Reader Responses to Human Studies

Arnold Weinstein  says, “Not only am I subject to the kind of slow-moving brain-rot that afflicts most folks my age.” Why is that any better than “Not only am I subject to the inability to understand STEM fields that affects most women?”

Thank you to Professor Weinstein for “seeding” readers. I remember having a visceral reaction against Strindberg in one of your courses. I wrote a list of his many offenses, including misogyny. You wrote an equally visceral response, agreeing completely and in support of reading him anyway. There were benefits to climbing into Strindberg’s interior spaces and knocking about in there. You offered Edith Södergran as a healthy counterbalance within the same course. It was fun to imagine how the two would interact. I remember in that same undergraduate course being newly aware of the permeability of ourselves within our environment. Now, working in psychiatry, where so many things interact (family, housing, liver function, lovers, cardiovascular health, infectious disease, music, art, sunlight…), I frequently use the language of ecosystems, permeability, and wholeness. Your seeds grow.

As one of Arnold Weinstein’s devoted students 50 years ago (!), I attest that his modest assessment of his teaching accomplishments is accurate, certainly not a fantasy. He expanded and energized my reading, interpretation, and love of literature. His riveting classes enabled me to appreciate what Brown had to offer and to make lifelong friends of many. Even more amazing than the professor I listened to so intently from 1973-1975 is the professor emeritus who recognizes changing attitudes and conventions without bitterness. I am grateful to be a continuing student of Arnold Weinstein.

Thank you, Professor Weinstein, for your 50 years of helping to produce humanists and change agents in a world that needs them now more than ever.

I’ve never sent in a letter to the editor before but was very moved by Prof. Weinstein’s reflections. He mused about not knowing the true impact of teaching literature on students. I found myself wanting him and my other Brown literature professors to know how my lit concentration, and especially Weinstein’s classes, engendered an ability to understand and inhabit very different social and moral universes. Nothing has made me a more effective social justice and environmental advocate. How tragic then that many of the writers Weinstein taught—Faulkner, Proust, Strindberg, and others—are now “toxic” and “unteachable” according to him. These were the authors that helped me understand in the deepest sense how people and even oppressors get locked into systems not of their making. They gave me the inclination and the language to move people who stood against what I was advocating for.  

It’s ironic that students driven by social justice reject authors whose morality doesn’t align with their own when that very misalignment will teach them the skills they need to change the world. Thank you, Professor Weinstein, for your 50 years of helping to produce humanists and change agents in a world that needs them now more than ever. Let’s hope that future Brown professors are able to find their way back to teaching in that space of misalignment and discomfort.

Thank you for the reflections by Prof. Arnold Weinstein, probably the best professor I ever had during my four years at Brown. Prof. Weinstein stated his hope that he has “seeded” readers over the years and helped “school their lenses, their way of seeing.” I know that this was true for me. I also believe that Prof. Weinstein’s weekly assignments helped to make me a more concise writer. Playing with margins helped, but I will never forget the effort that went into distilling my thoughts into the required single page. I would like to thank Prof. Weinstein for sharing his joy of literature and wish him well in this new chapter of his life.