Harriet Stone, a professor of French and Comparative Literature, comes across as serious and self-assured, qualities necessary for teaching at Washington University in St. Louis.  Her words are direct and unapologetic, not unlike Edna Mode’s in Pixar’s The Incredibles.

Stone began studying French at Wellesley by accident, getting placed into a French survey class for reasons she suspects were due to its under-enrollment instead of recognition of her French skills.  Once there she went on to study French as part of a comparative literature major.  Stone recalls the joy of studying French thinkers during the tumultuous times of the late 60’s and early 70’s.  She was “drawn to the elitism of it,” Stone says, “it was culture with a capital C.”  Thereafter, specializing in 17^th century French literature, she wrote a thesis that compared how the English and the French writers ended plays. Although Stone’s specialty may on the surface seem to be “the fine point of nothing whittled down,” a jab offered by a friend’s mother, she sees it as a broad and ever-expanding topic of interest.  Her undergraduate thesis illustrates the big ideas that Stone’s research still examines: “The point of it, of an English class, was to end with some question or some basic unresolved ambiguity, whereas the French always seem to have an answer— the words of wisdom— the point.”  Stone sees these decidedly different approaches as indicative of differing cultural priorities and mindsets.  The French often look to the 17^th century, the apogee of French literature, for clarity and wisdom.  Stone feels that this retrospective approach that seeks resolution holds true in modern French politics.  Her research has taught her that studying 17^th century French literature does not mean you are stuck in the 1600’s.

Stone defines modern-day America as an “activity culture,” a culture hell-bent on being the first and profiting off the new.  She acknowledges that the idea-driven French culture has taken a backseat to other cultures in the modern world.  Although Europe is currently in the news, Stone recalls the time when France was economically less interesting than China and India.  Spanish has taken over as the language of relevance in the United States but Stone believes Latin American culture, while very rich, falls into the same pattern of being activity-driven, barring it from having the intellectual authority of the French.  As Stone says, for many “it’s Cinco de Mayo but it’s not Cervantes.”  While Stone thinks an activity mindset encourages creativity, the downside she sees is that America fails to understand and learn from the past, as shown by the recent election.

In fact, Stone argues that now, more than ever, educated people, people who will be the decision makers, need to study the past.  She admits that she entered academia during a fortuitous time.  As a professor, she is adamant about exposing the minds of her students to moral questions that can transcend any one historical period. Stone sees that undergraduates in the current generation often wish to study themselves, choosing courses that directly promote aspects of their identity, a preference of which students aren’t necessarily aware.  This trend becomes problematic when academic departments compete amongst themselves for students’ attention, particularly when their subject seems outdated and unappreciated by employers.  Stone worries about public ignorance among the masses generally but particularly among students coming out of top schools.  She says, “this may be the end of schooling for a lot of people and if you don’t raise questions like ‘how do you interpret an advertisement?’ the country believes what it hears and that is not good. How you critically examine a text is a basic skill for life. That’s what you’re doing by looking at these texts. You’re learning how to read and reading for ambiguities–literary language is not scientific language.”

According to Stone, French literature brings to the table the tools to build an “idea bank” that you can draw from in the future.  Even so, she is aware that before any of these long-term benefits can sink in, students need to overcome the hurdle of translating difficult texts.  For those who only want to learn conversational French, her classes can be taxing since the language is antiquated.  Although her specialty is the 17^th century, Stone teaches literature from the Middle Ages up to the present, and with each new century there are new challenges with the language.  Stone is concerned with the rhythm of the class and attempts to counteract with various challenges the natural lull that happens during a long lecture, such as briefly switching to English.

Stone herself has no problem staying engaged even after 35+ years of teaching, which only confirms her point that the ideas embedded in French literature and the lessons from history are ever-pertinent and worthy of analysis. She advocates for a culture that can seem distant and irrelevant while also teaching an action-oriented generation.  Despite her occasionally apathetic and skeptical audience, Professor Stone insists that 17^th century French literature still has a place in modern America.  After talking to her I must say, I am convinced.