VANCOUVER—Congress is now in full swing. Humanities scholars dominate the first half of the week-long event. Besides catching passing references to Nietzsche or Michel Houellebecq in the pizza line, you hear a lot of scholars speaking different languages–Italian, Spanish, French, Danish, Russian, German. These and other languages continue to be taught across this country in small departments. Yesterday an Italian professor dared me to explain why the teaching of languages was given so little attention in our universities. He was disgusted. No one seemed to be doing anything about this erosion of civilization. Surely students are not as well educated as they used to be, he asked. I know. It’s a recurring dirge. It’s hard not to lament the academy’s lack of enthusiasm for its own language programs. True, one often wishes that our students—that we—were, well, more European. But I can’t agree that they are any less educated. A lot of our discussions here are about a new language entirely—Web 2.0 or even Office 2007.
Speaking of language, André Pratte, prominent Quebec author and editorial writer for La Presse, delivered the first campus breakfast address yesterday. The Federation hosts this series every year, inviting congress participants to eat their eggs and bacon while listening to a prominent writer present his or her take on whatever path they are pursing. The French-based breakfasts are usually thinly attended. Most academics find it a bit too hard on the head to listen to a talk in a language not their own, especially at 7:30 in the morning. Frankly, many of us have a hard time finding the right buildings for our talks and sessions on this gorgeously sprawling campus, let alone eat and translate at the same time.
But Pratte was terrific, lucidly updating us in the vexed question of Quebec identity, and in particular the significance of the recently released Bouchard-Taylor Commission Report on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences. That report and its recommendations to Quebecers to be reasonable with each other and everyone else—and that means Canadians—could not have happened ten years ago, Pratte argued. The question of language rights is as vital as ever in Quebec, he said, but a critical question now has to do with the changing demographics of the province, the sheer force of multiculturalism and the challenges it poses for Quebecers who cling to the informing myths of their identity. In effect, the Bouchard-Taylor report is as important for non-Quebecers, who are confronting the same accommodation of difference challenges. It sounds less like the canary in the mine than the goldfinch in the blossoms. Afterwards, I told him it would be great if he returned next year to deliver an updated version of his talk to English-speaking muffin-eaters. The room would be filled.
I just can’t get over this UBC campus. Some classrooms have staggering views of the mountains. Do students here take all this for granted? Or do they have a finer appreciation for the sublime? We’re all talking about the rhododendrons, bursting with bloom. What’s the landscaping budget at UBC? I think it would be easier to understand Plato, Wordsworth, or even Doug Coupland if you were studying here.
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