The Sizzle & The Steak: Teaching at The Sorbonne
On reality, cliché & a revelation at the techno parade
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Back to School
I am sitting in the shadow of a shiny metallic building at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle: Paris III. There’s a buzz saw screaming outside and construction workers yelling at each other as they clang their metallic hammers on stubborn sheets of metal.
I’ve come here to resume my autumnal teaching gig at the Sorbonne. As my forty-five students filter into a crowded room that wasn’t built to hold this many people, I’m reminded of that liminal space that exists between reality and cliché, and of the age-old dictum: sell the sizzle, not the steak.
The Sizzling Simulacrum
In many ways, teaching at the Sorbonne for the past four years has been a dream. I’ve rediscovered old classics by introducing students to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s psychological-horror classic, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” and Carmen Maria Machado’s “Inventory,” a contemporary story about the USA that’s all-the-more impressive when you realize it was written five years ago.1 I also once taught a Cinema and Literature course, in which I used Karl Marx’s theory of alienation to study characterization in Fight Club with a group of thirty-five millennials who’d never heard of Tyler Durden. That was fun.
One of my favorite creative writing lectures is the one I give on Day 1: why are so many stories in western literature based on a central climax? The author Jane Alison’s magisterial craft book changed my writing life, debunking the tired idea that good stories, like good sex, must be about the climax:
“There’s power in a wave, its sense of beginning, midpoint, and end; no wonder we fall into it in stories. But something that swells and tautens until climax, then collapses? Bit masculo-sexual, no? So many other patterns run through nature, tracing other deep motions in life. Why not draw on them, too?”
Jane Alison, Meander, Spiral, Explode
On Day 1, we also talk about Kurt Vonnegut’s theory on the “shape of story” to better understand why we write characters in certain ways.2 And because I like rules of three, I round out the lecture discussing Rick and Morty with my students, and why it’s so popular, and how Dan Harmon adapted the “hero journey” structure explored in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero of One Thousand Faces to inform his own groundbreaking “story circle” theory.3
Ah yes, we’ve been through it all, me and my creative writing students, braving the drafty co-ed corridors and seasonal colds and student strikes (+ faculty strikes, too) to study the wisdom of Gertrude Stein and James Baldwin and Margaret Atwood and dozens more, Steering the Craft with Ursula K. Le Guin through stormy administrative waters, inventing new worlds beneath the flickering fluorescent lightbulbs of white-walled rooms.
But alas, these words are becoming hyperbole, and like I tell my students, we must avoid tumbling towards cliché. I’m becoming unreliable and, with terms like intradiegetic narrator, obtuse. I’ve concerned myself with the Show of teaching at the Sorbonne, not the Tell, in hopes that I can prove to you that I’m worthy of this conversation. I’ve only been interested in the ideal, not the reality, and while the sizzle sounds nice, the sizzle has no calories. So what about the steak?
The Raw Reality
And now, a shameful admission: I’ve been selling you a sizzle that has no steak. I don’t teach at the Sorbonne—not technically, at least, not if you’re thinking of the hallowed University of Paris that was founded in the 12th century. Go ahead. Call me a fraud. Just know that that Sorbonne no longer exists.
In May, 1968, some eight hundred years after the Sorbonne (i.e., the University of Paris) was first-built, student protests erupted throughout Paris and beyond, leading to a complete overhaul of the French public education system and the disintegration of the “the Sorbonne” as the world knew it. In 1970, the University of the Sorbonne was split into thirteen separate faculties, which is why I teach at Paris 3 (humanities), but economic professors teach at Paris I, and my first French girlfriend graduated from law school at Paris II. Paris IV (also humanities) is like the big brother to Paris III, for the simple reason that it thinks it’s better … and if this seems confusing, it’s because it is French, and so by design. Like any good boeuf bourguignon sizzling on the stove, the plot thickens with Paris 4, 5, 6, and 7.
In 2017, I have a theory that someone high up in the French education administration became keenly aware of the waning sizzle of the “Sorbonne” as the world knew it, thus deciding to merge Paris 4 and Paris 6 into what is now called “Sorbonne University” to perhaps try and recapture some of that imperialistic French glory, which always seems to follow that most deceptively simple of questions:
Q: “What’s in a name?”
A: In academia (and in France especially), the answer is, “almost everything.”
This is why, when the highest-brow of Parisians hear “La Sorbonne,” they’re usually thinking either of the storied institution that still exists in French mythology, or the newfound “Sorbonne University” (Paris 4 + 6), which is still “ranked” by a “world-leading ranking system” as one of the top universities in the world (no matter that the aforementioned ranking system has a “criticism” section on its Wikipedia page that’s longer than its own history).4
In 2019, not to be outdone by its predecessors, Paris 5 and Paris 7 decided to join forces and become Paris Cité University, which means that while Paris 1, 2, and 3 exist, there’s no such thing as Paris 4/5/6/7. The logic returns, briefly, with Paris 8, which is particularly progressive because of its deep connection to the May ‘68 revolution, which brings the total number of separate “Sorbonne universities” to eleven, even though only one of them is called Sorbonne University (Paris 4 + 6) … and that’s why, technically, I can’t say I teach at “the Sorbonne,” but rather at “Université Sorbonne Nouvelle: Paris III.”
Woof.
An Adjunct’s Tale
The first time I ever set foot in a Paris-3 classroom, there were no whiteboard markers or erasers to be found. As dozens of eighteen-year-olds filtered into my stuffy classroom, I sprinted back through a maze of hallways to the faculty lounge to naively inquire about teaching supplies. A colleague laughed at me and handed me his own whiteboard marker. “Welcome to Paris-3. Next week, come prepared.” (For the next year, I “borrowed” markers from the faculty office and refused to purchase a white-board eraser on principle.)
Fast-forward one year to 2019, but let’s now defy the rules of tense-continuity and tell this story in the present tense. I’ve just walked through the glorious Jardin des Plantes, a leafy park in the southeast of the city that runs along the Seine. I arrive at Paris-3’s-tired campus to witness a large crowd of students gathering outside the wrought-iron gates. The romantic in me says I’m just down the hill from Hemingway’s first apartment, but the human blockade is chanting and screaming about a tuition increase of approximately $100 in new fees, and I’m turned away and told I won’t be teaching for “quite some time.”
A Penny for All of Your Thoughts
As an adjunct teacher (vacataire) in France, I waive my right to any employee protections. If there’s a strike (mouvements sociale) like there was in 2019, vacataires are shit out of luck, which is why at the end of that semester, one of my students lingered after class to ask me, “Are you doing okay financially? After the protests? We’ve just learned about how little teachers are paid here.” This student was eighteen years old and was worried about me. “Anyway,” she said. “Thanks for a great semester. I hope you’ll get paid soon and will keep teaching anyway.”
My student was right to be concerned. By law, the French state cannot hire adjunct teachers if teaching is their primary source of income (don’t try to make any sense of it), for the very simple reason that it’s near-impossible to live in Paris on an adjunct teacher’s wages, a lesson I learned in 2019. My wages have remained stagnant since the beginning: 41 Euros/hour (before taxes), not including travel, grading, or preparation … all for the glory of putting “the Sorbonne” on a resumé.
The system is exploitative by design, and I’m one of the suckers that continues to feed it. And now, a final math problem to sauce up this Sorbonne steak:
An adjunct professor teaches a 2-hour seminar for 12 weeks between September-December. This teacher is paid $82/week, before taxes (24%); how much will the Esteemed Sorbonne Professor be paid when they receive a state-issued check sometime in Spring, 2023? (Oh, I forgot to mention: adjunct teachers are paid 6-8 months after the beginning of the semester)5
Glory Be Thy Hallowed Name
This year, Paris-3 finally changed campuses after decades of complaints about its Cold War-era Censier-Daubenton facilities. A world-famous architect won the competition to build the new state-of-the-art facilities,6 but there’s just one major problem: the campus hasn’t been finished yet ... I can still hear the buzz saw outside ... okay, maybe there are two major problems: my classroom is crowded, and there aren’t enough classrooms for all of the students, which means some students are now being forced to attend university online … okay, fine, if we’re being honest here, maybe there are three major problems: apparently, due to the hasty construction of the new campus, there have been multiple reports of structural issues with the classrooms themselves, including one unfortunate event wherein a large wooden beam caved-in through the roof and almost injured a student (this is why the semester is only starting now, in October, and why it’s now ending in mid-January).
The final cherry on top: I still have no contract for this semester, and if last few years have been any indication, I’ll either have to fight tooth-and-nail via long-winded emails written in French (and ending with absurd formalities: je vous prie d'agréer, madame, monsieur, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées),7or otherwise practice my May ’68, Guy Debord-given right to go on strike until I receive my contract, like I did in 2020.
I apologize, dear reader, if the Sorbonne Sizzle has disappeared. I wanted to come clean about the reality of the Sorbonne Steak. And by now, it might seem that there’s only a cold, paper-thin piece of cow rubber left on the plastic plate, but this is where all of my years of teaching have taught me to have a choice, because despite all of the tribulations of teaching at Paris-3, I can choose not to focus on contracts and bylaws and falling roofing tiles and just breathe, and tell my first-year students in today’s creative writing class to take one big deep breath in and let it out, joining me in a moment of silence to settle into this shoddy-but-still-sacred writing space.
We’ll Always Have The Sizzle & The Steak
Me and my forty-five students are writing our own versions of how a day can be lived as narrative, and I can no longer hear the sound of metal clanging on metal. Was I imagining the sound of the buzz saw all along?
The very idea that creative writing skills can be taught—or at least coaxed out—has only existed in France for a few years, and it behooves me to realize just how fortunate I am to be able to continue teaching creative writing at Paris-3 The Sorbonne. Indeed, there are few greater pleasures than introducing Angela Carter’s re-imagining of chauvinist fairy tales to eighteen-year-olds who don’t identify as a brave hunter or a foolish girl or a grandmother or a wolf, but as something far more expansive and human than any job title on a resumé.
We read through the whole syllabus together (paying subcribers can follow the weekly reading assignments here) and I explain why I’ve decided to conclude our course with Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin’s masterpiece about loneliness, Paris, sexuality and cultural identity.
This is why I teach: introducing a single student to James Baldwin is far more valuable and sacred than any measly paycheck or institutional namechange can provide.
A few weeks ago, with teaching doubts still swirling around my head, I spent an afternoon enjoying the Paris Techno Parade, an annual celebration open to the public wherein eighteen-wheelers outfitted with massive speaker systems lumber through the great boulevards in the name of fun.
Towards the end of the parade, I heard somebody call out “professor.” I didn’t look immediately, because almost nobody ever calls me that. But alas, through the vibrating air and the teeming crowd, I recognized the face of a former student. I hadn’t seen her since 2019.
“How are you, professor?” she asked with a smile. “I still think about your class. I wish I could take it again. Are you still teaching?”
“Well, actually, it’s funny you ask …” I spoke of the Sorbonne steak, not the sizzle.
“Oh, no, you have to keep teaching!” she cut me off. “It would be a shame if you didn’t. At least think about it,” she said and disappeared back into the celebration.
In that moment, I knew my decision had been made. Call it obstinance, call it reality, call it cliché, but that former student whose name I can’t remember reminded me why I teach, and of what a classroom can do, helping students and teachers alike live their own story, complete with all of the magic, frustration, and modest triumph to be found within.
“Inventory” by Carmen Maria Machado. She recently started her own Substack.
Kurt Vonnegut on the shape of stories
Dan Harmon’s story circle has been a major influence in my own understanding of narrative structure in the past few years.
If you care to know the name of this much-maligned university ranking system, it’s called QS World University Rankings. While it tries to save face in various ways, the fact remains that any belief in “the best” is fundamentally subjective and bullshit; I learned this from firsthand experience at UCL, a supposedly top-ten program that grades on pass/fail, does not require student attendance, asked me to pay for my own diploma, and only ever sends me emails asking me for money.
The sizzling answer is $748, bank-deposited six months after classes begin.
A translation: “I pray that you will accept, sir or madame, the expression of my most distinguished salutations.”
The end. 👏🏼 this one sizzled beautifully the whole way through. Those students are lucky to have you.
Loved this, Samuel! I taught at a university for decades for the love of the students and the faculty. I hope I made a difference in their lives. You obviously are making a difference for your students. When will society pay our teachers a salary commensurate to their worth???