I was fortunate to know Jacques Barzun as both a teacher and colleague. Jacques changed my life from basketball jock to library denizen. So intoxicated was I by the Trilling-Barzun seminar that I wanted to speak French, dress like Jacques, and write literate cultural essays about every topic the mind could conjure. I was hooked, a […]
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“Full of years.” I am not sure I know of anyone who better qualified for that Biblical epithet than Jacques Barzun, who died last week at the magnificent age of 104. Born in France in 1907, Barzun had been a presence on the American intellectual and academic scene since the 1950s. From his perch at […]
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