December 11, 2023:
Professor Falstaff, with his clique-ism and his primary interest in undergraduate XX chromosomes, illustrates the flipside of our sometimes brilliant experimental college. He personified the lack of resources available to students when the Philosophy Department of One refused or was unable to be useful. Where "clique" simultaneously describes and underemphasizes a real-world power dynamic. Professor Falstaff was free to be helpful, or not, depending on his whims, on whether you flattered him, on whether you were easy or difficult to work with. And whether you wore pants or a skirt.
The school modeled the "Red University" concept from the height of the revolutionary wave of the 1960s. Conceptually it belongs with Nanterre. The faculty didn't know this, of course. So that Professor Falstaff and his poker partner went on to write frivolous, superficial "histories" intended to yuck things up, in their habitual manner of ironic posturing. Empty self-amusement.
But by "model" I also mean "reduction". A 1/10,000 scale proof of concept. Brilliant, in principle. Compromised, thoroughly, by scarcity.