March 2015

(Author’s Note: this following was published in the “Tales Out of School” column of the Winter 2015 edition of Andover Magazine. I thought the Crooked Timber community might find it of interest, as well.)

We weren’t walking like animals with horns.

“Rappelez-vous, vous êtes des rhinocéros!” exhorted Mr. Sturges, swinging his own head ponderously back and forth in the approximation of a rhino’s.  And so we moved, on all fours in a chilly classroom in Sam Phil, trying for all the world to embody the humans in Ionesco’s play who find themselves transformed into prehistoric animals.   Back in our seats, having resumed our student forms, we had a new appreciation for Rhinocéros, a play about conformity and existentialism in the context of the absurd.

Hale Sturges didn’t just teach French literature; he lived it. He sat on his desk; he paced around the room; he jumped up and down, his corduroy blazer flapping. He believed that the oral tradition was essential to understand literature, so we took turns reading Camus’ The Stranger aloud to better appreciate the alienation of the protagonist, Meursault.

A class was not a monolith to Mr. Sturges. Rather, students were individuals whom he evaluated, coached, and supported in their pursuit of mastering French language and culture. On one occasion, we were tasked with independent research and an oral presentation on one aspect of the art history of France. Decades before PowerPoint, daunted by the prospect of an audiovisual presentation, I managed a few clumsy slides on the Impressionists.

After class, Mr. Sturges gestured for me to stay behind. He told me gently that my presentation had been mediocre. He went on to say that he was taking the time to speak with me about it because he knew that I was capable of much more.  I squirmed and fought back tears of embarrassment during his critique; I knew he was right.

French has enhanced my life in ways I barely imagined in high school.  I’ve studied and worked in France, Morocco, Benin and Mali, the language opening doors that would be otherwise impenetrable to an American. I’ve always been grateful to Mr. Sturges for giving me the confidence and the desire to immerse myself in France’s language, literature and culture.

When I read the call for submissions to Tales Out of School asking for reflections on especially innovative teachers, I thought immediately of Mr. Sturges.  I was stunned and saddened to learn that he had passed away just a few weeks earlier.

But his legacy endures. Next year, my own children will have the opportunity to experience French language and culture firsthand when we live in Paris while I spend a month as a visiting scholar at Sciences Po.

Thanks to Mr. Sturges, I can’t wait to play rhinoceros with them.

I’m delighted to introduce Juliet Sorensen who is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern Law School’s Center for International Human Rights. Instead of annotating her CV here, I’d rather share how we met. The Public Voices Fellowship is an initiative of The OpEd Project whose mission is to get more under-represented voices onto oped pages. In 2013-14, both Juliet and I participated in the program at Northwestern. Over the course of the academic year, we attended four day-long workshops with 18 fellow Northwestern faculty members to learn about the ins-and-outs of writing and getting published oped articles, an activity that is definitely different from writing scholarly articles, but also from writing blog posts (although not necessarily that different from the latter). Juliet was one of the most productive members of our group having published nine pieces during the fellowship and more since. Given the topics she covers, I thought she would bring an interesting perspective to Crooked Timber so we invited her to guest blog with us, which she kindly agreed to do.

I’m doing some work on the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, currently being negotiated in secret by diplomats and business representatives from 12 countries. Two facts of interest
(a) Australia’s Trade Minister Andrew Robb is claiming that a final agreement might be reached by mid-March. While this looks over-optimistic, it implies there is a near-final text
(b) Obama has sought “fast-track” negotiating authority, but there is no sign that this is going to happen soon, given that quite a few Democrats oppose the deal outright, and many Republicans are hostile to anything that would give Obama more authority.

The idea of “fast track” is that the Administration cuts a deal and Congress is bound (by having agreed to the fast-track rules) to give it a Yes/No vote, with no amendments. The assumption (I think) is that, if amendments were permitted, they would proliferate to the point where the legislation would fail to implement the agreement with other parties, who might then back out. Of course, the result is that Congress is, in effect, buying a pig in a poke. Given the unlikelihood of an outright rejection of such a massive deal, they have to accept whatever Obama puts before them. The flip-side is can no individual Congressperson has to explain why they didn’t seek protection for whatever local ox might be gored by the deal: they can respond that they had no choice.

My question is: Suppose that the final text is agreed and made public before fast-track authority is granted. What would be the chances of Congress agreeing to a Yes/No vote, and what difference would it make? There are a lot of issues to be raised here about international relations, trade agreements and US politics, none of which I have a clear feel for. So, I’d be interested to hear what others think.