Princeton salutes one of its most famous former instructors and is criticized for not having kept her. Anne Carson, the Canadian poet and essayist who just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, taught classics at Princeton in the 1980s but was denied tenure there, reports the New York Times, who called her “the Nobel laureate who got away.” After the Nobel Prize was announced Thursday, the university and its classics department issued public congratulations and highlighted Carson’s ties to the campus, prompting critics on social media to point out that Carson had not received a tenured position. “Good job granting him his mandate!” one commenter wrote, while a former student lamented missing the opportunity to study with her, saying, “She could have taught ‘phone book translation’ and I would have taken it.”
Princeton declined to discuss the backlash or details of his tenure, citing politics, and Carson’s agent did not respond to requests for comment. Despite this history, Princeton invited Carson back last fall to give a major lecture, teach a special undergraduate session, and appear, via illustration, on the cover of the classics department’s newsletter. Writer Joyce Carol Oates, a longtime Princeton professor, praised Carson’s “risky and original” work and suggested that traditional expectations of tenure can sometimes inhibit literary freedom.
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