Ellen Peel
— 10th — (1983) Ronald Reagan
After graduation I worked two years as a technical editor and writer for a computer consulting company. I then spent a year at Harvard as a special student and since then have been a graduate student in comparative literature at Yale, to which I have more or less commuted from Cambridge. I expect to receive my Ph.D. in December, 1982. Where I will be after next summer will depend on where I find a teaching job. Although my interests in literature and in feminism have intensified, I think I have not changed much since graduation. I still live with the same person, look about the same, and love to travel.
— 15th — (1988) Ronald Reagan
Having received my doctorate in comparative literature, in 1983 I got my current job at the University of Cincinnati, where I specialize in the novel, literary theory, and feminist criticism and theory. Because I come up for tenure in November, 1988, I'm presently absorbed in writing and publishing. I like my students and colleagues, and it's wonderful to get paid (albeit not much) to think, talk, and write about my cultural and political passions. On the other hand, if you think education in this country is doing all right, just go ask a local high school senior to write a paragraph.
Now that I'm a teacher, I've found that teachers can give more than most of mine did, and I'm angry that my ostensibly excellent education at Harvard and Yale left so much out. In the past few years I have managed to compensate by growing quite a bit personally and professionally. This growth, along with my close friendships, has been rewarding. My other pleasures include movies, novels, low-impact aerobics, and travel.
I enjoy Cincinnati — a city with hills, parks, rivers, good restaurants, a great zoo, eclectic music, and a hint of the South. Cincinnati's major flaw is its distance from San Francisco; Bill Bush and I are still together but find it very painful to be 2,000 miles apart most of the time. As for politics: I fear that concern for minorities, women, wildlife, and the environment will be sacrificed to needless economic expediency. Lest you worry that Americans are so diverse that they have nothing in common — my theory is that there is something: lack of accountability. From the administration to the average auto mechanic, from the right to the left, few people seem willing to accept responsibility or even to expect it from anyone else. To those of you who are bucking the trend — bravo!
— 20th — (1993) Bill Clinton
The biggest change of the last five years is that Bill Bush and I are now living in the same place again, after six and a half years of a 2,000-mile, three-time-zone commute. Life continues to be highly stressful, but at least we're burning out together.
In 1989, I received tenure and promotion to associate professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati. Later that year, I gave those up to move to San Francisco State University, where I teach in the Department of English and the Department of World and Comparative Literature. I was happy to receive tenure and promotion again in 1992. Although SFSU pays better and has almost double the teaching load, the two universities are surprisingly similar in other ways — financially troubled commuter schools with students who are often the first in their families to go to college.
I'm working on a book entitled Beyond Utopia: Persuasion, Narrative, and Pragmatic Feminism. My academic specialties remain the novel, literary theory, and feminist theory and criticism. It disturbs me that many people say either that feminism has made great progress or that it has a long way to go; I believe both are true.
Some of my favorite things in the Bay Area are: the outstanding Asian restaurants (we have Thai food at least every other week), the spectacular landscapes (we're twenty minutes from the beach), and the excellent dance aerobics class I've found (now supplemented by Nautilus workouts). There are a lot more cultural opportunities than I have time for. Some of the less appealing aspects of the Bay Area are: the climate and the people (both are pretty chilly and dry) and the traffic. I've made some friends here, and I've been pleased to discover that old friends tend to pass through San Francisco fairly often.
Bill works as a computer scientist at UC-Berkeley and also spends a good deal of time taking care of his aging parents. We're living about twenty-five miles south of the city, in a contemporary house that we like very much. Some people think suburbia has made me too obsessed with the dandelion problem, but they just don't understand the vigilance needed to defeat such cunning opponents. The best domestic news is that we recently got two enchanting and affectionate cats. My other pleasures continue to include movies, novels, and travel.
— 25th — (1998) Bill Clinton
AFTER college I took the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course and spent two years at Cambridge Computer Associates as a technical writer and editor. Although my colleagues were reassuringly eccentric and I made some lifelong friends, I discovered that computers couldn't capture my imagination the way literature does, and so I went back to school. After a year as a special student at Harvard, I went to Yale for my Ph.D. in comparative literature. Since my partner, Bill Bush, and I had settled in Cambridge, I commuted to New Haven during that time. Bill then entered a doctoral program in computer science at U.C.-Berkeley, while I got a job in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati, and so we spent the next six-and-a-half years commuting across three time zones (I wonder if north-south commutes are easier). Commuting was hard, in more and less obvious ways, but by now we're doing better than ever: we just celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary of being unmarried (or being in "the together generation," as it was phrased by our first, and most embarrassed, bed salesman). Finally we both got jobs in the Bay Area — Bill works at Sun Microsystems Laboratories in Silicon Valley, and I'm an associate professor at San Francisco State University in the Departments of English and World and Comparative Literature.
My research deals mostly with women's literature, feminist theory, narrative and other literary theory, and the overlaps among them. Feminist science fiction and utopias especially intrigue me: I'm currently revising a book to be called "Beyond Utopia: Feminism, Persuasion, and Narrative." It's an exciting time to be in comparative literature because some scholars want to expand it beyond Western literature, beyond high-brow literature, and beyond literature altogether; on the other hand, comparatists might then risk ceasing to have anything in common with each other. Meanwhile feminist theory has also reached an interesting juncture — in my opinion the big, fascinating thoughts have mostly been thought, but in terms of practice we have a long way to go, particularly in the home. I hope that my teaching, in a modest way, changes people's minds. Other than that, I give money to various causes, but I don't have time for activism (sound middle-aged?). I love reading, meditating on, and talking about literature. It's still amazing to me what students know — the first lines of the Odyssey in ancient Greek — and what they don't know — which side the U.S. was on in the Vietnam War (I am not making this up). If you think your children are getting as good an education as you did, you may well be wrong. I believe that, partly because of an almost nationwide lack of accountability, the U.S. has a growing continental divide that splits people into the haves and the have-nots; the knows and the know-nots; the people who design, or at least understand, consumer electronics and those who nod out in front of them. Teaching at two large state universities, I've felt as if I were straddling that divide, trying to drag students away from sliding down the wrong side. Especially because of the university's increasing micromanagement and exhortations to do more with less, I often feel I'm running frantically to stay in the same place — and I'm one of the lucky people with a full-time tenured job.
Our lives, except for the pace, are comfortable. We don't travel as much as we'd like, but have become enthralled with Hawaii. The land and the culture are unusual and varied — for example, the glorping volcano on the Big Island, and the language, which makes up in glottal stops what it lacks in consonants. Living near San Francisco has its advantages — ethnic variety, lots of Thai restaurants, a lively cultural scene, inoffensive weather, challenging dance aerobics. My main complaint is about the provincialism and boosterism of a place that calls itself not the city, not even the City, but The City.
The death of Bill's father in 1994 was very difficult, but we are fortunate to have his mother and my parents living close by. (Now that my parents are here, the absurdity of owning a beach house in North Carolina has become manifest, and so we've sadly put it on the market.) Seeing old friends has proved an enduring pleasure. Our affectionate cats, Kanske and Cattywumpus, have a nose for coziness and serve as admirable role models.
Middle age finds me more haggard and more self-confident, with the realization that everything takes much more time and usually more effort than I used to think. I've also become more at ease with myself and better at getting what I want. It was a shock to go to Bill's Twenty-fifth Reunion this year and see all these people I considered twenty-two who nevertheless looked forty-seven. Surely that won't happen with the Class of 1973.
— 30th — (2003) George W. Bush
My biggest news is the birth of our daughter, Elizabeth, last year. As many classmates are dealing with the births of grandchildren, we're just learning about how to make formula while holding a baby in one arm. As older parents, we're hoping that what we lack in energy we can make up for in wisdom. Nobody warned me that being around a baby would induce me to generate clichés, but I have to say she is indeed a delight.
Because of Elizabeth, I'm now teaching two instead of four courses a semester. I mostly teach courses on the novel and on literary and feminist theory. It's stimulating and fulfilling to work with graduate students and to be in the classroom; I'm quite concerned, though, about the general decline in education since we were in school.
In December I published Politics, Persuasion, and Pragmatism: A Rhetoric of Feminist Utopian Fiction (Ohio State University Press, 2002). The book examines how persuasion occurs in narratives, using the example of feminist Utopias by Doris Lessing, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Monique Wittig.
Aside from sleep-deprivation, Bill and I are doing pretty well. We're going to try to make it to the Reunion — I look forward to seeing classmates, especially those from the listserve whom I've never met.
— 35th — (2008) George W. Bush
A lot has happened in the last five years. In 2006, I was diagnosed with serious breast cancer and spent most of the year going through various treatments, which appear to have succeeded. Luckily they were not debilitating; I'm just left with short hair and watering eyes. Occasionally a sense of my own mortality panics me — it hasn't led to any grand changes in my daily life, though. Does that mean I resist change? Or my daily life was already okay? Or dailiness itself is comforting? Anyway, ladies, get those mammograms (and also educate yourself about inflammatory breast cancer, which often doesn't involve a tumor).
Teaching and writing about literature still bring me a great deal of satisfaction, if also exhaustion. I'm currently working on literature and film about bodies that are physically or mentally constructed, from Galatea and Pygmalion to clones.
My father died in 2005, much changed by Alzheimer's. My mother and Bill's are still doing pretty well, and each comes one day a week to see our daughter, Elizabeth. She's happy, healthy, and thriving in kindergarten. I thought that giving birth and seeing a child develop would demystify the process for me. On the contrary, it now seems more unbelievable and miraculous than before.
— 40th — (2013) Barack Obama
Not a lot has changed in the last five years. I'm still enjoying teaching literature and studying what I call "literature of the constructed body" — about statues that come to life, Frankenstein's creature, people with eating disorders, clones, and other formerly extraordinary bodies that are becoming more and more ordinary. Bill still works in Silicon Valley, now specializing in security. Our daughter, Elizabeth, now in sixth grade, helps keep us at least a bit flexible. I try to nurture feminist and intellectual values in her, which is hard without sounding like the curmudgeon I have in fact become. My mother has some memory problems but is still sprightly and living in a retirement home forty minutes from us.
We are all in pretty good health, though I continue to deal with lymphedema and other side effects of my 2006 breast cancer treatment. The cancer was a reminder that, trite as it sounds, life really is short — one reason that Elizabeth and I went on a family safari, sponsored by the FLAA, in Tanzania this winter. I heartily recommend it: gracious people, excellent guides, lectures by a Harvard anthropologist, a pen pal for my daughter, a trip to Oldupai Gorge, and of course the animals, which I hope will not be extinct by the time Elizabeth is my age. I look forward to seeing classmates at the Reunion.
— 45th — (2018) Donald Trump
Life continues to be both comfortable and stressful. I am retiring this summer, in an attempt to reduce the latter while (fingers crossed) keeping the former. Thirty-five years as a literature professor have brought me great intellectual rewards. I hope that those years have also been rewarding for my students at the University of Cincinnati and now San Francisco State University; many of them lead lives whose precariousness I can only imagine.
I'm retiring in order to write more (especially on "Frankengenre"), to take better care of myself, and to tackle some of the deferred maintenance that has crept into many corners of my life. Recreating myself is an exciting but daunting prospect. I'd welcome suggestions of role models, especially retired academics.
Bill is still a tech guy. Our daughter, Elizabeth, is now a teenager and an avid writer of fiction. My mother is in amazingly good physical health for a ninety-nine-year-old; she is now in the memory care unit of her retirement home, forty minutes from us.
Now for the curmudgeonly part about chickens coming home to roost.
Tech: I fear we are turning into mindless, carefree Eloi who rely on, and serve as food for, lurking Morlocks.
Academia: Nowadays across the country, when tenured faculty retire, those who replace them are often low-paid, contingent labor, with few or no benefits, who teach one course here, another there. Even people who don't care about these frazzled "freeway flyers" should be concerned about what education is becoming. Online courses can help in some ways but are not the answer, especially in fields like the humanities, where students need individualized feedback.
Politics: I am appalled by our current president, but, speaking as a lifelong Democrat and liberal, I feel that Democrats and liberals bear a lot of the responsibility for his election. Our smugness, hypocrisy, and self-righteousness invited it. Looking further back, I see Trump as, ironically, a child of the sixties. It's as if he selected at least some of those values and took them to heart: all authority and institutions are rotten, and "if it feels good, do it" — by any means necessary. Enough ranting. I look forward to seeing classmates at the Reunion.