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with in her book are feminism, the woes of parenthood, infidelity, and academic pomposity— not race relations. At the fictional "Corinth", instead exists a very funny takeover of the office of political science
Professor Dibble by his irate female students. The character of Dibble, a reactionary and sexist with a heart condition, is thought to be based on the young Allen Bloom. In the novel, the character Dibble is outraged because the administration has failed to call for military assistance to deal with the protesters, in his mind thereby compromising "professorial dignity". The only (somewhat oblique) reference in the novel to the student takeover at Cornell occurs when the women protesters are depicted as being inspired by thoughts of what black students might do in a takeover situation similar to theirs. In
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while Dibble, who really is a sexist, ironically escapes with no consequences. Dibble then resigns from the university in high dudgeon. Brian Tate becomes a symbol because he is photographed and appears this way in the media. He becomes a figure attracting support and opprobrium for views that he does not, in fact, hold, as the imagery of "culture wars" takes over people's attention.
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424:, a black conservative, who followed Bloom to Paris) because they thought that the source of "power" in the university had now shifted from the authorities to the students, thereby fatally compromising professorial dignity. The depression and subsequent suicide of another political science professor,
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Tate's attempt to help Dibble escape out of the window goes hilariously awry and attracts a large crowd. When Tate is discovered trapped together with Dibble, everyone mistakenly assumes that the demonstration was aimed at him and not Dibble, thus Tate inadvertently acquires the reputation of sexism,
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Lurie's novel, in fact, is only loosely based on the real people and events of the tumultuous 1960s, and her characters are the more devastating for being types rather than recognizable portraits. Although she was at
Cornell during the famous protests by black students in April 1969, the topics dealt
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Brian felt some sympathy for Jenny's cause. After all, Dibble probably had made some foolishly unprofessional remarks. He was a boor and a reactionary and Brian's longstanding enemy , while Jenny was a beautiful young girl who admired him and would be grateful if he helped her to defeat their common
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Chapter 12 begins "on a Monday afternoon in
December" of the first year of the novel, which runs from March of one year to May of another. In this chapter, Erica complains to her friend Danielle about how much she hates living in 1969. In the last chapter, Brian notes that New York State has just
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Brian, meanwhile, ends up helping a group of young women (he is attracted in particular to one, the beautiful young student Wendy) who want to protest the sexist attitudes of
Professor Dibble, a highly conservative colleague in Brian's department. Brian ends up futilely attempting to support both
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that takes place at an elite university during the upheavals of the late 1960s and gently and deftly skewers all sides in the turmoils and conflicts of that era — opposition to the
Vietnam war, the start of the feminist movement, the generation gap, sexual liberation, experimentation with
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Erica and Brian Tate are a seemingly happy and successful academic couple. At least, Brian Tate is successful: he is the holder of the endowed Sayles Chair of
Political Science at Corinth University in upstate New York. As he reaches his mid-40s, he begins to undergo a midlife crisis. He is an
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where her husband was a full professor. The fictional
Corinth University, with its setting of creeks flowing through deep gorges, gracious but not always comfortable academic buildings, and its shabby college town, is obviously modeled on Cornell.
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sides in this battle, to his own discomfiture. In the war between men and women, as in other wars, when the two sides are extremely polarized, there can be no middle ground, but there are contradictions on both sides.
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of the marital (and extramarital) travails of a professor and his wife, 'happened to people I know, but it happened at three different universities.'" Nearly 25 years later, her colleague,
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at
Cornell by group of militant African Americans, some of whom displayed guns (though they were not used). Conservatives even today fault the administration for negotiating with
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Brian Tate, a professor holding an endowed chair of
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enemy; Brian had already imagined some of the forms this gratitude might take.
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was published in 1974, Lurie was a part-time adjunct teaching
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Leonard Zimmern, his wife Danielle, and their daughters Roo and Celia
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Cornell '69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University
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Cornell '69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University
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passed a liberal law legalizing abortion; this pinpoints 1970.
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appeared in a cameo role as the campus radical Joe Freedom.
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441:( New York: Avon Books 1971), p. 282.
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