Though I largely agree with Grafton that conversation culture is something that Princeton students will have to build, respect and maintain themselves, it strikes me that the administration could contribute to its growth by paying more attention to two things.
One is that conversation culture is born not in elevators, lecture room seats or basement hallways before precepts — it flourishes in the smoky, sweaty corners of pubs; in cafeteria alcoves; and over beer in common rooms. We know historically the dimensions, acoustics and atmosphere of coffee houses and tea houses across Eurasia. The New York Intellectuals learned how to argue the world by debating Stalinism in the dusty Alcoves No. 1 and No. 2 of the City College of New York. In Oxford, regulars at the Lamb & Flag pub seek to stake out a bottleneck-shaped corner of the pub as their own. Good conversational spaces are those that can be taken over, dominated and stamped as one’s own, aloof from the cacophony of the dining hall or city street.
University planners should seek the same principle in future architectural concepts. Booths and circular tables are good, but when I wanted real conversation at Princeton, I turned not to Whitman College, with its echoing freshman conversations, but to the grotty sunroom in Terrace that we felt we had marked and earned as our own. Figure out how to build more spaces like that, and conversation will follow.
This is not to say that conversation, and intellectual friendships, are always spontaneous. At Oxford, I have been thankful for and surprised by the opportunities — not to put too fine a point on it — to drink wine and beer with other Rhodes Scholars or graduate members of my Oxford college. The formula is simple: Gather your young intelligentsia, make them wear semi-nice clothing, put them in a nice room so they won’t misbehave too much, and give them drink. If it is possible to preface an event with a discussion by a professor or visitor, all the better. The result may come close to a 21st-century version of the Parisian salon.
While it is my impression that organizations such as the Undergraduate Society of Fellows have begun to make an effort toward organizing events, when I was at Princeton, the only comparable events were occasional departmental dinners fueled by the oenophilia of one professor — a wonderful experience, but one that should not depend on students joining one department or the other. Attempts at building such a salon culture may face the same challenges that plagued 17th- and 18th-century French salons: encouraging brilliant female students to put arrogant males in their place, transcending the social class of the invitees to salons, deciding which topics are within limits. But such an institution would add a lot to Princeton’s conversational life and, I suspect, produce more students capable of doing well at the fellowship game.
It’s up to students to take advantage of the rich offerings that Princeton already gives them. Instituting modern, Princetonian forms of the coffee house, Alcoves No. 1 and No. 2 or the French salon will amount to little beyond a press release if Princeton cannot admit and attract the world’s brightest students, and especially not if students settle for insipid Gerede over Beast on the Street. But at least we know that the current setup isn’t working how we’d like it to. I write this right before I head to a smoky pub corner with friends to discuss the big issues. Why not try the same with Princeton undergraduates?
Timothy Nunan ’08 is a Rhodes Scholar studying for an M.Phil. in social and economic history at Oxford. He can be reached at timothy.nunan@gmail.com.
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