Losing an Office, Gaining Perspective

By Robert Zaretsky. This year I marked my 25th year of teaching by losing my campus office. Not literally, of course: The room is where it has always been. But the door has shed my children’s drawings and fading New Yorker cartoons (some having aged better than others), the shelves swept of uncollected student papers and multiple desk copies of Voltaire’s Candide (have I taught the book that many times?), and the desk drawers emptied of handwritten lecture notes and thank-you cards from students. More...