Sunday, April 11, 2010

On academic celebrity

Leaving Venice this morning, I happened to be on the vaporetto with a certain scholar of early modern English literature who has achieved, if anyone in this field has, a kind of superstar, even celebrity, status. In 20 minutes on the vaporetto, he was approached by three fans/well-wishers, who wanted to compliment him and engage him in some point of discussion. He was attended by his wife, who went to my alma mater just ahead of me, and whose status as an academic object of fascination/ fetishization owes much, I think, to refracted celebrity. In any case, I was amused to watch this power couple work the boat, and to think what a small sphere it is, really, in which we signify, insofar as we signify. And to remember how much it seems to matter, at times, to me--to all of us.

Having said that, it is always a small thrill to me to go to a panel and be flanked in the audience chairs by folks who are, to me, household names. Grande dames and great men of three or four decades ago, still jumping into the fray. That moves me.

Finally, Venice was a great idea for a conference site. If you didn't care if anyone attended any panels. I don't think I was in a room with more than 8 people the whole time. And I myself only attended 3 panels. One of which I chaired.

10 comments:

Lisa B. said...

I love this little glimpse into your professional world. Wow. What an adventure you're having. Can't wait to see you!

dkm said...

I'm glad you're having such fun. It sounds to me like you attended two panels too many, though. After all, it IS Venice :)

Enjoy your leave.

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

Was it Stephen Greenblatt? I don't know... there's something to be said for academic celebrity, I guess, but then some people just start thinking of you as a sell-out joke if you buy into too much. Cough...Harold... cough... Bloom...cough...cough.

Renaissance Girl said...

dkm: weirdly, before you commented here, last night i dreamed that you kept jumping into the swimming pool at my parents' house, despite my discouraging such shenanigans. and the fact that my parents don't have a swimming pool.

Ink said...

Loved this post.

Whenever I'm at a conference that has a "big name," it reminds me that they are actual people, too. Which I tend to forget when studying/researching/teaching. I think perhaps because we spend so much time referring to their ideas and words.

Fie, I met SG at a conference as a grad student and breathlessly said, "Wow! Hey! I just quoted you in my paper!" Then was horrified that I'd blurted that out, but he said, "Really? What was your paper about?" which was so kind of him. Yeah, I still blush remembering that.

Renaissance Girl said...

Fie: If I'd said, "his (much younger) wife" would that have sealed his identity for you?

Renaissance Girl said...

Also, I in no way intend to slander this particular scholar, whose work I admire, and who has always been, unfailingly, gracious to me--as he was to all those folks on the vaporetto. But it's clear that he has fielded such crowds before.

Lexy and Jared said...

RG, you and Thing 1 had better be eating gallons of gelato in addition to spotting academic celebs on Italian public transportation. And am I as bad as Thing 1 for giggling at the idea of s/he giggling at art penises?

Doctor Cleveland said...

I'm glad that you had such a great time in Venice, RG!

The person we're discussing really is a celebrity: after all, he's been on TV! On shows our undergraduates watch! But you're right: most of his celebrity is limited to very small environments.

I've wondered, occasionally, what that experience must be like for academic celebrities like that: a big deal on campus, intense celebrity in professional venues, and upper-middle-class anonymity in the rest of the world. There must be some whiplash.

(For he's famous but as a dream doth flatter/At work a star, but shopping no such matter.)

PS My word captcha is "nomile" which I take as a reference to Italian kilometers.

Renaissance Girl said...

One more comment, a very slight corollary to this topic (considering the far, far dimmer sphere my star inhabits): weirdly, by which I mean surreal-ly, two people I'd never met brought my most recent book of poems to RSA for me to sign, and a third, also unknown to me, stopped me in a Venice alley to pay various poetic compliments. I often think of the poetry part of my life and the Renaissancey part of my life as nonoverlapping, at least in terms of the people I tend to meet. But every so often, there's this overlap, which registers like a warp in the space-time continuum. Or at least, as uncanny.