Jeffrey Miller, University of Western Ontario

Dear President Naylor:

Good morning. I write as a former student of Northrop Frye, having taken his year-long "Principles of Literary Symbolism" at the U of T in 1973-74 during my masters/Ph.D. studies. Prof. Frye was the reason I came from the United States to do my graduate work at the U of T, and he was instrumental, in that respect, in my becoming a proud Canadian citizen and establishing my career as a writer and scholar here. In fact, his methodology serves as the foundation for the law-and-literature course I teach at the law faculty of University of Western Ontario. To my mind, Prof. Frye is the greatest thinker Canada has contributed to the history of ideas.

You will have guessed, I am sure, that I am deeply concerned about the "merger" ("collapse" seems the more apt description) of the Centre. Surely keeping Prof. Frye's brilliant, distinguished legacy alive in a material way is worth a million dollars per year. As the plan seems to be on a modern business model, a sort of academic Reaganomics (may the Fates and Furies preserve us!), perhaps the university could seek corporate assistance (corporate knights, in the jargon) with the cost? If the Canadian public were to become better educated about Northrop Frye's prominent place in the world's cultural history, surely they would support the centre, as well.

I of course understand that Prof. Frye is memorialized in other ways, materially, through his ideas, and through former students like me. But of course there is the larger, more diffuse concern, of marginalizing the humanities at the university and in our society - the frightening view that somehow they are not materially relevant. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that, particularly now in our "globalized" culture, the ecumenical concerns of comparative literature are vital to the progress of civilized life. If we push the humanities to the side or homogenize them, we risk becoming, as Prof. Frye once put it in a similar context, like a "dog in a library." I would hope my venerable and beloved alma mater would stand firm against this eventuality, particularly in times when we seem to find a billion dollars for a two-day world leaders' conference of dubious real value, and hundreds of millions to hold serial sporting events and their associated mindless partying.

Thank you, and best wishes,


Jeffrey Miller
http://www.jeffreymiller.ca

Adjunct Professor of Law and Literature, Faculty of Law,
University of Western Ontario www.law.uwo.ca