united under the tree of knowledge, divided over wikipedia

My favorite high school English teacher once said that friendship is never telling each other “‘I told you so.”

But saying “I told you so” — between friends or not — has always seemed more redundant than mean-spirited, because all the air particles around me seem to be chanting it. Toldjaso-toldjaso-toldjaso. Among that flurry of toldjasos, the last is only the straw that breaks the camel’s eardrum.

Now, I’m generally on the receiving end of an “I told you so” or, worse, a “You’ll say your mother never told you so.” But the other day, the sun set in the east.

Literature class at UJ. The professor gives discussion points to those who share information about an author. So all the over-achievers come prepared. Safaa, one of my classmates and a petite mother of two, is among them.

As she reviewed her papers before class in anticipation of the professor’s question, I peered over. Even though the font was illegibly small and I couldn’t make out a thing, the format looked familiar.

“Where do you get your information?” I wasn’t trying to compare notes; this was straight cheating. I didn’t have any sources for obscure Arab authors’ biographies. I needed this.

“Wikibedia,” she said with a smile.

“Oh, Wikipedia!” I exclaimed, just as I had when I found a Subway franchise on Medina Street. “You know what’s funny? I love Wikipedia and, in college, I used it all the time to prepare for classes, but my professors would always remark that they wanted us to use more sophisticated sources, peer-edited journals and the like. But Wikipedia is just so reliable and accessible. It’s so hard to resist.”

She listened wide-eyed, then shook her head, “Our professors don’t mind.”

Class began, hands shot up and the professor pointed at a girl in the far back. The girl gave more biographical information than even the author’s mother cared to know.

“Get to the relevant material. Tell us about his work, its characteristics, his style.”

When the girl fumbled, hands shot up, but before the professor could pick someone else, the girl started up again. She was like a sputtering faucet at first, producing rusty water. But now clean water gushed out and washed away the dirt and grime. Now she was talking. The professor nodded and made positive interruptions.

Then, the student misspoke. Or misread. Or misled. (I’m getting carried away.)

“What is your source for this information?”

“Wikipedia,” came the confident reply.

“That is unacceptable,” the professor retorted, rearranging her papers in dismay. “You need to be able to trace the information to specific sources.  How else can we discuss its integrity?”

I saw Safaa turn self-conscious, as if her papers were glowing fluorescent green under the teacher’s UV vision.

I avoided her eye. I didn’t want to rub it in, to effectively rub salt into my own wounds. This was war. The sea of ignorance was before us and the armies of professors approached from behind. They’ll try to divide and conquer, but not us, not now. We shall raise the (please-donate) banner of Wikipedia and march forever onwards.

Back to reality.

The professor wasn’t done dragging the student in the mud. “Why didn’t you look the author up in the library?” she asked.

“I did, ductora, but there wasn’t anything there.” This wasn’t a first. The UJ library had failed many a student before.

“You’re right,” came the reply, “They did burn down the library.”

The student made no comeback. I’m sure she realized that the library isn’t the only one with the power to fail a student.

how to fix a broken tongue

My sister’s a big fan of osteopathic medicine because of its holistic approach. Well, today I saw the holistic approach applied to a group of twenty-some patients, only the initials behind the doctor’s name were PhD.

My literature professor, I think, considers herself a teacher first and foremost, so she often deconstructs not only fiction but also human characters. She breaks us down — her students – in hopes of rebuilding us in a more upright fashion.

It isn’t uncommon for her, therefore, to leave behind the plains of language and gallop fearlessly (and a little self-righteously) into the realms of ethics and religion.

Today was such a day. It was literature class and she asked for a volunteer reader. When the girl with the grey-toned scarf began reading our short story, however, the professor stopped her short.

“No. Not like that. We want someone who can give each letter its right, who can enunciate loudly and clearly. Pardon me as I take this tangent, but this is important. You know, last week I was at an academic meeting and I presented some ideas. Afterwards, another professor accosted me. ‘Where did you learn to speak so clearly? mA you speak fus-ha (classical Arabic) with uncommon mastery.’ But I didn’t go to any school to learn that. Back when I when I was in school, we didn’t even have phonetics classes like you do now. I learned to tame my tongue, to control it the way I do simply from reciting the Qur’an. If you want to straighten out your pronunciation — it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian or Muslim — recite the Qur’an, because the Qur’an is i’jaz (a literary miracle). It is clear from your pronounciation,” she said, now addressing the girl in the grey-toned scarf, “that you haven’t read enough Qur’an.”

Ouch.

I know that not all medicine is cherry-sweet, but I also know that not every student (i.e. I) will be publicly diagnosed without being a little resentful.

I’m not an easy one. I avoid antibiotics like the plague, I still can’t swallow pills, and I’m complicit in the mysterious disappearance of the brown dropper-capped vitamin bottles.

But I’m clearly not prototypical, because this student seemed to swallow her professor’s criticism with grace.

They say, ilhaki ilik wisma’i ya jara (the talk’s for you, and listen, oh neighbor).

I’ve fallen behind on my daily Qur’an regimen. If the doctor’s right, taking that daily dose may well cure my tongue of its heaviness. Not to mention, it may have a (welcome) side effect on another organ southeast.

calling all egyptians

Although Yasser Arafat played a very big part in Palestinian resistance and nation-building — a huge part, even — he never was as big as this hill that bears his name. This hill, which likes to think of itself as a mountain, has been Arafat long before its Palestinian namesake was conceived. If the man’s days of glory have come and gone, the mountain’s certainly have not.

Once a year, in hajj season, millions of white-clad pilgrims flock to Mount ‘Arafat. They perch on its every rock, with hands raised and heads bowed, seeking forgiveness from an All-Forgiving God. From the Saudi satellite station’s bird’s eye view, they look like seagulls on a sealess shore, daring the elements and hoping against hope.

Having said that, I want to tell you a little story that made me smile. (Because, really, why else would I tell you about Mount Arafat if I didn’t have ulterior motives?) My Sharia professor was urging us to use the ten days of Dhul-Hijja (the month of Hajj) to do extra good deeds: phone our parents, give a little charity, greet our neighbors.

My Sharia professor was on a bus when an Egyptian passenger beside him was feeling the Hajj spirit. The Egyptian picked up his phone and started dialing.

“Ya Ahmad, izzayyak? How are you? Insha’Allah issanaggaya fi Arafah! iA next year [we'll be] in Arafah!”

Then, “Ya Abu M’hammed! iA next year in Arafah!”

“Ya Ummi Zeinab…”

“Ya Abubraheem…”

“Ya wad ya Mahmood…”

He had made seven calls when a Jordanian passenger began to fret. Spaces on Arafah were filling up, and fast. And this man probably had a quarter of Cairo on speed dial.

“Hey man!” The Jordanian joked. “Enough already! You didn’t leave any room for us!”

What with the annual country-specific pilgrim quotas, it’s every country for itself. If Jordanians want to be well-represented on Arafah next year, they’d better start making those calls today. And perhaps they also ought to consider growing their population. For that, they’ll need nothing short of Miracle-Gro.

indecent exposure

sA I totally lucked out. I just so happened to pick a class taught by the man rumored to be the most progressive, cosmopolitan professor in the Sharia department. Not to mention a Fulbright scholar and a potential stand-up comic.

To illustrate her point that ours is a wonderful professor, Z, one of my classmates, told me about another Sharia professor who is not so wonderful. He failed her on an exam or refused to collect it from her because (drum roll, please) her pants were showing under her jilbab. No, her jilbab was not transparent. Rather, it was one of those jilbabs that button down to the knees instead of the ankles.

Along with a couple other girls whom he publicly lambasted for indecent pant exposure, Z left the class flushed with anger and humiliation. (Imagine what he would have said had he seen me, in a knee-length tunic and pants. Perhaps he’d have impaled me on the spot.)

Determined to move herself back to his good side (and the good side of the grade scale), Z showed up at his office with her exam and, needless to say, a jilbab buttoned down to the ankles. He surveyed her from head to toe. His verdict? “Now, you are respectable.”

“Um. Report him to the Dean!” I protested. “He can’t do that! That’s awful. Even if he wanted to give advice, that’s like the most repulsive way to do it. He’s a freaking Sharia professor. He should know that.” Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) reportedly let a man finish answering nature’s call in the mosque, before he quietly advised him, one-on-one, that urinating in a place of worship is a little inappropriate, not to mention unsanitary.

Z bawled at my suggestion to report the incident.

“She says tell the Dean.” She joked, shook her head and bit into her aluminum-wrapped salami sandwich. “You don’t do that here. The professor’s always right. It’s ‘aib (rude and culturally inappropriate). What, are you trying to say the ductor was wrong and you‘re right? It’d never work.”

If he’s so advice-happy, I thought, why doesn’t this Sharia professor have a word with his faculty peers in the Sharia department? As far as I can tell, they all wear pants with — gasp — tucked-in dress shirts. If they are ever to become respectable Muslim men, they really ought to wear sunnah-friendly thobes over those pants, because, let’s face it, men have ‘awras too.

Now, I know that I haven’t heard the professor’s side of the story. Z could be a liar for all I know. And her friend, who claims to have witnessed the episode, she might be, well, a witch.

So here’s what I suggest. The professor can come defend himself against allegations of censoriousness and inappropriate conduct at my office.

Oh, and send him word: He’d better come respectably dressed.

no two ways about it

My Sharia professor lectured for about an hour on the impossibility of interchanging seemingly synonymous words in the Qur’an.

What I best remember, however, is his two-minute tangent. I’m not sure if it’s fact, fiction or some combination of both:

A prominent scholar of Sharia was asked where he acquired his knowledge. For reasons unmentioned by my professor, the scholar decided to credit his father as his teacher, even though his father’s Islamic knowledge was elementary at best. “If you think I’m brilliant,” the humble and truthful scholar said, “wait ’til you see my father. I could be a speck on his shoe.” Awed, his friends asked when oh when would they get to meet that fine old man. “Never, I’m afraid,” replied the son. “You see, he lives in Palestine.” And Palestine, in pre-aviation days, might as well have been the moon.

But one day, the humble and truthful scholar got a letter. It was from his dad.  It said he was due to visit. Soon. Hearing this, the friends exulted. The teacher’s teacher is coming to town!

When the father arrived, his son ‘fessed up to his lie. Instead of giving him a hearty whooping, the father simply asked: what now? The son whipped up a plan. “At the banquet in your honor, Dad, if they ask you any question — and there will be many — I need you to say, ‘The scholars have two opinions on that matter.’ Leave the rest to me.”

The banquet day came, and with it a barrage of questions. “What is the Islamic ruling on women’s wudu (ablution) when such and such?” Or “What should one do when he encounters this or that?”

Each time, the dad replied with, “Well, son, in that matter, the scholars have differed–” His son would interrupt, give the answer and append, “Isn’t that right, Dad?” And his father would reply grandly, “That’s right, son. You got that right.”

Now, one of the company hadn’t forgotten his brain at home, so he connected the dots. He decided to pose a question of his own.

“Hal fillahi shakkun? Is there any doubt about [the oneness] of God?”

To his son’s consternation, the gullible father answered with assurance, “Well, on that, the scholars were divided between two opinions.”

The rest is history.

the academic equivalent of a blonde joke

I had a creative writing professor who said that, years ago, he vowed not to tell the same story twice. The result? A single story — especially one pregnant with didactic potential — gave birth to a thousand permutations. His personal history became a coloring book of sorts, with fixed outlines and infinite possibilities. The narration varied from one telling to the next so much so that, he admit, he found it impossible to strip away the decorations without tearing at the Christmas tree. (Yeah. Pregnancy, coloring books and Christmas trees. It’s like metaphors on crack.)

Then I had a part-Irish professor who, I suspect, endlessly repeated his stories and never got caught. The trick was he’d tell it to you conspiratorially, like it was a state secret, but then go on to circulate it among the student body, like a bee among flowers. His anecdotes, for the most part, were meant to bring a moment’s cheer to our otherwise humdrum, caffeinated, midterm-infested college lives.

On one of many dreary Monday mornings, our paths crossed in the mail room and, as we sifted through our respective piles of college announcements and invitations, he shared with me this gem:

“So I see a young man at the library, a student from [insert one of Scripps' sister-colleges]. At the circulation desk he tells the librarian, ‘I need a play by Shakespeare.’ So she asks, ‘Which one?’ And the student answers [a dramatic pause, flipping through envelopes] ‘William.’”

The professor raises his eyebrows, as if reliving his astonishment. He is, after all, a British-accented Oxford-trained professor of linguistics. (The unlucky college kid didn’t know just how unlucky he was.)

Still, thanks to this tale of absentmindedness (or shall I say absent mindedness?), the careworn sleep-deprived mask cracked into little clay bits and fell from my face. And the English major in me started up her Monday smug as a bug. (The biology major in me, however, was still down in the dumps because, if there were a stupid-biology-student joke, the stupid biology student would be me.)

moors reign in spain again

For better or worse, a couple of my UJ professors have turned out to be what Baba calls as-hab nuktah (literally: friends of the joke).

—

It’s ten in the morning and my neck feels twisted out of place. (Thanks to some bedbugs, I’d slept on the couch.) I touch my head to my shoulder, hoping that it’ll crack or creak — anything. I’m in my Miracles of the Qur’an class and, since I’m not on the roll call and haven’t asked the professor permission to audit, I still look like a spy. I’m rigorously taking notes. I’m trying too hard to fit in and failing miserably at it. A spy.

The short and sturdy, black-haired, black-bearded professor is discussing canonical Qur’anic analyses. He mentions one by Sheikh al-Sha’rawi. “When you read this one,” he warns his Sharia majors, “you grow bored. He’s just so verbose. You read and read and read and buried in these heaps of words are a few pearls. I did a critical review of the work when I was earning my bachelor’s degree. It wore me out. If you notice I’m thin, it’s because of this book.” He’s not especially thin, of course.

Minutes later, the professor is reviewing the content of an upcoming exam. All the students — and their pens — perk up. Except me and mine; we take a sabbatical.

Amid the exam-centric discussion, a student suggests that one of the texts is especially inaccessible. “It’s hard to understand,” she complains. She’s indirectly asking to have it jettisoned. The professor, who’s already dispensed royal pardons on several other texts, retorts, “It should be comprehensible. Either you have a problem or the book has a problem. I mean, we’re sure you have a problem, and the book might.” I’m a little awed at his bluntness. Isn’t she offended? Nop3, she’s smiling as if he’d thrown daisies at her. Or as if he’d eliminated a detested text from a forthcoming exam. Oh, wait. That’s just what he did.

—

For the first time, I get to my next class without having to ask directions of strangers. I peer inside at the greasy whitewashed room. Sure enough, there are students seated. Only they’re not my classmates. My classmates line the corridor outside, and murmurs circulate among us that the Spanish class has invaded our turf. The professor had warned us of this. He had given us strict orders to repel them, to fight to the death, to protect what is ours. We had failed him.

When he finally arrives — a tall man who walks as if he couldn’t bend his joints; so stiffly, in fact, that it seems as if he has yet to be thawed — the ocean of students parts to make way. The two or three young men expected to mount a defense against the Spaniards — these he regards with undisguised disgust. They flock behind him anyway, like goslings who have no pluck except under their father’s wing.

Judging by the buzz in the hallway and the faces of our action-hungry neighbors, this appears to be the seminal event of the year, and the young men aren’t going to miss it for anything. Never mind that several of them are deserters.

Inside the classroom, a heated exchange ensues between our Arabic professor and the Spanish professor. Like a cloud of neutrons around a positive- and negative-charged nucleus, the young men hover about the man and woman with PhD’s to their names. The Arab towers over the Spaniard and, after a quarter hour, it is clear to all that the Arabs have prevailed. Our professor declares his sovereignty and the Spanish troops withdraw, broken. Class, for them, is cancelled. Meanwhile, ours is called to order. The professor, having settled on his throne, turns to those who absconded. “You should be ashamed. The girls displayed more courage than you.” (I’m not sure how we non-combative, chatty girls exhibited any courage at all in this episode, but maybe that’s just his point.)

“We were grossly outnumbered!” A young man protests. “We told the girls come in, but they stayed in the hallway. They were uncooperative. How were we expected to–”

“Enough. Next time you don’t give in.”

I wonder at the permanently stamped frown on his face. He looks dead serious. If I were a bit more gullible than I am (which is really difficult to accomplish), I’d never guess that his sullen countenance masks a playful disposition.

A few paragraphs into a literary analysis of Surat Yusuf (the Qur’anic chapter named for Prophet Joseph), we hear a ruckus outside. Since the demagogues pose a threat to the quietude of his domain, the professor sends a youth to silence them. “Box his ears. And don’t tell them I sent you.”

Outside, the noise is stilled. The boy returns with a report: No more enemies will near our borders. ID’s will be checked from here on out, to verify allegiance to the Arabic class. The professor hardly acknowledges the comment. He calls on a student to read aloud.

Then, in the middle of a discussion about the applicability of Prophet Yusuf’s tribulations to Prophet Muhammad’s during the Meccan period, our aged professor suddenly revisits the fracas. “Listen, next time the Spaniards come near this room, you don’t let them have it, you hear?”

“Oh you bet,” a valiant young man answers, “Next time they won’t stand a chance. We’ll bring our kalashnikovs.”

trees and phd’s

The college town I come from calls itself the City of Trees and PhD’s. Well here are my top ten observations from another school that has its own generous supply of trees and PhD’s, the one and only University of Jordan.

10. Walking under UJ’s trees feels like a stroll through the set of a Turkish-dubbed-Arabic TV drama. The bottommost yard on these evergreens is painted white. I dismissed it as a traffic precaution (reflecting headlights) or as a quirky aesthetic touch. Wrong, and more wrong. It’s insect repellent.

9. The women far outnumber the men. Of forty-some students in my Sharia class, only two are men. (And that’s double the number of men in one of my upper division Arabic literature courses.) My empirical evidence is incomplete, however, until I step into the engineering lair, where I suspect all the men are hiding.

University statistics confirm that women outnumber men, 6 to 4, among the student population, while 7 out of every 10 professors is male. Maybe the graduation of more young women today will translate into more female professors tomorrow. Maybe not. But that still leaves us wondering: where are the young men at? I’m inclined to think that more young men than women have to drop out of school to support their families. But I could be wrong. They could just be decorating the hallways, smoking cigarettes and petting their heavily gelled hair.

8. In the College of Letters, there’s a handwritten sign on the bulletin board, offering condolences to a student whose father recently passed away. Also, outside, there’s a big banner commemorating the Jordanian military’s martyrs who passed while serving in Haiti. I didn’t even know Jordan was sending troops to Haiti.

Also, in morbid news, class was tearfully interrupted today when a niqab-wearing student requested that another leave the class with her. Their mutual friend had been in a week-long coma after a car accident and had just recently died.

To my surprise, the professor turned it into a teachable moment. She reminded us: Innassabra ‘indassadmatil ‘oola. Patience is at the first strike of calamity — a prophetic saying. She coupled that with a personal story — her brother withheld news of their father’s death a few hours, until after she turned in her Master’s dissertation. That, she said, required patience and restraint.

In a passionate speech, she suggested that we not look to society for our values and expect society to change. We are society. We should consciously choose our values and act upon them. A refreshing variation on the you-are-our-tomorrow speech.

7. When you’re a 5-times-a-day praying Muslim in America, you’re bound to have prayer stories. Like the time you prayed on the concrete in a gas station. Or on the side of the freeway. Or in the middle of the quad in high school. Here, of course, there are a thousand places to pray. They’re not all pretty or pristine. In fact, some are pretty discouraging. But they are everywhere.

Using another human compass — a Jordanian friend M — I also discovered a sisters-only lounge at the University. This has a lunch area, two disjointed prayer halls and a row of lockers smothered in safe political slogans and rainbow-colored stickers. A more austere black-and-white bumper sticker on one of the glass panes reads, “We love you for the sake of Allah.” I love you too, oh windows.

6. A spray-painted Israeli flag lies in lieu of a doormat outside some room in one of the Shariah buildings (there are two). The administration called it vandalism, the students freedom of expression.

Also, as you near the Sharia buildings, you notice that the number of boy-clusters around music-booming portable radios dwindle, while the jilbab- and niqab-clad girls multiply. Politics aside, there’s a sort of serenity about the place.

5. Here’s the breakdown on transportation to UJ from my home:

15 min.            taxi                                   JD 1

1 hour             3 buses + walking        JD 0.75

1 hour             walking                            Free

I’ve tried all three modes and, provided that the weather isn’t out to get me, I’ll probably take the road less traveled by (i.e. the sidewalk.)

4. If you’re into people-watching, be forewarned. There are a lot of people to watch, and a heck of a lot of people watching you. I don’t know if they’re lazing between classes or through classes, but there’s never a short supply of people on the benches lining the intra-college roads. After doing my fair share of walking, here’s a rule I’ve invented: When you see a couple glowing — impeccably dressed, walking together, but really wanting everyone to notice them — well, they’re probably engaged. When they’re crouching on the sidewalk between parked cars, however, they’re probably not.

3. Even though some students do mix and mingle at the U of J, the overwhelming majority do separate like oil and water. This blend of mixing and separating feels like a hybrid of my mosque and school environs in the U.S. While my transition to Jordan was arguably to a more conservative environment, a new friend E — a Palestinian living in Saudi Arabia — said her experience was the reverse. As we walked side-by-side through the campus, I couldn’t help but think that, for opposite reasons, we were each slightly awed by this new land, this middle ground.

2. I plan to perform hajj one day iA. As if it were aware of my intentions, UJ gave me a free preview. I had to jog laps between al-Safa (the College of Letters) and al-Marwa (the College of Foreign Languages) in hot pursuit of an elusive class. (Had I done it a few more times, perhaps Jordan’s water problem would be a thing of the past.) As it turns out, the class had been moved to yet a third building. That third building, of course, is casually referred to as the Old Technology Building, but all official maps deny its existence, as did several young ladies I asked. (Of course, the first young man we asked — one quietly studying from a dictionary-sized book on a staircase — he gave precise directions about not only the building, but also the exact room in question.)

Apparently, the long-sought-after building is known as the Political Science Department. A perfect place for a Contemporary Jordanian and Palestinian Literature class, right? Oh, whatever, I got there eventually, and that’s all that matters. Or is it? When I apologetically walked 20 minutes late into this 45-minute class, I found one of the only male students in the room standing at the podium. He paused in the middle of his report on a Jordanian poet named ‘Arar, and the professor turned to me, sarcastic.

- Are you in this class?

- Yes.

- And where, pray, have you been?

- I was lost.

- For a month? [Class laughs; I redden. Of course, the professor asks this because classes have been in session for a month, but I've been waiting long and hard for the necessary approval. So there.]

- I’m auditing.

- Oh! Then come on in!

That time, she mocked me before the class. Today, she mocked the class before me (and embarrassed me again in the process.) This is how she introduced me to her students, inserting pauses after every question for emphasis: “She’s an Arab American coming here to improve her Arabic. She doesn’t get grades. She doesn’t take tests. She doesn’t have to be here. Did you hear that? She studies because she wants to. Where are you from that? Where?” Hah. I’m sure my popularity skyrocketed after that speech.

1. The first time I entered his class, I almost immediately vetoed it. Gave it a double strike-through. But this was an unprecedented case of professor-redeems-himself-as-class-session-progresses. You can see the trajectory of my thoughts from my notes, which move from annoyed observations to (slightly) more content-based stuff:

“nasal voice, bald, white wreath of hair, charcoal eyebrows, thin gold-frame glasses, sitting and reading from his book, stopped in the middle of class for athan, boys in the front row, girls in next two rows, four rows empty, dust settles on everything not wiped by an arm, back or rear, floor pattern like Legos, went to Oxford (?), afandi was a person in Tripoli, Lebanon, Amina al-Saidiya + husband = democratic conversation.”

I called my mom last night, mentioned to her this class, this professor. She asks, “Does he have a longish nose? A sense of humor? Dr. So and So, yes that’s the one, I think. No, he wasn’t bald — but that was 25 years ago. He might be bald now.” Oh my God, I was hysterical. I knew this professor before I knew him. But then he was an idea, not flesh-and-blood. Can he really be the one who asked after Mama when she missed his class, 25 years ago? All the girls were abuzz about it, then. “You’re a favorite. That professor? Shoot, he doesn’t ask about anybody!”

I think every history makes its case, vies for legitimacy. The jury are always the living, and the evidence is usually extracted from the lifeless — fossils, monuments, manuscripts — things that survive the wear and tear of years better than the human body. But in this case, the human body had survived. To me, the professor was a living monument. A link in a chain that connects two college students — mother and daughter. He is now witness to my life and Mama’s.

I stayed after class today to ask him. He had shut down the student before me so curtly that I did a double-take. Was this the right time to ask? I didn’t want to wait two more days. Before my courage expired, I blurted: “Assalamu alaikum, doctor. Thanks for letting me audit your class! I have a question, if you have a moment?” No reply, so I went right to it. “My mom. She thinks she took a class with you. Years and years ago. Arabic Literature Appreciation?” I told him her full name. He looked like he was searching, searching, searching through yellowed mental files. I could tell he was trying in earnest. “I know, you probably don’t remember.” He asked about the year. A pause. He didn’t remember her, I could tell, but he smiled. “I may well have taught her.” He said it as if it were an important declaration. I beamed. “Thanks.” That was evidence enough for me.

engineers v. physicists

In yesterday’s lunch conversation with a (baller) Muslim American female engineering professor, I learned about the discreet elitism that lurks in the corridors of science departments. (Yes, I am conspiratorial). Just after she demonstrated the various interpretations of torques using a knife, plate and vase (a genius demonstration, no joke), the professor explained that engineering is often looked down upon as tainted because of its interest in profitable and innovative application to real world problems. Engineering, she explained, is definitively practical — without its pragmatic streak, in fact, it is reduced (or elevated) to math or physics.

While I was aware of the art-for-art’s-sake discussion, I wasn’t as conscious of a science-for-science’s sake parallel. Once, I met a researcher who argued that, if the NSF (the National Science Foundation) wanted to support cancer research, it ought to support scientists in doing what they do best. In other words, NSF funding shouldn’t have so many strings attached. Previous breakthroughs were not necessarily discovered because grants held researcher’s hands and steered them in a certain direction, but because people ambled about in the places they loved, scraped their knees in the process, and (fortuitously) stumbled upon discoveries.

I am neither a physicist nor an engineer, but I think  engineering is hard to imagine without the torturous physics prerequisite (That is probably the dream of many an undergraduate), and physics would become as ghostly as Latin if it didn’t pave the way for those not-so-lofty applications.