2008 Woodie Awards
Sexuality, Academia and Yeshiva University
Mordechai Shinefield
Issue date: 3/8/05 Section: Arts & Culture
I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (November 9, 2004)
0374281580
The Inner Circle, by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Viking Books (September 9, 2004)
0670033448
A recent article in the New York Times Book Review from Rachel Donadio compared the fictional college of Dupont, from Tom Wolfe's new novel "I am Charlotte Simmons," with the religious schools examined in "God on the Quad." Not surprisingly, the rampant sex and moral disintegration on Wolfe's campus was a far cry from the high level of religious intensity found in schools like Bob Jones and Yeshiva University. Charlotte Simmons, the heroine of Wolfe's novel, finds her religious beliefs seeping away in the tempestuous storms of decadence and depravity, and with her beliefs, her academic fortitude dissolves as well. The further down the rabbit hole of debauchery that Charlotte travels, the more her grades suffer. Donadio says that Wolfe's suggestion is a return to colleges like Yeshiva, places where Charlotte's innocence wouldn't suffer, and her academia would stay intact.
When I told people about the link between sexuality on campus and academia, and tried to cite Yeshiva University as a model school to examine that link, the same joke kept reappearing. "What academia?" To compare Yeshiva with Dupont would require an intense examination of academic life here as opposed to other colleges, and an evaluation of the effect that sex has on a university. Does Yeshiva have a higher level of academic vigilance and intensity due to their insistence on a separation of men and women?
In Tom Wolfe's book, he equates celibacy with intellectual rigor. The "Millennial Mutants," Wolfe's group of brilliant academic renegades in Dupont, are all virginal. Their pseudo leader, Adam, strives to prove his love for Charlotte, but his social inadequacies and intellectual arrogance prevents him. While Charlotte is a virgin, she gets perfect grades and is invited by her Nobel Prize winning teacher of neuroscience to do lab work for him. After a frat boy preys upon her, she is reduced to tears and almost immediately goes onto academic probation. Wolfe doesn't tiptoe around the point he wants to make. Academia suffers around sex.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (November 9, 2004)
0374281580
The Inner Circle, by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Viking Books (September 9, 2004)
0670033448
A recent article in the New York Times Book Review from Rachel Donadio compared the fictional college of Dupont, from Tom Wolfe's new novel "I am Charlotte Simmons," with the religious schools examined in "God on the Quad." Not surprisingly, the rampant sex and moral disintegration on Wolfe's campus was a far cry from the high level of religious intensity found in schools like Bob Jones and Yeshiva University. Charlotte Simmons, the heroine of Wolfe's novel, finds her religious beliefs seeping away in the tempestuous storms of decadence and depravity, and with her beliefs, her academic fortitude dissolves as well. The further down the rabbit hole of debauchery that Charlotte travels, the more her grades suffer. Donadio says that Wolfe's suggestion is a return to colleges like Yeshiva, places where Charlotte's innocence wouldn't suffer, and her academia would stay intact.
When I told people about the link between sexuality on campus and academia, and tried to cite Yeshiva University as a model school to examine that link, the same joke kept reappearing. "What academia?" To compare Yeshiva with Dupont would require an intense examination of academic life here as opposed to other colleges, and an evaluation of the effect that sex has on a university. Does Yeshiva have a higher level of academic vigilance and intensity due to their insistence on a separation of men and women?
In Tom Wolfe's book, he equates celibacy with intellectual rigor. The "Millennial Mutants," Wolfe's group of brilliant academic renegades in Dupont, are all virginal. Their pseudo leader, Adam, strives to prove his love for Charlotte, but his social inadequacies and intellectual arrogance prevents him. While Charlotte is a virgin, she gets perfect grades and is invited by her Nobel Prize winning teacher of neuroscience to do lab work for him. After a frat boy preys upon her, she is reduced to tears and almost immediately goes onto academic probation. Wolfe doesn't tiptoe around the point he wants to make. Academia suffers around sex.