Engell an Ensconsced Harvard Ally

In the current issue of Harvard Magazine, Professor of English and Comparative Literature James T. Engell '73 criticizes the death of the humanities at Harvard, and in conversation he is also often critical of the "scary" pressure Harvard students feel.

But Engell is a devout Harvard loyalist who has devoted most of the last 30 years of his life to the institution, held captive by his fascination with its professors and students.

"When you say you love the place, what you really mean is that you love the people here," he says. "They're absolutely extraordinary."

However, even this eminent English scholar had trouble adjusting to the hurried life of Harvard University.

"[Harvard] has a chaos of schedules, and I think at times it makes the place seem rushed," Engell says. "[Students need to] find a schedule or a routine where they know they can do their best work."

Engell listed his concentration as history and science in the Class of '73 face-book but really only got as far as taking Math 21, "Statistics and Chemistry," before some "very good teachers" in English convinced him to go into the humanities.

While Engell was studying, his peers protested "often violently" against the day's politics, but the only protest Engell participated in was against violent protest. Engell says the atmosphere was traumatic.

He recalls when Widener's doors were chained shut during the 1970 Harvard Square riot protesting the Kent State shooting of student activists in Ohio.

"[The riot] became very large and violent," Engell recalls. "People in the Square were breaking windows and threatening to loot."

"It has never been as tense and disruptive at the University as it was that year," Engell says. "There has never been that edge of violence."

Engell continued at Harvard for graduate school, living in Leverett House as a resident tutor for seven years. Following that, he became a teacher, a decision Engell says he made with mixed feelings.

Yet he has stuck with teaching ever since, not taking his first leave of absence until 1982.

Engell sees himself as an advocate for the humanities, and he emphasizes that students need good teachers to tell them that it is worth their while to study the humanities.

"The perception is that if you are majoring in the humanities, you are not preparing to go directly to a professional occupation," Engell says. "The society doesn't accept that [as] acceptable training."

Engell is currently finishing a year on leave, during which he finished The Committed Word: Literature and Public Values, a collection of case studies and profiles that examine the interaction between literature and American social and political debate.

One case included in the book is a poem called "The Connecticut Wit," written to convince the Connecticut Constitutional Convention to pass the Constitution.

"It isn't often that you find a piece of literature that diversely affected the American political scene," Engell says, adding that the poem was widely quoted and cited during debates over the Constitution.

He says the book shows how literature can be "an instrument for people in other professions."

"I don't think we've done a particularly good job of teaching that in the United States in the past 50 to 75 years," he says.

Now living in Acton, Mass. with his wife of 14 years and their son, Engell's time is under constant demand, which he says makes it difficult for him to focus.

All the same, it's the enjoyability of this productive, albeit hectic, pace that Engell says keeps him at Harvard.

"It is like having 150 cable stations," he says. "The only problem is that all of the stations are good."