Double Take

Something about my list of required books has been bothering me. I couldn't put my finger on it, but somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I knew that there was something odd about the collection of books I've purchased this semester. In the past couple days I began to realize that something seemed slightly familiar about the name of the James Joyce expert who is often sited in my copy of Dubliners. And when I received my copy of Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses in the mail today, I understood why. That same well-known Joyce scholar also happened to edit a little book called The Literature of Architecture: The Evolution of Architectural Theory and Practice in Nineteenth Century America, which has been assigned to me for my course in American post-colonial architecture. The book of annotations for Ulysses is newer, and it simply says:

Don Gifford was Emeritus Professor of English at Williams College at his death in 2000.

The architecture book, on the other hand, was published in 1966 and is far more interesting:

DON GIFFORD is a Professor of English at Williams College, where he has taught for the past fifteen years. He was educated at The Principia College in Illinois, at Cambidge University, and at Harvard University. During World War II he drove an ambulance in the American Field Service before serving in the Army of the United States. After the war Mr. Gifford tried his hand at writing novels and working on commercial films before he settled down to teach, first at Mills College of Education in New York and subsequently at Williams. His teaching career has occasionally been interrupted by periods of work as a consultant to various industries on the process of invention.

I wish I could have had taken a course with him. I certaintly wouldn't have minded spending sometime in Williamstown, Massachusetts. I enjoyed my one brief visit in October 2002, and I've wished for some time to have a chance to vistit the Clark Art Institute, which has an impressive collection.