Rites of Passage

Abstract

When we returned to California in 1975, we both continued working on our dissertations, mine on Medieval Arabic literature and Allen's on modern French history. One day, I had a meeting with a member of my dissertation committee, with whom I had studied comparative literature. He was extremely knowledgeable about all the new developments in literary theory (including the French structuralists). I was excited by these developments and was grateful to Ross Shideler for being such a generous mentor.But my meeting with Ross was not all positive. He revealed to me that he had recently had a chat with my dissertation advisor, Prof. Bonebakker. Bonebakker confessed to Ross that he did not understand what I was doing in my dissertation. Ross reassured him that my work was on the cutting edge of the field, that what I was writing made complete sense to him, and that Bonebakker should not worry about it.While I was writing my dissertation, Bonebakker insisted that he had to read what I was writing immediately. At the time, I was writing in notebooks that I would type later. He insisted on having the notebooks full of my handwriting. Personally, I found this a bit obsessive, but I complied with his wishes. He had trouble reading my handwriting and, after reading two or three notebooks, gave up and said he would wait to read the typed text.Meeting with Bonebakker in his office, up a set of steep stairs, was always troublesome. At times, as I was leaving those meetings, I would feel anxious and lose my balance on the stairs. I never actually fell, but I could feel the tension in my body.I began applying for jobs. Nothing. I was getting nowhere. I spoke to a friend, who was completing her dissertation in American history. Our friend laughed and asked me if I had seen what was in my employment dossier. Of course not, I told her; that was confidential. She laughed and told me I was a fool. Graduate students looking for a job, she was quick to reveal, had their dossier sent to a friend and could then see what kinds of letters lurked inside. She offered me her address, so I could have my dossier sent to her. I hesitated. What if the office where these materials were kept realized that I had requested that my dossier be sent to a local address? Allen encouraged me to do what our friend suggested, which I did.When the dossier arrived in our friend's mailbox, she handed it right over to me. I was extremely nervous, and as soon as we got home, I asked Allen to open it and read the letters. Suddenly, I could tell by the look on his face that he was reading a poison-pen letter. As 1 suspected, Bonebakker had written a negative letter that was blocking me everywhere. Fortunately, I had taken to going to professional meetings where I had met some highly placed scholars. Three scholars, none of whom served on my doctoral committee, became my mentors and recommenders: Muhsin Mahdi, the Jewett professor of Arabic at Harvard, who held the most important Arabic chair in the country; George Makdisi, who had replaced Goitein at Penn after my departure and shared my LebaneseChristian origins; and finally Speros Vryonis, the director of the Von Grunebaum Middle East Center at UCLA, who also became a lifelong supporter and friend. A few years later, Mohammed Arkoun, Professor of Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne, joined the group. With backers like these, my employment fortunes changed. In a young scholar's life, the dissertation advisor (usually a male) acts as a kind of surrogate father. Making my career without my dissertation advisor (I never asked Bonebakker for anything again) made me a kind of academic orphan. I adapted to this situation much as I had adapted to my biological and legal orphanhood.When I saw an advertisement for a lectureship in Arabic at San Diego State, I begged my contacts to write letters of recommendation. Surprise of surprises, I got the job. Allen and I were both ecstatic because this represented real money and not simply a fellowship. …