Annual Newsletter 2007_Full.pdf - Department of History, UC Berkeley

Friends of Cal History Annual Newsletter 2007Interview with Professor Thomas W. LaqueurProfessor Thomas Laqueur has just been honored with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Distinguished AchievementAward. We quote the Foundation: "Intended to underscore the decisive contributions the humanities make to the nation'sintellectual life, the awards, amounting to as much as $1.5 million each, honor scholars who have made significantcontributions to humanistic inquiry. They enable awardees to teach and do research under especially favorable conditionswhile enlarging opportunities for scholarship and teaching at the academic institutions with which the recipients are affiliated.The awards will provide the recipients and their institutions with resources to deepen and extend humanistic studies. Incontrast to other notable academic award programs that benefit individual scholars exclusively, the DistinguishedAchievement Awards are designed to recognize the interdependence of scholars and their institutions. Accordingly, while thisgrant program honors the achievements of individuals, the grants themselves will support specific institutional programs ofactivities that will enhance both research and teaching."Beth Berry seized this opportunity to ask Tom some questions.Berry: How is it that you decided to go to college at Swarthmore?Laqueur: Being completely uninformed on such matters, I was inclined to believe what I read. The Atlantic Monthly in thefall of 1962 published an article saying that Swarthmore was the best college in the United States. It was also near a city,unlike Beckley, W.Va.. I applied.Berry: I notice that your first book was about schooling, your next books were about sex, and your current project is aboutdeath. Any pattern here?Laqueur: What other subjects are there?Berry: What books are at the top of your lifelong favorites list?Laqueur: There are lots of books that have given me great pleasure and have changed my life. But no book or poemcontinues to touch my soul as some music has over the years: Schubert's C Major Quintet and the Opus 960 piano sonata;the Bach cello suites and St. Mathew Passion; Mozart and Wagner operas.Berry: What books do you think are seriously overrated?Laqueur: One of my best friends thinks George Eliot's Daniel Deronda is great. I can't get into it. Another of very bestfriends thinks Remembrance of Things Past is the key to all mythologies. I don't get it.Berry: What's the best thing we do at Berkeley for undergraduates?Laqueur: We talk to them as the serious, highly intelligent people they are even when they don't act the part. We performthe pleasure of the life of the mind.Berry: What's the worst thing we do for undergraduates?Laqueur: We don't take them as seriously as we should. We act bored.