DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH NEWSLETTER Fall 2015 Standing-room only at the celebration of 150 years of Dalhousie’s Department of English. TRADITIONS AND COLLECTIVE TALENTS: THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AT 150 Table of Contents Introduction 1 Dalhousie’s Department of English turns 150 years ourselves looking both 1878 Convocation young this year! The theme of this installment of our backward and forward, to Address 3 newsletter, “Traditions and Collective Talents,” is echo Utopian writer therefore less homage to T. S. Eliot’s famous essay Edward Bellamy, as we 1869 English Exam 5 than a celebration of our department’s history and its celebrate our Recent Events 6 future. I’m not usually one to quote Eliot at length, sesquicentennial and make but his meditation on tradition seems appropriate to plans for our immediate Creative Writing 7 this event. He writes, “if the only form of tradition, of and more distant futures. Wayzgoose 8 handing down, consisted in following the ways of the The main celebration of immediate generation before us in a … timid 2015-16 Speakers Series 9 our anniversary took place adherence to its successes, ‘tradition’ should positively during Dalhousie’s Special Anniversary Essay, be discouraged.” by Sharon Hamilton 10 homecoming. Faculty Eliot’s intent is debatable, but his essay seems to insist members, alumni, Contributors 20 both on a very limited notion of the literary canon, administrators, and and on the necessity of a narrowly aesthetic or current undergraduate and formalist critical approach to poetry (both of which, it graduate students gathered turns out, somehow led to an appreciation of poetry a at the university faculty club for an afternoon of lot like Eliot’s own—odd coincidence, that). But, still, performances and conversations that gestured to the the sentiment of this one line echoes in the past only to set the stage for the future. department’s hallways these days. We’ve found 2 The ceremonies were officiated by Dr. Melissa Furrow, Diepeveen announced that the department was who quizzed a few faculty members using an exam establishing a bursary for Indigenous and Black from 1869 (see page 5). Drs. Bruce Greenfield and Canadian students, to be funded through continuing Leonard Diepeveen were granted passing—but not donations by department members. stellar—marks on a few questions, while yours truly From the reflection on the department’s earliest days, attempted to skip the test altogether. we then turned to a more This cruel examination was followed by two readings nuanced remembrance of our that showed both the continuing traditions of the many traditions. Our new department and those that have hopefully been colleague, Shauntay Grant (right; relegated to the past, as well as some gestures to a see page 7), performed a better future. Both readings were of material written musical spoken word piece, by James DeMille, arguably the first English professor “Back In The Day,” that at Dalhousie, and a noted writer (and the person who explored nostalgia in all its many wrote the exam). The first consisted of Dr. William complexities. This moment Barker reading a portion of a convocation speech signaled the celebration’s delivered by DeMille in 1878 (below; see pages 3-4 for movement from tradition to the a selection from the address). future, when we turned to the announcement of the winners of our student contest on “Evolving English”: winners included Mady Gillespie, Jade Nauss, and Courtney Sharpe. Congratulations all! (You can read more about the prizes and the event in the Dalhousie Gazette.) While the celebration of our 150th year may come at another moment when we echo DeMille’s fears regarding the general support for the humanities both within and outside of our university, it is refreshing to In this address, we see many of the traditions that see how we are moving forward, and how both the continue in the Department of English today: a department and English studies as a whole are recognition of the intersections between the constantly developing, in large part due to our many humanities and the natural sciences; an insistence on critical appraisals of the past. the importance of literary and cultural analysis to the development of an engaged citizenry; and, of course, a This issue of the newsletter attempts to further those lament for the lack of financial support offered to the discussions by looking to the department’s collective department and the university as a whole. The second strength, built on the foundation of our individual and was a more jarring reading: a poem by DeMille that he group accomplishments. Below, you’ll learn about the intended, one suspects, to invoke humour by twisting successes of our students, faculty, and alumni in the settler-Canadians’ tongues in a rhyming rehearsal of English and the Creative Writing programs. We end both extant and reworked or fictional Indigenous with a special essay written by Sharon Hamilton for place names. When transformed into a contemporary this newsletter. In it, she explores two generations of reading, it becomes, one hopes, a call for a recognition Dalhousie graduates, recalling the best of our past 150 of the need for reconciliation and respect. This call years and invoking the hopes for our next. was echoed at the conclusion of the event when Len —Jason Haslam 3 JAMES DEMILLE, 1878 CONVOCATION ADDRESS James DeMill (also spelled DeMille) began his career at itself. … In some quarters the character and aim of Dalhousie in the fall of 1865 as Professor of Rhetoric and our College are not apprehended. History. It is from his instruction in rhetoric that the Department of English takes its foundation. On November 13, What is Dalhousie College, really? I have sometimes 1878, Professor DeMill addressed the Convocation of suspected that this misapprehension of our character Dalhousie College. At this event, at 3 o’clock precisely, the is after all due to its many-sidedness, for if on the one students having taken their seats, in came Chancellor Hill and hand people find it difficult to understand what we are, Vice Chancellor Stairs of the University of Halifax, His on the other hand they may perhaps find it equally Honour Lieutenant Governor Archibald, the Principal of the difficult to understand what we are not. College, and Hon. Sir William Young, Chief Justice. After a At the present day, the question regarding [our] prayer from the Principal, the Very Reverend Ross, Professor education is somewhat perplexing; although formerly DeMill read the inaugural address. He spoke for 55 minutes. it was easy enough, for it answered itself. … [But Professor William Barker, who read this speech to the times have changed.] Never in the history of the world department at our 150th birthday party, managed to get the has there been anything more triumphant than the speech down to 5 minutes, though there were about 55 people at march of natural science into the domain of human the event (approximately the size of Dalhousie back in 1878 – knowledge. It has opened up the unknown; it has a year before it staved off financial ruin thanks to donations brought in its train inventions and discoveries without from George Munro). number. What follows is the much reduced and somewhat modified [We have therefore reached a crossroads] – of the old version of DeMill’s address; the full address is available online learning and the new learning. on DalSpace, in the Dalhousie Gazette of 23 November and 7 December, 1878 (it was spread over two issues because it The advocates of the old learning contend that it was too long to fit in one). The portion of the excerpt read by concerns the higher use, rather than the lower utility. Dr. Barker appears below. If you tell them that the first question of every man is – how shall I get a living? they reply that man cannot Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, live by bread alone. … Our old learning cannot help The present session has opened under encouraging you to grow rich. There is no money in it. But we circumstances. Since the last convocation, various claim that it will make your life (once granted that changes have been made which we hope will add to bread and butter) broader, deeper. the efficiency of the College. The department of In a liberal education there are two great ends – first, Physics has been enlarged by the establishment of a discipline, and second, culture. Those who advocate regular course of study, looking toward a degree in the old learning uphold the study of mathematics not Science, which shall be relatively as valuable as a because it is good for calculations in trade, in degree in Arts. navigation, in engineering, but for its own good; … I In the cities of Europe and America the presence of a study Greek, says an advocate of the old learning, University is a mark of distinction, regarded by its because it is not of particular utility. possessors with gratified pride, and by their But the advocates of the new learning prize utility. The neighbours with a certain respectful envy. In Halifax, immense importance of the physical sciences cannot however, the existence of this University is not a thing be exaggerated. over which the city is in the habit of greatly feliciting 4 [Must we then make a choice between the old learning Let me end with this question. What are the benefits of and the new?] Can we not recognize the good that is a liberal education? It is beneficial in two ways, first to in each? A true education may be given in more ways the individual, and second to the nation.