Colleges: At the breast of alma mater one must go mad

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At the breast of the alma mater one must go mad

What university makes of people: Cambridge students What university makes of people: Cambridge students

What university makes of people: Cambridge students

Quelle: Getty Images/Hulton Archive

Fear of existence, unhealthy relationships of dependency, education to be toady – Kingsley Amis described what young university students are complaining about in “Lucky Jim” more than half a century ago. It is the story of the birth of the campus novel from the university demon.

JThe longer one has left them, the greater the longing for the university. Of course only, if you left them, whether with or without a degree or in a subject that you won’t need for your later job. Those who stayed at the university mostly long for a permanent job (unless he or she has one and is a professor, in which case the longing is for a semester off or retirement).

The precarious situation of university “youngsters” – even that sounds as if it’s about underage children – has become a topic again under the keyword #IchbinHanna. “Academic Contracts Act” is the name of the monster that gives many university members existential fears due to the limitation of their positions and forces them into unhealthy relationships of dependency.

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In the 1954 campus novel “Lucky Jim” by Kingsley Amis, one can read what social and psychological consequences this can have: The main character Jim Dixon has a temporary lectureship in medieval history at a provincial English university and has to bend completely, to persuade his vain and smug Professor Welch to extend his tenure.

“Of course, it’s doubly difficult when you don’t feel secure in your… I would be able to work much better if I knew that I…” he stammers submissively, while openly showing his contempt to the ridiculous figure of a scholar would say.

“Even at a university like this”

“He would just say, very softly and very slowly and clearly, to give Welsh ample opportunity to understand, ‘Listen, you old cockchafer, what makes you think you can run a history department – even one? Uni like this.’”

The rant remains daydream; the seething Jim has to tirelessly feign interest in Welch’s endlessly flowing monologues and elite house music nights: “All that mattered, he told himself, was the crucial influence this man had on his future… Until then, he had to get Welch to like him.” , and one way to do that seemed to be to be present and conscious when Welch was talking about concerts.”

Angry Young Poet: Kingsley Amis (1922 to 1995)

Angry Young Poet: Kingsley Amis (1922 to 1995)

Which: Getty Images/Hulton Archive/Daniel Farson

“Jim im Glück” made Amis famous as one of the “Angry Young Men”, a new, socially critical generation of British writers who ran a storm against the establishment with irreverent anger and wit. In the foreword to Steffen Jacobs’ new translation of 2010 (Haffmans Verlag), David Lodge credited Amis as the founder of the modern campus novel.

In the end, Jim’s happiness consists in being freed from the degrading drudgery of university life, which has become rigid in empty rituals. Real life takes place elsewhere, in London, in the metropolis’ booming cultural scene. At some point, even the happily escaped Jim will look back nostalgically on his student years. But finally, to satisfy that longing, there are campus novels.

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