink among the Oriental rugs.Ras Beirut itself was a hub formany political refugees and émigrésfrom the surrounding Arab countriesand also for many European andAmerican ex-pats. Intellectually andculturally we all breathed freely. All youhad to do was sit at Faisal’s Restaurant(filled with students, professors, politicians,and entrepreneurs) or UncleSam’s for a few minutes and you wouldbe drawn into some kind of challengingdialogue ranging from politics to thewildest philosophical topic.Where did you teach most of yourclasses?I started out teaching in the EuropeanLanguages and Literature Department.Then I taught in the Cultural StudiesProgram until 1976. Both my officeand classrooms were in Nicely Hall, mysecond home.What were the biggest changesyou noticed while at AUB?The first few years I was totally mesmerizedby the agglomeration of talenton campus: brilliant teachers suchas Sadik al-Azm, Tarif Khalidy, KamalSalibi, David Gordon, and GeorgeKhairallah—I could go on forever. Itwas indeed a privilege to work withthese professors. We were all highlydedicated to our teaching and weregiven the space to be experimentaland daring. No one blinked, for example,when I introduced for the first timeat AUB, the films of Alain Resnais,Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, StanleyKubrick—and included them in mycourse reading lists. The students’response was so enthusiastic that agroup of us formed a Cine Club thatwould meet a few times a month. Afterviewing a movie, euphoric, we wouldall go across the street to Café Elissarand spend hours discussing the film.Unfortunately, as the studentsbecame more highly politicized and theLebanese politico-confessional feudsstarted being dragged on campus,the academic flow was constantlyinterrupted by strikes, closures, evenoccupation by the military. A groupof us teachers did give them a bit ofa hard time. We joined hands in aline, separating the students from thesoldiers, keeping them from going afterthe students. However, it was hard foreveryone, both students and faculty, tofocus on our academic agenda. Thegravity of the political situation put anend to our lightheartedness.What do you think your studentsmight remember most about yourclasses?The Cultural Studies Program was ahighly successful (and I hope still is)forum for exposing students to a trulyopen exchange of ideas. Weekly communallectures encouraging debateamong faculty and students were heldfor each course in Assembly Hall. Afterthe lecture all the faculty membersmet for lunch in the Faculty Loungeand grilled whoever had delivered that46 MainGate Fall 2011 | www.aub.edu.lb/maingate