Y2K Fails to Frustrate Faculty

As the year 1999 draws rapidly to a close, much of the Harvard community seems more preoccupied with holiday parties and the prospect of a two-week vacation than with a potential Y2K-related catastrophe.

To many faculty members, at least, the year 2000 is just another year, and this winter break is just like so many other winter breaks: a time to relax, get cozy with the family, perhaps even take a trip.

"We don't notice what year it is," says Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine, when asked whether he and his family have special plans for the eve of the millennium.

Eschewing an atypical holiday celebration, Rudenstine says his family will instead stick with traditional festivities, inviting extended family for a big party. "Everybody comes to us for this time of the year to celebrate," he says.

And those faculty members who do notice what year it is say they are no less inclined to shake up their vacation schedules simply because of the date.

Cogan University Professor of Philosophy Hilary W. Putnam takes a rational view of the new millennium. He says his plans for winter break are as yet unaffected by Y2K, and he plans to take a Jan. 1 flight to Tel-Aviv, Israel, a booking he made assuming New Year's Day will bring minimal problems.

"I think there may be some glitches, but localized ones," Putnam says. "[Y2K] will not be the major disaster some people think it will be."

Many faculty members share Putnam's mindset, saying they believe--and hope--that the hype over the advent of the year 2000 has been exaggerated.

But even some professors who say they are skeptical of the hype subscribe to the mentality that it is better to be safe than sorry.

Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Computer Sciences Steven J. Gortler, a self-described joker, says he suspects very little will happen on New Year's Eve but he is, nevertheless, "preparing for the apocalypse."

"I'm buying bottled water, storing money in a secret place, and stocking up on flint and lighter fluid," he says, earnest despite his mock-serious tone. He advises others to be ready for the worst as well, despite his doubts that serious problems will occur.

And as for Gortler's New Year's Eve plans? "I'll be at home, probably sleeping. I'm not a big celebrator," he says.

Filling the Calendar Gap

Some Harvard organizations have taken a more celebratory attitude towards the new millennium, marking the occasion's academic significance.

In preparation for a possible apocalypse, Houghton Library is currently running an exhibit called "TEOTWAWKI: Futuristic Visions in Houghton's Collections."

TEOTWAWKI stands for The End Of The World As We Know It.

According to exhibit curator Karen Nipps, senior rare book cataloguer in Houghton, she planned this exhibit at the last minute due to an opening in the exhibit calendar.

It features historic displays of artwork and literature of apocalypse and utopia. Paperback works of science fiction are also on display.

Authors represented in the displays include Dante Alighieri, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Moore, Cyrano de Bergerac, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, William Blake, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, Alexander Pope and Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Y2K: An Historical Perspective

The Medieval Studies Committee is also offering an academic perspective on the millennium. The committee hosted a mini-conference called "Y1K: Did the Millennium Make a Difference?" yesterday afternoon in the Barker Center.

The conference featured three Harvard professors arguing that the year 1000 was of little significance. Richard A. Landes '71, an associate professor at Boston University and co-founder of its Center for Millennial Studies, argued the other side.

Weinberg Professor of Architectural History Christine Smith spoke on the changes in architectural style in the 10th and 11th centuries, but noted there was very little such change between the years 980 and 1020.

And according to Professor of English and American Literature Daniel G. Donoghue, England might have missed the millennium. The king's scribes, he said, kept faulty records, and may have thought the date was 1049 or 1069, when it was actually 999. The error was not discovered until it was already 1000, he said lightheartedly.

Lea Professor of Medieval History Thomas N. Bisson noted that relatively few people knew what the date was in 1000, and few people cared. The time of the new millennium was already a time of crisis, with a rapid increase in the numbers of castles and knights, Bisson said.

But Landes disagreed with their dismissal of first millennium tensions, and said that scribes manipulated the dates at the end of the millennium because they feared an apocalypse. They shifted their interpretation of the beginning of "A.D." to avoid the year 1000.

The church in France preached that the year 1000 was the end of days and the final judgement, according to Landes, which would mean the peasants were aware of the millennium--and feared it.

But "millennialism is entirely a social construct," he conceded.