Listening to Cavell

Abstract

We hurried to get the front row seats. Even to nineteen-year-olds, it was clear that what was happening in that lecture hall—fittingly, it was Emerson 105—was worth waking up for, worth pushing to the front for, as if we couldn’t get close enough. And what we couldn’t get close enough to was  Stanley Cavell lecturing on Western philosophy—a course humbly called “Hum 5” (“Humanities 5: Introduction to Western Philosophy”)—looking back, now forty years later, I can say it was probably the most significant intellectual experience of my life. Cavell’s commanding presence—that big head, fixed gaze, and seriousness of purpose—made his entrance onto the dais, raincoat and brief case in hand, an anticipated event. But what dawns on me now is that it wasn’t so much Cavell’s presence or even what he said that made us feel a shared sense of urgency, but rather how he said it, how he performed this urgency that made us feel like we were somewhere else—a world viewed through Cavell’s mind.