...English professor Toby Widdicombe
Published June 17, 2003
Official Title:
Professor of English
How long have you been at UAA?
11 years
What have you taught at UAA?
Quite a wide range of courses, actually. At the lower-division level,
I’ve taught introduction to literature for nonmajors; academic
writing about literature; survey of British literature; masterpieces
of world literature; literature survey. At the upper-division, there’s
American literature (1800-1900, and 1900-present); literature of
war; Shakespeare; history of criticism; poetry; Irish literature;
utopianism. At the graduate level, I’ve taught introduction
to graduate studies (research; bibliography; publication); the idea
of nature; American transcendentalism; American literature and critical
theory; American literature and cyberspace; American literature
and the Lost Generation; and studies in the novel. I’m nothing
if not a generalist.
What do you currently teach?
In spring I taught Shakespeare (ENGL 424), masterpieces of world
literature (ENGL 201), American literature since 1900 (ENGL 307),
and an independent study on American literature and the idea of
otherness. This summer I’m teaching a Shakespeare course.
Born and raised?
I was born in Salisbury, England. I grew up in various parts of
southern England: New Malden, Rickmansworth, Headington (a suburb
of Oxford), and Stanton St. John (a lovely village just outside
Oxford). I also spent some time in London. I even spent a year and
a half in California when I was 5 or so.
Where did you go to school?
What was your major?
I had the best streamed education the British taxpayer and my parents
could afford. New College School, Magdalen College School, and Cambridge
University. I studied English. I was the rebel in my family: My
siblings and parents all went to Oxford University.
What was your worst or most interesting
job as a student?
For a short time I worked for a company called Gala Cosmetics. My
job was to work out how many boxes could fit into a trailer (apparently
no one there had heard of cubic measurements) and to dispose of
old cosmetics. It’s amazing how many ways you can find to
throw something out. All different sorts of spins and trajectories.
Once I also worked for the Inland Revenue (the equivalent of the
IRS). God, did they have a form for everything! My best job was
hop picking in Kent the summer before I went up to Cambridge. I
worked as a “bine straightener” (a crucial job). The
food was great; the farmer’s daughters were gorgeous; there
was a pub just down the road that served “scrumpy” (very
strong hard cider); and I was one of the few people there with a
car. What more could a young man want?
Tell us about your family.
I’ve been married for nearly 24 years to a wonderful woman,
Jill, who manages to keep me sane. My parents got divorced more
than 25 years ago. My father remarried, so now I have an Irish step-mother,
two Irish step-siblings, and lots of nieces and nephews. It’s
true what they say about the Irish: they definitely know how to
celebrate. I have one surviving brother, who teaches at UC Davis.
My other brother committed suicide 15 years ago (when he was in
his mid-30s).
Do you have children? What are
their names and ages?
God, no. I’m far too juvenile for that. I’ll be mature
enough to raise kids when I’m 70, but that’ll be a little
late. Actually, Jill and I decided not to have kids fairly early
in our marriage. Neither of us was terribly interested in reproducing,
and I personally think that overpopulation is one of the most serious—and
largely unacknowledged—crises facing this planet.
Do you have pets? What kinds
and what are their names?
We used to have a dog, but she and I didn’t get on well together.
She’s much happier with another family. We have a 7-year-old
cat named Aelfric (after a character in the Cadfael mysteries).
He’s a marvelous pet: handsome, clever, funny, opinionated
and sweet. A perfect brat.
Favorite music or artist?
I’ll name four. Bob Dylan (because of the profundity of his
lyrics and the grittiness of his voice); Johnny Dodds (for the enthusiasm
of his clarinet playing—this was long before bebop ruined
jazz); The Vapors (does anyone remember the New Wave music that
preceded Punk?); and Nanci Griffith (for getting me through three
bad years in New York).
Favorite food?
This is an easy one: Indian food. I still remember having a Meat
Madras in Portland, Ore. a couple of years ago that was truly a
religious experience. I’ve been eating Indian food as man
and boy for 40 years. I owe everything to it (and Marmite).
Favorite book?
“Lord of the Rings.” I first read it when I was 11;
I’ve read it eight or nine times since. For me, it’s
essential to believe in the triumph of good over evil.
Three things that your students
would be surprised to know about you.
1. How politically radical I am. I’m a utopian socialist.
For me, it’s essential within any socio-political system that
the infrastructure be publicly owned. Beyond that, there needs to
be a serious readjustment of wealth between the rich and poor in
this country and throughout the Western world. No post-industrial
society has ever prospered without a healthy middle class. I don’t
see the United States beating that statistic. Lenin and Stalin certainly
hijacked communism, but no one has ever disproved the accuracy of
Marx’s economic analysis. I have a great many criticisms about
capitalism, not the least of which is that it “succeeds”
because it appeals to the worst instincts in people. Surely we should
have got beyond greed and arrogance by now?
2. That if I hadn’t become an academic I would have liked
to be a professional cricketer. For me, cricket (especially in its
five-day Test Match form) is a marvelous amalagam of beauty, grace
and complexity. I was quite good at cricket when I was a teenager,
but my interests diverged. Don’t get me started on how awful
baseball is in comparison. That game is just rounders on steroids.
3. That I once played in a poker game for 24 hours straight and
ended up even. It was fun, but there have to be better ways of passing
the time.
If you could have lunch with
any three people, living or dead, who would it be and why?
Well, the first one’s easy, pretty much of a doss: Shakespeare.
I’d like to talk to him about his method of composition and
about his relationship with his wife. I’d also like to ask
him if he was the Earl of Oxford.
The second one is George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. They may have
made it up Everest almost 30 years before Edmund Hillary. My heart
tells me they did, but my head says no. I’d love to talk with
them about what happened on their fateful climb and why.
The third is George W. Bush (and he’d be paying!). I’d
just like an hour to tell him what an incompetent ass he is and
how deplorable his behavior has been as president. As an unelected
president, he has taken a model constitution and a healthy economy
and has done his best in the last two years and more to destroy
the former and run the latter into the ground. I’m patriotic
enough to resent all that bitterly.
If you could take a class from
any other department at UAA, what would it be and why?
That’s an easy one for me. I almost studied history at university,
so I’d like to take a history course or two. Actually, I’d
like to get a master’s in history, but I’m too busy
right now to find the time to do the coursework. I’m fascinated
by the ways in which history is everything but the dry recitation
of facts.
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