What the critics are saying
There’s a look I get sometimes. On the way to work, I cross paths with another professor from the college. We greet each other, and I see raised eyebrows, a strange smile, stifled laughter, and a shake of the head.
I have a theory about what it means. It’s a look of amusement, irony, wonder, and indulgence. It says: “I’m entertained by your antics, but I’m not sure I approve.”
I first saw this look on Professor Theresa’s face. Then I saw it on Professor Herman’s face. She tried to keep her merriment inside, then gave up, and burst out laughing.
What’s new with you, she asked with a wink. (She is a member of the class of people who wink.)
Not much, I replied. Mired in controversy!
This happened a few days after my essay “Would Vanessa Place Be a Better Poet If She Had Better Opinions?” appeared in the journal Nonsite in the fall issue of 2015.
(Place, a conceptual poet, had posted the entire text of the novel Gone with the Wind on the Twitter account @vanessaplace. In my essay, I said that Tweeting Gone with the Wind was a bad piece of writing, but the readers who accused Place of racism were being irresponsible, since their view of race was identical to Place’s view. I wrote about the reception of my essay in an earlier installment of this newsletter.)
The wordless looks of my colleagues impressed me as responses to my essay. As basically sympathetic responses. This impression was strengthened when they responded in words. “Proud to be your colleague,” Professor Theresa wrote in an email. “Your essay,” Professor Philip wrote, “is terrific, I was glad to read it.” Professor Louise, perhaps the most prominent member of the department in those days, thanked me for “the article on our inability to call bad writing simply that!”, demonstrating that she had perfectly grasped the idea of my essay.
Professor Geoffrey responded at greater length:
I must say I couldn’t agree with you more. To the extent that it’s difficult for me to see how anyone could argue with you. But I mention that because I suspect that people will jump down your throat about it. I can imagine how C. A. Conrad might be outraged. What you do of course is give him the respect entailed in taking his position seriously and disagreeing with it, but I doubt he sees it that way! I’m not sure I’d be levelheaded enough to, myself.
I don’t know. This whole business depresses me beyond measure. There is something so violent about the response to these conceptual poets, violent and wrongheaded; it gives me the heebie jeebies. But then one tries to think that it is the product of greater violence and a greater wrong-headedness by far -- not the conceptual poets themselves, obviously, but “white supremacy” as such. Calling these (to all appearances) well meaning, politically anti-racist people “white supremacist” feels totally absurd, but clearly the gesture seems fitting to the people making it?
I am skirting your argument because, as I say, it is so evidently right that the problem becomes, well, given that this position is “wrong” in all of the ways that you’ve explained, why are otherwise intelligent people adopting it? But whatever the more or less compelling answer that question might receive, I still can’t support the position itself -- again, for all the reasons you’ve laid out. The end result of which is that I just move right along and ignore the whole affair. Which is what you precisely haven’t done. How much wrath have you drawn down upon your head, I wonder!
In any case, I’m very glad you’ve weighed in on the issue.
“Thanks [Geoffrey]!” I replied. “It’s nice to get such a sympathetic response. But the negative responses are useful too, at least as a way of seeing where people stand.”
Today, reading Geoffrey’s email, I’m struck by the habits of mind on display. He’s being kind to me, he’s expressing agreement, but he’s also looking skeptically at the places where he’s most inclined to agree. Thoughtfully, patiently, carefully, methodically, he’s testing my essay. Turning it over. What’s on the other side? What’s the counterargument? How can the counterargument be made stronger? Geoffrey, a real student of literature, had trained himself to ask these questions.
At the same time, his email acknowledges a weak, cowardly impulse. He fears controversy. He’s disturbed by the idea that some readers might respond angrily to my essay; he does not want to see those responses directed at him.
I suspect that people will jump down your throat about it.
There is something so violent about the response to these conceptual poets, violent and wrongheaded; it gives me the heebie jeebies.
I just move right along and ignore the whole affair. Which is what you precisely haven’t done. How much wrath have you drawn down upon your head, I wonder!
I did not fully comprehend Geoffrey’s email in 2015. I thought he was saying that he agreed with me. I wasn’t mistaken; he was saying that. But that wasn’t the heart of his message. He told me that he agreed with me -- “I couldn’t agree with you more,” he told me -- and also (without telling me) he told me that he would never say so in public, and, if I got into trouble, he would not support me.
Predictably, in 2019, when a workplace investigator questioned him, Geoffrey did not support me. Asked about my essay, he said that he did not agree with me, and did not mention that he had once stated his agreement emphatically.
[Geoffrey] stated that personally, he does not subscribe to Kunin’s beliefs.
Was my essay a “racist document,” as Herman thought? Geoffrey was circumspect in his testimony.
[He] stated that he read the essay and it did not strike him as self-evidentially racist. He stated that he did believe, however, that the position Kunin took in the essay is unpopular.
Note the same habits of mind, the same strength and the same weakness, this time marshalled to inspect my essay for evidence of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Tentatively, he rejects the claim that my essay is “self-evidentially racist,” leaving open the possibilities of hidden racism or unconscious racism.
Geoffrey’s behavior was hardly unique. With the sole exception of Professor Edmund, none of the professors who praised my essay in 2015 had anything complimentary to say about it in 2019. The range of opinion in the department now seemed to be that my essay was either a “racist document” or a “clumsy academic exercise.”
Philip, who called my essay “terrific” in 2015, said in 2019 that my essay caused harm, although perhaps not intentionally.
[Philip] stated that he believed Kunin did not mean any harm in writing the essay, but that he miscalculated the impact of the essay and was tone death.
Philip is a great writer. A celebrated writer. Expert in some obscure corners of literary history. There are pieces of literary knowledge in his head that no one else knows. In his interview with the workplace investigator, when he put that fine literary mind to work, he showed an utter lack of conviction.
[Philip] stated that this essay damaged Kunin’s reputation with poets [Philip] knew.
He stated that he also came across the conflict on Twitter.
[Philip] stated that Kunin’s essay affected the College’s reputation as well.
He went online, looked at social media, and calculated his opinions to the meridian of other people’s opinions. Then, in his testimony, he catalogued those opinions as evidence of harms done by my essay.
And why would you bother asking such a person for his opinion of your essay? He obviously is not capable of telling you.
Professor Joy pretended that she did not know me.
She stated that Kunin has supported her curriculum programming. She has not socialized with Kunin outside of work.
That surprised me. I first met Joy in 1994, long before either one of us held an academic post. I always liked her way of putting a poem together, and I liked her irreverent moral sense, the way she played with serious subjects. In 2018, when the English department hired her to teach creative writing, I invited her to apply, recruited her for the job, advocated for her, hosted her visit, and (because she was hired with tenure) wrote her tenure letter. As well, I spent a fair amount of time hanging out with her in 2019. “Socializing,” if you like.
In varying degrees, most of my colleagues distanced themselves from me in their testimony. They left out information that might have suggested closer relationships. For example, Philip did not mention that I introduced him to his girlfriend. Most of them said some version of the following: that they were friendly with me but did not often socialize with me. This description matches my sense that I had ordinary, superficial, professional friendships with my colleagues. Joy is the only one who denied having any relationship with me.
The mediator confirmed Joy’s testimony.
Kunin has an affection (in a professional way) for [Professor Joy], but [Joy] does not return the same affection.
That stings a little, I confess. It is disappointing to read that I wasted my feelings on an indifferent object. In a way, the testimony is irrefutable. If someone says she’s not your friend, she’s not your friend. In the context of a workplace investigation, someone who says only that you “supported her programming” is decidedly unfriendly.
For my part, I persist in thinking of myself as a friend to anyone who is interested in poetry.
The investigation report is an unreliable document. It’s possible that the report misrepresents the testimony. In the foregoing brief excerpts, I would suggest a couple of emendations: Philip must have said “tone deaf” rather than “tone death,” and Geoffrey probably said “self-evidently” rather than “self-evidentially racist.” Or he could have said “so evidently racist,” just as he previously wrote “so evidently right.”
It’s actually possible that the investigator inverted the meaning of the testimony. (The director of HR at the college later identified a passage in the report where the testimony should have said “does not believe Kunin is racist,” and the investigator wrote, “does believe Kunin is racist.” “A material typo,” the HR director observed.)
Maybe the professors changed their minds between 2015 and 2019. Or maybe they fit their opinions to the occasion, saying what they thought their audience wanted to hear. And, changing what they said, and hearing what they said, they persuaded themselves, and changed their minds.
Or maybe they always had reservations about my essay, but they didn’t like to say them to me. They wanted to be kind. (In that case, please tell me your criticisms, and save your flattery for when you are speaking to a workplace investigator! That would be a kindness.)
Let me suggest one more possibility. A significant change that occurred between the years 2015 and 2019 was the experience of the workplace investigation. Being questioned by a workplace investigator may have dampened the enthusiasm with which my colleagues greeted my essay at the time of its publication. For if part of the message of my essay was that my thoughts were thinkable and sayable, part of the message of the investigation was that they might not be. “Hey Professor,” the investigation said, “you could be fired for having certain thoughts. And this could be one of the prohibited thoughts. Who knows?”
My colleagues heard the message, and sought to establish an appropriate distance.