Cultural Studies Center Is Diverse

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I could not help but notice the article about Camille Paglia ("Paglia Criticizes Harvard Schoarls," March 20) and was particularly struck about her subtle yet biting attack on Harvard's cultural studies center. I have worked at Harvard's cultural studies Center. I have worked at Harvard's Center for Literary and Cultural Studies (CLCS) for almost two years and thus felt personally compelled to respond to her attack.

Paglia suggests that our center is narrowly focused and tragically monopolized by "this French theory crap." My friends, Paglia couldn't be farther from the proverbial truth.

In all actuality, the CLCS is richly diverse and broadly focused. The center presently sponsors 22 ongoing faculty/graduate student seminars with more projected for the future.

Allow me to give you a flavor of what we offer on our scholastic menu. We offer seminars in American literature and culture, Celtic literature and culture, feminist literary theory and culture, African-American studies, Italian studies, lesbian/gay studies.

And there's more, Ms. Paglia. Other diverse and equally important academic disciplines that CLCS sponsors include medieval literature and culture, law and literature, modern Greek literature, and culture, and politics, literature and the arts.

And if your academic palate desires further nourishing, we also offer seminars in such disciplines as Romantic literature and culture, psychoanalysis and culture, civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, eighteenth-century literature and culture, Renaissance studies, Victorian literature and culture, visual representation and cultural history, women in the Renaissance and Reformation, early modern cultural corssings and writing biography.

Paglia's suggestion that our program is dominated and crippled by one discipline, namely French theory, should fall on deaf ears.

The diversity of CLCS' program remains unquestioned. I should note that CLCS also supports lectures, conferences, a film series and informal occasion for the exchange of ideas and the sharing of scholarly work.

CLCS founded in 1984, has developed into an active humanities institution providing a locus for interdisciplinary discussions. The audience includes a mix of Harvard faculty and graduates as well as independent scholars and area residents.

CLCS, under the brilliant stewardship of the center's director, Professor of English Marjorie Garber, has demonstrated its commitment to cultural criticism. Herrick Wales   CLCS Liaison