rails or find yourself in a hole. They’re catchers in the rye. Sort of.”
“Sounds like a well-reasoned excuse for laziness, if you ask me.” Erin frowns. “And it’s exactly the sort of bull Giles comes up with.”
Joe leans his elbows on the table and puts his fingertips together in a gesture I find irritatingly complacent. “It’s two fundamentally different systems and cultures. And if he doesn’t want to adapt to those differences, he can’t teach at an American university—simple!”
“Well, they are wooing him to stay.” Erin drains her glass and reaches for her purse. “I understand why, he’s tipped for the top, yadayada. I like Giles—don’t get me wrong. But he’s totally biting the hand that feeds him, by being so stubborn about this. If Bob Morgan doesn’t come back, Dancey will make sure that Medieval Literature is taken out of the curriculum and the next professorship goes to modern American Lit. But why should I care about that if Giles doesn’t?”
“He got another break at the beginning of the semester, remember?” Joe reminds us. “Not having to be here for the first week of term?”
“Yeah, but—” I look at Tim, and again he shrugs. “He was in Scotland, Joe. He won a prize for his book on Sir Walter Raleigh. A quite prestigious prize, actually.”
“Then why didn’t he say so?”
“Because there’s something devious about Giles.”
“Erin!” Tim explodes.
“All right, not…devious.” She lifts her hands in a gesture of capitulation. “But he’s not straight!”
“Yes, he is,” Tim mutters.
“No, I mean—infuriating boy!” She cuffs Tim on the shoulder. “Up-front! You can never tell whether he says what he means, or whether he means what he says. And all he cares about is his own research! His crop of graduates is consistently smaller than that of any other subfield because he can’t be bothered to waste time advising. Well, he would feel it’s time wasted!”
Tim shakes his head in exasperation but decides to let it go.
“And Dancey, what does he—”
Erin interrupts me. “Now he is all bad.”
I look at the others for a rebuttal of this blunt assessment.
“He thinks he’s God,” Joe says. “He wants to shape the department in his own image. Don’t they all? And wouldn’t you?”
“He keeps dropping these ominous hints about Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Erin, you said this is about Bob Morgan’s job, but is there more to it?”
I can tell just by the expression on Tim’s face that there is more to it.
“Listen, guys,” I add a little severely, “one of the reasons I applied for this job is the excellence of Ardrossan’s Early Modern Studies program. If Dancey is scheming to pull the plug on the English Lit side of that, where will that leave me?”
“It’s a game of dominoes.” Tim at last seems ready to give me a comprehensible answer. “For twenty years and more, Rich Westley and Bob Morgan were a fixture in this department—Bob with his Medieval English Language and Literature, Rich with his Native American Culture and Dialects. Cultural Studies was big. These days—who cares? The pendulum is swinging back to hard science. The worst-case scenario—from your point of view, Anna—is that the professorship of Medieval English Literature will be re-designated as something like Aesthetics and Cognitive Science, to operate as a docking station for the new Center for—whatsit?”
“Institute for Cognitive Science, Linguistics and Psychology,” Joe says.
“Hornberger’s baby.” I nod. “Dancey told me about that. He suggested Dolph and I convene a conference there, about Renaissance art and neuroesthetics.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, but I mean…like hell.”
“Don’t be stupid, Anna!” Erin reaches over and grabs my wrist for emphasis. “This was Dancey’s offer to join his camp! With Dancey, it’s very simple. You’re either for him or you’re against him. And you can’t afford to be against him.” She turns to her colleagues. “Don’t you agree that was an offer Anna can’t refuse?”
They agree. Reluctantly, but unanimously.
“I don’t think it was an offer,” I say, drowning. “It felt more like a taunt. And the whole idea behind it is to pull the rug out from under my own discipline!”
“If we want to remain at the cutting edge, we need to reinvent ourselves!”
“Wait, so are you telling me that Dancey and Hornberger will trade in Medieval Literature and the Piedmont Center for Area Studies for a share in this new Institute for Cognitive Science? Is that the deal?”
“Can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.” Joe shrugs, and the others avoid my eyes.
“If any of this can still be stopped, it’s by a department chair