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Palmer’s choice
BY CAMILLE DODERO
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At 5:45 a.m. this past Tuesday, after a long night of lucubration, Harvard University lecturer Dr. Brian Palmer distributed his final final exam. Known among students for answering academic inquiries into the wee hours of the morning — his home-phone number even appears on his syllabi — Palmer e-mailed the take-home test to the 600-plus undergraduates enrolled in his wildly popular course, "Personal Choice and Global Transformation," a simple act that signaled the course’s final bow. Despite the fact that "Personal Choice" is Harvard’s second-largest course and the university’s most popular elective, the class officially ends next Wednesday. Why? Because Palmer’s three-year contract with Harvard as a lecturer on the study of religion ends June 30 — and he hasn’t been invited back. At an Ivy League school that likes to maintain tight control of its public image, Palmer is a controversial figure among the junior faculty, who don’t tend to be what he calls "boat rockers." (They want tenure.) A wiry, small figure with a helium-squeak voice, Palmer has received loads of media attention for "Personal Choice," a 50-minute lecture with a talk-show format in which 22 guest speakers — from globalization critic Naomi Klein to former secretary of labor Robert Reich to Beastie Boy Adam Yauch — field student questions on activist themes (ethics, class, privilege, courage, dissent, social responsibility). And since Palmer brings in very-lefty thinkers, such as historian Howard Zinn and radical intellectual Noam Chomsky, the class has been nationally derided by right-wing windbags like Rush Limbaugh and nicknamed "Idealism 101" by the New York Times. Last year, Palmer also became a visible presence at Cambridge anti-war demonstrations. Earlier this spring, he invited PETA vice-president Dan Mathews to class, thereby helping to organize a nearly nude PETA anti-fur protest in the Harvard Square pit, which was splashed all over the nightly news and ended in several arrests. Palmer has also been publicly outspoken in his criticism of Harvard. As recently as last Friday, he was the only faculty member to speak at an anti-Harvard labor-activism rally protesting the administration’s recent cutbacks and layoffs. When this year’s senior class chose him as one of its favorite professors (for the third consecutive year) — an honor that invites the recipient to write an open letter to the graduating class — he used the opportunity to suggest that the soon-to-be alums donate to Harvard’s student-activist groups rather than to the administration. And in mid March, when Harvard president Lawrence A. Summers made a "Personal Choice" appearance — finally accepting his third formal invitation — Palmer wasn’t exactly deferential, introducing him as "influential" rather than "accomplished" (as Summers himself so duly noted) and MCing tough student questions. "This is quite unlike any other experience I’ve had since I came to the university," Summers remarked at one point. This past Monday, for his last official lecture, Palmer — playing the role of patient in head teaching assistant Kate Holbrook’s psychoanalyst act — brought up Summers’s in-class appearance. "Noam Chomsky wrote to me afterwards that he was impressed by my independent ways in a situation where it would’ve been profitable to bow deeply," said Palmer hesitantly. "And I was reminded of an Indonesian peasant adage that anthropologists had written of: ‘When the great lord passes by, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.’" The class roared with laughter and later gave him a standing ovation. Palmer thinks it might actually be good public relations for the school to keep him around. "I’d think it would be rather ideal for the image of a conservative university to continue to have someone like me around — as a way to say, ‘Look how broad-minded we actually are,’" he says over the phone. With only two months left at the princely institution, does he have any regrets? "Yeah, in some ways, I wish I was bolder sooner. It took me a while to see what was needed, what was possible. I wish that I had more faith sooner that things would work out okay for me in the long run — I didn’t have to be cautious for career reasons." And what will Palmer be doing after June 30? He isn’t sure. "If you know of anyone who needs an assistant to help with photocopying," he says, giggling, "let me know where to send my résumé."
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