When I was a student, I always romanticized the faculty lounge as a place where big ideas, witty repartee and afternoon tea came to meet and mingle--a combination of Claridge's, the Algonquin Table, college literary societies and the Keats-Shelley House in Rome, with a little Bloomsbury thrown in for good measure. But the average faculty lounge nowadays is often empty or barely populated, as we all fall prey to the incessant demands and overload of modern life.
Hence *this* Faculty Lounge: online, 24-7, easily accessible, open to anyone who wants to talk ideas or ponder questions large and small. Although you'll have to provide your own sherry and biscuits, there's no need to don your tweed blazer with leather patches or velvet smoking jacket (but do feel free!). I'll be in that far corner in the big leather chair, sipping my Makaibari Estate Darjeeling (milk, two sugars) and holding forth on topics from juries and sentencing to late-Victorian literature and verse. See you there!
This is so awesome. Students never get invited into The Faculty Lounge. Huzzah for breaking down the artificial barriers of academia!
Next thing you know there'll be a blog called "Busted Podiums" with pictures of lecterns being hacked to pieces. Or "Fawlty Ivory Towers."
Perhaps your purpose was not so populist and anarchist, but I'm excited on the behalf of all students and aspiring law profs out there anyway. Your blog will reach more than faculty, to be sure! Which is why it's so much better than a real faculty lounge, even without the Bigelow teas.
Posted by: Belle Lettre | February 07, 2008 at 03:52 PM