Gabrielle Spiegel, a professor at Johns Hopkins University with
an exceptional knowledge of medieval French history, will soon face
the task of defending the humanities at UCLA.
Spiegel, a renowned historian at Johns Hopkins, was named dean
of humanities last week, and will begin her duties July 1.
Spiegel will face the challenge of preserving and strengthening
the academic programs in the humanities ““ which include
English, philosophy, musicology and the study of over 60 languages
and cultures ““ against the common belief that such subjects
lack the practical application of fields such as natural and social
sciences.
In the 1993 film “Groundhog Day,” Bill
Murray’s character, learning that his love interest’s
college major was French poetry, impulsively blurts out “What
a waste of time!”
His reaction captures the widespread belief that the study of
the humanities hold little purpose in the modern world.
For Spiegel, such a view disregards history and a proper
understanding of the humanities.
“Anyone who says “˜no one ever died of the
humanities’ ““ as we commonly hear ““Â has not
thought much about what happens when states claim the right to
define what humanity is, or who is good and who is evil, and
therefore justify movements like ethnic cleansing,” she
said.
Spiegel considers the study of the humanities, and the
understanding it fosters, to be an effective means of combating the
hate which leads to horrors such as the Holocaust.
“Nothing is more important than studying the
humanities,” she said. “We are heir to a world ““
that of World War II and its aftermath ““ when states like
Nazi Germany claimed that there was such a thing as “˜a life
unworthy of life.'”
“The great and abiding task of the humanities is to
cultivate appreciation for the immense variety of the ways that
peoples and societies live and think,” she said.
Spiegel’s love of the humanities emerged at the tender age
of 13, when she found herself captivated by a book about the Muslim
conquest of the Mediterranean and the emergence of European
polity.
While many young students spend years alternating between
various majors and careers, Spiegel said she never wavered from her
commitment to become a medieval historian, something she admits to
be “rather odd, if not downright weird.”
Spiegel believes her family background enhanced her unrelenting
passion for history and the humanities.
“My family had been refugees from Belgium in 1938, so in a
sense I was looking for a past I felt I had lost, or one that was
taken from me,” she said. “Feeling myself deprived of
the past, this was a way to master that loss, and in a sense
compensate for it.”
Spiegel channeled her initial interest in history into a
distinguished career in academia. After receiving her doctorate
from Johns Hopkins University, she began a teaching career that
took her from Bryn Mawr College to the University of Pennsylvania,
University of Maryland, and finally back to Johns Hopkins, where
she has served as chairwoman of the history department.
Though she described the decision to leave John Hopkins as
“probably the most difficult thing I have had to do in my
professional life,” she found the opportunity to join UCLA
too enticing to resist.
“I decided to join Hopkins and join UCLA because I see the
university as an enormously vital, entrepreneurial place whose
values and commitments to intellectual excellence and sensitivities
to questions of diversity and community are precisely those I most
admire,” she said.
“And the weather is pretty nice too,” she added.
Spiegel’s primary goal as dean of humanities is the
maintenance of the strength and prestige of UCLA’s programs
““ which includes the nation’s largest English
department ““ against the many challenges currently facing
these disciplines.
Besides dubious public attitudes, the humanities at UCLA must
weather the intense financial pressure currently facing the entire
University of California.
Nevertheless, Spiegel remains optimistic about what can be
achieved with humanities programs at UCLA.
“I hope to be able to contribute to making and maintaining
the division of humanities as consistently excellent as it has
always been, to identify new areas of scholarship for potential
growth and support, and to help the division weather the current
financial crisis,” she said.
English professor and acting dean of humanities Eric Sundquist
said Spiegel has the ideal academic and personal qualities to lead
the humanities division in this era of flux.
“Gabrielle is a distinguished scholar who brings to her
new position a broad range of interests and an exciting vision for
the role played by the humanities in national life, as well as
campus life,” he said.
Chancellor Albert Carnesale showed equal enthusiasm for Spiegel
and her ability to preserve the strength of the humanities
programs.
“The humanities bring a unique richness and
interdisciplinary strength to UCLA’s academic program, and
Dr. Spiegel is an ideal scholar and academic to direct this
effort,” he said in a statement.