{"id":2466,"date":"2014-09-01T09:35:31","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T16:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alteritas.net\/GXL\/?page_id=2466"},"modified":"2015-05-03T15:01:27","modified_gmt":"2015-05-03T22:01:27","slug":"the-former-dean-with-himself","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/GXL\/?page_id=2466","title":{"rendered":"The Former Dean with Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"

19 November, 2009<\/span><\/p>\n

\"shapeimage_2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

On the way to Paris I stopped for a day in Ottawa, met with my successor, who appears to have things well under control — good work, Toni, \u00a0my thoughts are with you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my brief passage through what I liked to call the \u201cWest Wing\u201d I had the chance to greet and exchange ritual\u00a0<\/span>bises canadiennes<\/span>\u00a0(or\u00a0<\/span>abrazos<\/span>\u00a0when more appropriate) with my colleagues and former staff.\u00a0 I also got my colleague and former Vice-Dean Andr\u00e9 Lapierre to record the shot above with his iPhone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The formal portrait of Dean Lang hangs at the end of a frightening row of decanal figureheads stretching back to the period when Deans were not even real men but priests – such is the historical depth of the self-styled\u00a0<\/span>Universit\u00e9 canadienne<\/span><\/a>\u00a0. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These origins are reflected in the stark black-and-white academic robe which is imposed on the Dean of Arts at uOttawa. My\u00a0purple bow-tie was not, to be sure,\u00a0<\/span>de rigueur<\/span>, instead devised minutes before the portrait session. I had just learned to tie one.<\/span><\/p>\n

The snapshot of yours truly s provokes in me something of the vertigo of mise-en-abyme.\u00a0 It also allowed me to assert visually, with a gesture, that the person in the foreground somehow \u201cproduced\u201d the Dean framed behind him. It is as if I have unveiled myself, though the cloaking cloth is no longer visible in my hands. Or as if I have somehow lept free from the portrait, shed my\u00a0toge<\/span>\u00a0and spun\u00a0aikido<\/a>-like through a somersault, landing upright with my hands ready for the next attack.<\/p>\n

The converse is however admittedly true. The present humble post-academic citizen now living in Southern California is indeed a product of that Ottawa Dean, since five years cannot be lived out with impunity, without consequence. I am a by-product,\u00a0succ\u00e9dan\u00e9<\/span>,\u00a0Ersatz<\/span>, of myself.<\/p>\n

Still, the psychological pilgrimage this photo enshrines has let me tie off a loop, to achieve the sense of closure I need to proceed further into the wild and untrammeled, rhizomic realm:\u00a0my retirement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thus I realized with relief later in the day on the VIA train to Montreal –\u00a0scene\u00a0of some obsessive episodes of my youth which continue to haunt me \u00a0– that I can now state, with conviction predicated on the presential verification of a primal scene itself rather than absential longing for things unresolved, that I am free to turn the pages written in Ottawa, and move on.<\/p>\n

\"Last<\/a>
Last formal speech as Dean<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19 November, 2009 On the way to Paris I stopped for a day in Ottawa, met with my successor, who appears to have things well under control — good work, Toni, \u00a0my thoughts are with you.\u00a0 In my brief passage through what I liked to call the \u201cWest Wing\u201d I had the chance to greet … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Former Dean with Himself”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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