Book

The departure or arrival of a professor are not the only dramas camouflaged in the catalogue's antiseptic language. The calendar of the academic year, for example, says mysteriously for January 15: "Martin Luther King's Birthday, a holiday from academic exercises beginning at 1:00 p.m." This ludicrous half-holiday was the Faculty's reaction to Black students' demand for a full holiday. Perhaps there will be an explanation of the move in Government 150, "Bureaucracy." You can bet the subtlest change in the book from one year to the next--the half-step promotion of someone from Lecturer to Assistant Professor, or the switch of a course from fall term to spring--may actually be the result of the furious internal battles for which the Faculty is deservedly famed.

In all, the catalogue is an intimidating and impressive document. From Social Analysis 10, "Principles of Economics," which draws more than 1000 students every year, to Sanskrit 110, "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" (in a department which has had one concentrator in the last five years), Harvard's breadth is staggering. For all that Harvard is accused of encouraging pre-professionalism, and for all that students allow some insidious notion of "usefulness" to determine what they study, we are all fortunate to attend a school where Linguistics 161: "Structure of Wiyot" is happily offered to any and all takers. So join the line for 161, or try to resist the catalogue's description: "Description and study of an American Indian language no longer spoken."