From: Ian Glendinning (ian@psybertron.org)
Date: Mon Jul 14 2003 - 21:44:22 BST
Rick,
I'm certainly aware of the passage you refer to, it's just written as if
this was in the spring (of '61) - with all summer long to think about it. It
also doesn't sound like the kind of conversation in which they'd have got
round to discussing Socrates / Plato / Phaedrus, certainly not in a way that
Pirsig seems to recollect "essentially of
one question and no answer.."
details, details ...
Thanks
Ian
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
[mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of Valence
Sent: 13 July 2003 18:43
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: Re: MD Biographcal Detail
Hey Ian,
> (1) On the opening page of the introduction to ZMM 25th anniversary 1999
> edition, (page xi in my Vintage paperback), Pisig quite clearly refers to
> actual experience of the professor of philosophy at Chicago University "in
> 1960".
>
> (2) In the Gale Research (1996) biography it equally clearly states ...
> Montana State College, Bozeman, instructor in English Composition,
1959-61;
> U of Illinois, Chicago, instructor in Rhetoric, 1961-62;
>
> In any event I cannot believe he taught only one academic year in Bozeman.
> I can believe he lasted only one full year in Chicago, and that it was the
> first half of the second year that things fell apart.
>
> One of these has to be wrong,unless ...
>
> My instinct is to believe it was indeed the summer of 61 he moved to
> Chicago.
> But, he may have had reason to visit Chicago and meet the professor in
late
> 1960, before he left Bozeman, as part of applying for his new post there.
Or
> did he just mis-recollect the year later in 1999 ?
R
Misrecollection is always possible, but I think you're right in guessing
that Pirsig traveled to Chicago to meet Richard McKeon in 1960, before he
moved there to teach....
PIRSIG (ZMM ch28, p304)
Phaedrus arrived at the U of C already in a world of thought so
different from the one you or I understand, it would be difficult to relate,
even if I fully remembered everything. I know that the acting chairman
admitted him during the Chairman's abscence on the basis of his teaching
experience and apparent ability to converse intellegiently. What he
actually said is lost. Afterward he waited for a number of weeks for the
Chairman to return in hopes of obtaining a scholarship, but when the
Chairman did appear an interview took place which consisted essentially of
one question and no answer.
The Chairman said, "What is you substantive field?"
Phaedrus said, "English composition."
The Chairman bellowed, "That is a methodological field!" And for all
practical purposes that was the end of the interview. After some
inconsequential conversation Phaedrus stumbled, hesitated and excused
himself, then went back to the mountains.
R
I would think that going "back to the mountains" proabably means he returned
to Montana.
take care
rick
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