Wednesday, February 25, 2015 // The Statement
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he ratemyprofessors.com evaluation 
said that [name removed] could turn 
a phrase, and they were right. The 

thing about [name removed] that I found out 
on my own, was that his ego sometimes gets 
in the way of the point — the point of the dis-
cussion, the reading, the class, educating the 
youth, good taste, imparting wisdom, etc., 
etc. Sometimes, there was no point. Some-
times, you could see him peering down at the 
point as if from very far away, waiting for it to 
catch up with him. I mean to say, that he was 
good at his job, but in a way that made want to 
bite your own teeth off. (Imagine). Obscure, 
unhelpful, and smarter-than-you. And this 
was the most consistent vibe in the room, I 
found. For a semester, it teetered between 
“this is fun and interesting” and “this is sort 
of offensive, so now we are going to wait it 
out.” The class, I mean. As a whole. The His-
tory of Art. It should be so simple. Jesus. 

I guess, put in a different way, my biggest 

frustration with this class (although it was 
usually interesting and well-presented) was 
that there was a certain need to answer the 
question in [name removed]’s own personal 
way, or maybe the way that [name removed] 
found personally meaningful. Oftentimes, it 
seemed like we were being tested for under-
standing [name removed]’s last impression of 
the readings. The real question is, how well 
do you know [name removed]? 

For example, I was the guy who was curi-

ous about the social reception of Hume’s 
aesthetics (i.e. “can the ‘goodness’ of ‘good 
art’ be measured by how it would actually 
be received?”), but I was sort of written off 
or filtered out because it was construed that 
I wanted to take some kind of trans-histor-
ical “survey” or whatever, and that “sur-
veys” weren’t going to help us understand art 
through the ages, and that is not what I was 
saying with a snide lilt, (which is also impos-
sible since so many of its would-be partici-
pants are dead), but rather must have been 

based entirely [name removed]’s terrible 
experience with “surveys,” since he seemed 
so premeditated-ly averse to this concept. At 
other times, I was filtered out because what 
I was saying didn’t match a given author, 
like X: “What X is saying,” [name removed] 
would say, “is that you are basically wrong, 
and I have no interest in the point you’re 
making divorced of the internal world I have 
constructed so that we can all like the same 
things because I like them and I have good 
taste, thanks for sharing.” Emphasis on the 
“X.” 

Maybe another example is that I’m writing 

this final paper on Ogilvy’s ideas about fiction 
and emotions (assigned by [name removed]), 
but I’m only quoting him where he’s relevant 
to a.) Poulet on the phenomenology of read-
ing, b.) Henry James, and also, c.) it must be 
said, the blank, staring obvious. Although 
we’ve been led to believe that [name removed] 
knew Ogilvy and got tenure by disproving 
some of his ideas, it doesn’t seem like a very 
good last word on the subject. Rather, and 
again, it seems like something that was per-
sonally meaningful to the professor, whose 
name has been removed. 

Of course, I’m not trying to be a dick, but 

hey, maybe it will help with “the quality of 
instruction in this course,” which despite the 
tenure thing, appears to be something that 
[name removed] – who I feel so privileged to 
address in the third person, as if he were a 
person you and I had just met (it is you actu-
ally reading this [name removed], isn’t it? Hi!) 
– “takes seriously,” and “values,” and what a 
great start we’re off to already! We are, actu-
ally, (I think). We are probably even past the 
start, and into somewhere in the middle, 
where the end is the ultimate, unreachable 
Form of this class as taught by a manifest god, 
or something even less interesting. 

In sum: 8/10. I basically liked this class.

 “Comment on the 

Quality of Instruction in 

this Course”

Phillip Whiteveen, LSA Senior

COURSE EVALUATION:

ILLUSTRATION BY JAKE WELLINS

Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All 

you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Writing is hard. Put-

ting your heart on the page for anyone to read is frighteningly vul-

nerable. Yet, every year the Statement calls out to the University, 

begging for your poems, short stories and other golden nuggets of 

creativity, and writers respond with gusto. 

This year students submitted over 100 pieces, thirteen of which 

can be found in this magazine. In these pages you will discover an 

old woman knitting, a grizzled sea captain, and a little girl marvel-

ing in a blackout. While they may not have used typewriters, these 

writers bled a little bit, and it shows in their poignant, emotional, 

and thought-provoking work. 

Welcome to the Literary Issue. Happy reading. 

Magazine Editor, Ian Dillingham Deputy Editor, Natalie Gadbois

Photo Editor, Luna Anna Archey Design Editor, Jake Wellins

Dear readers,

Magazine Editor:

Ian Dillingham

Deputy Editor:

Natalie Gadbois

Design Editor:

Jake Wellins

Photo Editor:

Luna Anna Archey

Illustrators:

Megan Mulholland

Maggie MIller

Managing Editor:

Lev Facher

Editor in Chief:

Jen Calfas 

Copy Editors:

Hannah Bates

Laura Schinagle

Emma Sutherland

THE statement

To view videos accompanying 
The Literary Issue, scan this QR 
code with your smartphone or 
visit www.michigandaily.com/
the-statement. 

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND

