Faculty Scholarship

Why Would I Want to Finish It?
by Dr. Katherine J. Weese, Elliott Professor of English
When I was an undergraduate at Williams College, I clipped a cartoon from the New Yorker Magazine and have carried it around with me ever since, taping it to my various office doors. The cartoon features a man sitting at a typewriter. His desk, located at the bottom of a flight of stairs, is stacked high with numerous piles of books and papers, as is the floor around him—not quite, but almost reminiscent of the former office of Professor Emeritus of Classics John L. Brinkley at Hampden-Sydney College. At the top of the stairs in the cartoon stands the man’s wife, arms crossed, looking down at him disapprovingly. The man looks up the stairs at his wife and says in the caption, "Finish it? Why would I want to finish it?" Full Story...