wordplay

Whether staring at the blank first page of an unwritten term paper, or trying to make that particularly cogent point in section, or trying to explain to a roommate why you don’t want to live with her next year, we have all had the experience of trying to put what we want to say into words but being unable to express exactly what we mean.

One of my friends is spending the semester in Uganda, and in one of the long e-mails I got from her describing her life there, she mentioned that in the culture of her host family, talking about any kind of bodily function is completely taboo.

Professor Bruce Robbins of the Department of English and Comparative Literature, who teaches classes in literary theory, makes it a habit of giving his students an unusual, although unofficial, assignment: going home and explaining what they’ve learned to their parents.