Princeton Lauds the Nobel Winner It Denied Tenure
Newser • • entertainment
Key Points:
- Anne Carson, a Canadian poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, taught classics at Princeton in the 1980s but was denied tenure, leading to criticism of the university for not retaining her.
- Following the Nobel announcement, Princeton publicly congratulated Carson and acknowledged her past association, sparking social media backlash over the university's decision not to grant her a permanent position.
- Princeton declined to comment on the tenure controversy, while Carson's agent did not respond to inquiries; however, the university invited her back last fall for a lecture, a special undergraduate session, and featured her in the classics department newsletter.
- Writer Joyce Carol Oates, a Princeton professor, praised Carson's innovative work and suggested that conventional tenure criteria might sometimes restrict literary creativity.
