Editor's Column—Education Populism

PMLA, Vol. 132, No. 5, October 2017 Wai Chee Dimock 132. 5 ] Editor’s Column Education Populism HE SNOW HAD NOT BEEN PREDICTED, BUT IT WAS COMING DOWN Tin earnest, blanketing Philadelphia and catching even the cabs off guard. The Kelly Writers House was open that Saturday morning in January 2017, as it always is, seven days a week, appar- ently independent of the weather. And for good reason: someone else was already in the kitchen with a book and a mug of cofee, settled in and only briefy distracted when Julia Bloch, director of creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, ushered me into the house.1 “One of our regulars,” Julia said. “A student from Temple.” Te interview could have ended then and there—one minute into it and I had already gotten ample evidence of what sort of company the house kept. But here I was, armed with a long list of ques- tions, and I thought I should at least ask one. “I’m interested in three things: PennSound, ModPo, and the Kelly Writers House.2 Which is the most fundamental?” “Kelly Writers House, without a doubt. It came frst historically, and it still comes frst in every sense. All the high- tech stuf we’re doing now follows as a result.” Te Kelly Writers House is an actual house, a white and green Tudor- style cottage built in 1851 by the Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan. One of the few such cottages still in existence (fg. 1), it sits at the heart of Penn’s campus, on Locust Walk, a key counterpoint to the imposing tower of the Wharton School, a mere stone’s throw away. Te university chaplain used to live here. In 1995, when digiti- zation was just beginning to take hold, a group of students and fac- ulty members, with zero dollars in funding, opened the house as a “pilot program of the Provost’s 21st- Century Initiative” (“About the Kelly Writers House”). Te program’s mission statement emphasizes that “[i] n addition to being a conventional location for an exchange of © 2017 Wai Chee Dimock PMLA 132.5 (2017), published by the Modern Language Association of America 1089 1090 Editor’s Column [ PMLA ideas, it will also be an unconventional space outreach initiatives such as the Kelly Writers where virtual realities, electronic texts, and House Fellows program and its Young and electronic publishing will have a presence” Emerging Writers Fund. Among these do- (Walker). Tat double infrastructure—digital nors, 75% give less than $250 (Filreis). and physical—would maximize access “within Thanks to these loyal supporters, the Penn and beyond,” opening it to “community Kelly Writers House is now equipped with service groups and their sister schools, Phila- digital- video cameras, wall- mounted HDTVs, delphia book stores and libraries.” and a state- of- the- art recording studio, And that is indeed how things have matching the needs of its cutting- edge pro- worked out. Te house is now open to anyone grams: a sound archive, a massive open on- and everyone. It belongs to no single depart- line course (or MOOC), and a Web forum ment: classes in creative writing, critical writ- featuring poetry analysis, news, and inter- ing, Africana studies, and cinema studies all views.3 Still, the physical house looks old. Its regularly meet there. Te house is also a por- nineteenth- century crown molding, cuspi- tal, an entry point to Penn, for an even more date windows, and original oak floors are diverse public: students from Temple and still intact, going hand in hand with the worn Drexel Universities; grade- school kids, such leather couches and well- used kitchen and as those from Lea Elementary School partici- dining room. Te logo for Robinson Press, the pating in Write On! (writeonpenn .org); and house’s on-site printing press, is three mis- folks anywhere in the world holding down matched chairs (fig. 2), a fitting emblem for day jobs and eager to spend their spare time the house as a whole, highlighting writing as a doing something else online. Typically, half social art nourished by company and conver- of the in- person audiences are unconnected sations, putting hand- me- down furniture to to the university (Filreis). good use. Te chairs depicted in the logo are Te donors who support the Kelly Writ- in the Arts Café, the front parlor where poetry ers House are just as diverse. Receiving only readings and symposiums are hosted. Humble a fraction of its income from the provost’s of- but unmistakable signs of welcome, they of- fce, the house gets 81% of its funding from fer everyone there a literal seat at the table, a loyal supporters with personal commitments comfortable perch as they listen and talk and to this endeavor, giving it the means to launch enjoy the food made on the premises (fg. 3). Part of the house’s infrastructure, cooking and eating are as reli- able as the house’s high- tech experiments are risky. It is no accident that the main meet- ing room here is called the Arts Café or that its best- known student FIG. publication is Penn Appétit, the nation’s Entrance to the Kelly Writers oldest college food House. Photograph magazine ( pennappetit by the Kelly Writers .com/). Now published House staff. in print only once a se- 132. 5 ] Editor’s Column 1091 mester, it fourishes as an online blog, featur- FIG. ing entries by students from the professional Program for a read- schools as well as by undergraduates. Two of ing at the Kelly Writ- the most memorable posts are by students ers House containing from the Wharton School: “Cheese and Rice the logo for its press. around the World,” by Justin Yue, and “Mar- cus Samuelsson Brings Soul Back to Food,” by Chase Matecun. Yue shows how to make Mas- simo Bottura’s risotto cacio e pepe while fll- ing us in on the recipe’s origins: “Back in May of 2012, there was an earthquake in Northern Italy, which afected hundreds of individuals and also destroyed thousands of Parmigiano Reggiano (Parmesan) cheese cylinders . ., so chef Massimo Bottura led a movement to get chefs around the world to buy these damaged cheese cylinders.” Te risotto was part of that cheese-salvaging campaign. Chefs are among the heroes at the Kelly Writers House. Mate- cun, managing editor of Penn Appétit, profles another one: Marcus Samuelsson, the owner and chef of the Red Rooster, a restaurant in Harlem. Noting that the menu combines “the soul food of the American South, Afro- Caribbean traditions, and even Asian favors that refect Harlem’s steadfast Asian popula- tion,” Matecun adds that the restaurant’s staf is just as eclectic, and he ends with what Sam- uelsson seems proudest of—that his restaurant has “the best Puerto Rican– Filipino staf meals ever” (“Marcus Samuelsson”). Tis is not exactly the sort of writing one would expect from the Wharton School. Who are Yue and Matecun, and how typical are they of the institution that produced Don- ald Trump and Ivanka Trump? In addition FIG. to being a risotto con- Students sharing noisseur, Yue speaks food prepared at Mandarin Chinese and the Kelly Writers Cantonese. Matecun, House. Photograph who just graduated, is by the Kelly Writers the incoming rotational House staff. 1092 Editor’s Column [ PMLA product manager at Zynga, a video- game New York Times have all reported on (Blanc et company, but he continues to feature the Kelly al.; Andrews; Feuer). Matecun, writing about Writers House prominently on his personal Samuelsson, found out that there was such a blog, “Te Foreign Fork.” “To me food is more thing as Puerto Rican–Filipino cuisine. And than just nourishment—it’s an experience that I, writing about the Kelly Writers House, have should be shared with others and appreciated had my eyes opened in more ways than one. both culturally and historically,” he writes. Here, then, is an education populism, the He vows to “bring this understanding back to opposite of the know- nothing version ascen- the United States” and to collect “traditional dant in the United States and Europe. Start- recipes from paellas to montaditos, interview ing out at an elite university but not bound local chefs and food producers, and sample by it, this other populism proceeds not by and document the full spectrum of traditional building walls and banning out- groups but Mediterranean foods.” He concludes with yet by insisting that no walls are necessary, that another tribute to his benefactor: “How is this everyone is “in.” If the Kelly Writers House blog made possible? If it weren’t for the gen- is right, writing is not so much a talent as a erosity of the Kelly Writers House, I would be universal entitlement: everyone can do it, and living of of baguettes and slices of second rate everyone will beneft from it. Even those at jamón each day. Tanks, guys!” (“About ”). diferent ends of the political spectrum could Yue and Matecun are not what we would come together on this basic level, this lowest, ordinarily call writers, nor would their blog least divisive, and most enlightening com- posts stand out amid the dizzying array of mon denominator. Is such a populism pos- texts originating from the Kelly Writers House. sible outside creative writing? Is it possible But that is the point, the guiding principle of outside Penn? How viable or legible are its this unabashedly crowdsourced enterprise. claims at public universities and community Writing here is meant to be unremarkable, a colleges? What are its pitfalls, its limits? daily routine for hundreds and thousands of To my mind, the populism of the Kelly people, fully occupied in other ways but some- Writers House is tested by one of its own pro- how fnding time to put words on the screen, grams: PennSound, perhaps the best known doing it voluntarily, a little at a time, and with and best loved among its offerings, though palpable satisfaction.

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