Word: formality
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Over the past ten years, however, the department's history has been rocky. A visiting committee in 1972 restructured the department, taking advantage of what had once appeared to be a strictly formal power of review; the main reform removed students from the governing board of Afro-Am. It was a move that revoked a privilege for which the 1969 strikers had fought determinedly, and yet there was little protest--an indication, perhaps, of how quickly Harvard had changed in only three years...
...Faculty caucuses filled this vacuum of power, by preparing drafts of legislation and working cut compromises before formal Faculty meetings. This uneasy alliance--and heated politicking--enabled the Faculty, in a series of extraordinary meetings, to pass controversial and innovative proposals almost unanimously...
...performers of these parts are to convince us of the trancendence of their bond, they must use the one tool Shakespeare gives them--his poetry. Its power is extraordinary, as when it switches from the prevalent formal diction to simple, direct monosyllables in the Act II meeting between the two lovers--so straightforward that its language has become a model for greeting cards and sentimental wallposters. Shakespeare never lets us doubt that the love of Romeo and Juliet is the offspring not of their hearts but of their dreams, their words...
...scene in this production succeeds quite well, and also points up the disaster in the rest. When the Capulets discover Juliet apparently dead in her chamber, they explode in a satirical outpouring off grief that Shakespeare wrote to mock the traditional, over-formal conventions of Elizabethan tragedy. Mother and Father Capulet vie in the extravagance of their laments; lines like "life and these lips have long been separated" signal to the audience that this is farce, not tragedy. The cast at the Hasty Pudding conveys the full comedy of this scene. Unfortunately, the comic atmosphere lingers like an unwanted guest...
...Argentina's dirty war. For political prisoners, the problem is usually not getting a fair trial but getting any trial at all. At least 4,500 Argentines have disappeared since the military took over three years ago, and an additional 2,000 have been admittedly held without formal charges by the government. Even trying to persuade the government to produce a desaparecido for trial can be dangerous. According to one lawyer, the police keep a list of lawyers who seek to get their clients out on habeas corpus, and if a name appears more than once or twice...