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Remembering Laurence Veysey (1933-2004)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Extract
Larry Veysey was my colleague and friend at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) for almost twenty years. We shared a common fascination with Utopias past and present; we talked often; and we taught several graduate seminars together. Though Larry never aspired to be anyone's mentor, I learned much from him about intellectual history. He was a complex individual—a difficult and at times infuriating colleague but also a loyal and generous friend and a person of extraordinary intelligence and at times alarming bluntness. In faculty meetings he never failed to speak his mind, and he could rarely resist baiting and provoking colleagues with whom he disagreed. But he also remained a tireless, fair-minded, and thoroughly conscientious participant in search committees, for which he compiled detailed, carefully nuanced evaluations of the leading candidates, often with grades attached. He also graded sunsets arid dinners. He appeared to be intransigent and set in his ways, but he believed in change and relished risk-taking. He loved to walk near the edge of the cliff, pushing and testing himself.
- Type
- Retrospective: Laurence R. Veysey's The Emergence of the American University
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2005 by the History of Education Society
References
1 Veysey, Laurence R. The Communal Experience. Anarchist and Mystical Colunter-Cultures in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 4.Google Scholar
2 Veysey, Laurence R. The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965/1970), 258–259.Google Scholar
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4 Veysey, The Communal Experience, 73.Google Scholar
5 Ibid., 195, 476. Interestingly, in The Emergence of the American University, 164, Larry used the same language to describe the qualities of intellectual freedom and “driving dedication” that made Hopkins, Johns a model for American graduate schools in the 1880s: “in their purest form they … provided only a magic moment.”Google Scholar
6 Veysey, The Emergence of the American University, 336–338, 433–438.Google Scholar
7 Ibid., 433.Google Scholar
8 Veysey, The Communal Experience, 470–471: “The loss of faith in the long-range future perhaps explains another striking characteristic of the recent counter-culture, the previously unknown willingness to let one's body stay physically dirty for long periods. Washing is a form of planning, a way of making oneself ready for future occasions. In a world which is believed to have no future, it becomes senseless. Going dirty reduces the need for devoting time to upkeep and makes one's life far more flexible. The mind is freed for immediate experience.”Google Scholar
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10 Veysey, Laurence R. letter to me, February 18, 1988.Google Scholar
11 Veysey, Laurence R. letter to me, October 2, 1986. Google Scholar
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