Hist. and Lit. Turns 100

Lissome young women dressed in demure earth tones smiled their way through the room, brushing shoulders with men turned out in their finest tweed. The murmur of conversation rose and fell in intensity as people paused to take discreet sips from their wine glasses. A waiter stopped before a chatting pair, silently proffering a tray of filo pastries topped with pear and ricotta—don’t mind if I do!

FM crashed the after party for the History and Literature Centennial Celebration, held last Saturday in Emerson Hall. Having observed panel discussions among 11 of the department’s most prestigious (read: cooperative) graduates, hist-and-lit concentrators migrated to the Thompson Room of the Barker Center, where the alcohol was free flowing and the conversation esoteric.

“I’ve been writing about the same thing for so long!” laughed one middle-aged alumnus to her companion, referring to her new book and its similarity to her senior thesis.

Theses seemed to be a running joke among fellow grads. Just an hour earlier, Nicholas B. Lemann ’76 had asked the panel audience if he could “self-flagellate regarding my thesis a little,” making a disgusted face as he revealed that he wrote about “tragically doomed Southern liberals.”

As it happens, masochism was a theme running through this gathering of people who chose a concentration notorious for its medieval requirements. “The reason that so many of us are interested in torture sort of stems from the oral examination experience,” said Edward L. Widmer ’84. Whatever floats your boat—FM doesn’t judge.

Scheduled panelist Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. ’38, whose book “Cycles of American History” was read (or not read) by high schoolers across the nation, was notably missing from the fete. When asked for her opinion on the Pulitzer Prize winner’s absence, Ashley A.T. Tongret ’00 was unperturbed: “I was just disappointed that Conan O’Brien ’85 wasn’t here.”