Dear Sociology Department (part two),

Oh, yes, you’re proper evil. I thought you were just a bit careless with your scheduling, had to make a few last-minute changes, nothing that would really destroy anyone’s soul. Little did I know the kind of subtle dissimulation of which you were really capable, the kind that preys upon American students with vicious cruelty.

First you sent an email saying the lecture had been changed to 10:00 on Tuesdays; I went to your department and got told it would probably get changed back, and the next thing I knew, I found another email saying that class had been changed to 1:00 on Tuesdays. Pay close attention, American readers, this is a trick. So I was cross but I was not destroyed to the depths of my soul because I could still have all the classes I had before, and my schedule would just be less nice. I did not go to the seminar class that conflicted with the new 1:00 time, because I believed at that time that I was going to have to switch my seminar class to the Wednesday date. I went instead to the 1:00 class, and what did I find? WHAT DID I FIND?

I found that the lecture had been held earlier that morning, that in fact the class that had been changed was the seminar portion, here called classes but in America called seminars. That in fact the class in toto conflicted with two of my quite necessary classes, being held in lecture at 10:00 (conflicting with my research course) and in class (read: seminar) at 1:00 (conflicting (though fixably) with my American lit seminar). That was crafty. Oh, I won’t underestimate you again.

Add to that the fact that the class was full of people from different countries, which means that I would have gotten the most fantastic array of viewpoints (from Spain, Italy, Britain, America, China, Japan, and somewhere else because there was another international student who had emailed the professor to say she wouldn’t make it that day) on the gays. It’s just unkind, isn’t it? You’ve forced me to take some class on symbolic imagination, which is, I know, my subject, but it is also much less cool and interesting, you great Satan! You just don’t want outsiders in your department, is that it? Only sociologists allowed? Come on! Admit it! We already know anyway!

Well, I hope you enjoy it, that’s all. I hope you enjoy your insularity. And when you become the America of the University of Essex, hated by all the other departments because you don’t want anyone else’s viewpoint, just don’t blame me, that’s all. I tried to integrate. And I will publish your infamy to the world! And in the days to come, history will judge you, sociology department, and it will not be pretty. That’s all I have to say. It will not be pretty.

Here is my new fall schedule, and I hope you’re satisfied, all right, I hope you’re bloody satisfied! I have three days off all year now! I don’t need you and your Thursday-classes-in-the-spring nonsense! I don’t need your holier-than-thou, you-can’t-take-this-class-in-the-spring-unless-you’ve-taken-the-
autumn-option, stay-out-of-our-halls parochialism.

Tuesdays: 9-1:30
Fridays: 10-12; 2-4

Really, how do you live with yourselves? Dangling the chance that I might be able to keep the one course I have always looked forward to with unqualified enthusiasm, and then snatching it away at the last minute, simultaneously forcing me to miss the first US Lit class of the year? How do you sleep at night?

With all due respect (I need hardly say what that entails), etc. etc.

P.S. (I can never resist a P.S.) My US Lit professor played us a video of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock doing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And it was beautiful. I was moved almost to tears. That’s what literature classes are like. Yeah. I just want you to know exactly what you’ve lost by throwing away our discipline. Just remember that. Remember that.