If you are a U of I alum, chances are you've heard of the name "Ira Carmen." He is a legend on the Urbana campus, at least in the Political Science Department. A ripe young 73, the man still runs three miles a day and regularly reminds students of his superior fitness level. He teaches various undergraduate Constitutional Law classes and a few seminars, including his specialty: Genetics and Politics (which Billy and I are taking in the Fall).
For those of you not lucky enough to attend a Carmen class, let me give you a glimpse of his one-act-show. Picture a small Jewish man with somewhat unkempt white hair wearing a neutral-colored sport coat and skinny tie. He stands at the front of the class, sometimes behind a podium, sometimes gesticulating wildly inches from the front row. He glances periodically at a yellow legal pad while lecturing about Supreme Court decisions, always including the Carmen opinion.
Known for his wit and clever remarks, he never ceases to entertain. A few Urbanagora contributors and former-students asked me to record some of his quotes from the past semester. Here are a few of my favorites:
Discussing Roe v. Wade: "I have sufficient wisdom to remember the urge to fornicate... do it at a rock concert! Don't do it on the Supreme Court and offend my sensibilities!"
Discussing his top ten list of women (which he never actually revealed): "None of the women from your generation make my list... women of my generation knew how to act, how to dress. [Falsetto voice] 'I want to run a corporation!' You can run a goddamn corporation, but you're not making my list!"
"You are moving toward elite status, and I ought to know because I am an elitist. You are moving toward elite status because you have had this opportunity to take this class! There are really good people on this campus and I'm one of them!"
"You can be brain dead at 70 and brain dead at 20. No? Consider the people you know that are brain dead."
Stopping mid-lecture and looking out the window at a man mowing the lawn: "What's this noise? There's always noise on this campus interrupting my thoughts. There's always construction going on. As if better buildings make for better instruction. I can teach you in a shit hole! We are in a shit hole!" (A few minutes later, stops mid-sentence) "I'll out-shout that bastard!"
Discussing his old age: "My y-chromosome shrivels, thankfully not in plain view. [Pause] I won't go any further than that."
"Obama's constituency is made up of blacks, young independents, and college professors... and a handful of other self-proclaimed intellectuals who I call SNOBS!"
"I consider myself an environmentalist. I have to be, I live with my wife. She's so green it looks like she spent the last 10 years sailing the Atlantic on a life boat."
Discussing his prediction that Clinton will take the '08 Democratic nomination: "The Clinton machine will grind him down. You have to drive a stake through the heart of the Clintons. Obama doesn't have the right stake. He's been fiddling around for it. [Falsetto voice] 'Where's the stake? I can't find it!'"
"No Country For Old Men was an absolute blood bath. They should have dedicated it to Osama bin Laden."
"I was babysitting my grandboys. They're 8 and 9, so we give them some slack. They were watching this show- 'The Survivor.' You've got to be a goddamn moron to watch that show. They're all over there in Micronesia. They should be marooned over there!"
This semester, Carmen received a taker for the Carmen Challenge, introduced to a class many years ago, which consists of a three mile race, best 2-out-of-3 for chess, and best 2-out-of-3 for ping pong. The challenger was a past student that many of you know, known for his liberal tendencies: "That was 10 years ago! I'm an old man now. I've lost more neurons than you've swallowed little pink ACLU pills!"
Billy has suggested that U of I post some lectures on iTunes U to eternally capture the brilliance that is Ira Carmen. Until then, we're all keeping our fingers crossed that he sticks around for semester, year, or even decade.
Labels: brilliance, greatness, heroes, jurisprudence, law, legends, Political Science, the academy, U of I
I have unfortunately never had the privilege of seeing him in action. Next time I return to campus, I want to sit in on one of his lectures.
As someone who took mostly computer science and math courses, I had some good professors, but I never had any with a personality like this.
I just read his Wikipedia page, and I find his lists and dislike for all things modern interesting. Has anyone asked him if he is aware of humans' built in cognitive bias in favor of people, places, and events that occurred during one's childhood? As a general rule, people also underrate things from their old age. Has he adjusted his rankings to account for this bias, or does he intend for his lists to be completely subjective - only a measure of his own preference?
What is to stop Billy from recording his lectures and posting them himself, with Ira's permission? Ira owns the copyright to his lectures, not the university.
You forgot the one where he said Arabs were animals who didn't deserve to be civilized.
Katie,
I love you even more for this post...thanks for making me laugh at 2am. <3
Kofi, loan me the camera and i'll do it.
The great IC typically says at the beginning of each semester that he doesn't want anyone taping his lectures. It could be b/c he is irreverent as hell and knows how PC and reactionary people at UIUC can be.
This made my day. Lets toss up some more IC quotes, if anyone has some
I was fortunate enough to be able to take Ira Carmen's seminar course on the human genome almost seven years ago, back when one of the researchers (I want to say Craig Venter) came to campus to speak. Professor Carmen looked like he was going to have kittens when he got up to introduce the man.
This class was during the fall semester of 2001. The second tower, WTC 1, fell at 9:28 central time. At 11:00, we had class. Professor Carmen very calmly stated that he knew a lot of people were cancelling classes. He didn't see the point in that. It wasn't going to accomplish anything for us to skip class. This was one of the rare moments when I was in agreement with him. However, he said, if we wanted, we could start off class talking about it. It struck me years later that this was probably the most civil discussion I ever had about 9/11. For starters, it would be the only occasion I had for the next two or three years to talk to people I disagreed with without being denounced as "with the terrorists." In addition, I wholly expected Professor Carmen to shout me down on every point. But he never did. In fact, when some of us started talking over one another and the conversation drifted toward some kind of CNN shouting match, he was the one to pull everyone back, something completely counter to my image of him up until that point.
I don't often agree with Professor Carmen, but I have always had a great deal of respect for him. He comes of as dogmatic, but he is very thoughtful. He firmly believes in what he stands for and he has a damn good argument to back it up. And he will most certainly share it with you if you contradict him. :)
Oh! And he's right. Women were way hotter back then.
Ira Carmen is amazing. I took both his lectures and one smaller called The Modern Supreme Court and loved them, despite my steadfast disagreement with Carmen on many, many topics. Some quotes from the Poli Sci notebooks I've moved to Boston, DC and now Chicago...
On 9/12/01 Carmen suggested that the president declare war against the murderers and those who give them aid and comfort. "This is the time to stand up. Enough already. We either have the will or we have no will."
"You can't drink, half of you. You're all hopeless." (this is relating to legislation regarding communications with terrorists, somehow, according to my brilliant notes).
"That's what I put on my income tax returns: What does he do? he makes a pest of himself."
Our review section was at exactly "47 minutes before the cocktail hour."
In response to a protest outside the Lincoln Hall lecture hall: "Planes are crashing. I suggest we hold another peace demonstration led by a member of the English department."
His response to the protest is to "just keep making noise and being ornery."
"Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the moral."
"You shouldn't be snowed when a particular person expresses a point of view."
Carmen said that Bob Dylan "is one of my ideological arch-enemies."
"I really think the state has a lot of nerve setting up a law that limits the use of genitals."
During the Chief dialougue at Foellinger when protesters made noise outside his lecture hall on April 10, 2000: "This is not an institution of higher learning, I swear to God."
"75 percent of you purport to be liberals. I love you anyway."
And I love him too!
Thanks for the fantastic post, Katie. Ira Carmen remains one of my two favorite professors from undergrad (he's in a tie with John Lynn, the military history prof), and he's also the only person who's ever been able to make sense of constitutional law for me. I miss that man.
Some other quotes compiled by other Carmen fans:
"Where is David Souter brandishing the flag of academic freedom?" (He did this awesome flag waving motion while yelling this.)
"Computers will be the death of us all."
"In fact, dot dot dot." (At this point, we were required to fill in the dot dot dots with no context.)
"If you're Scalia, what's the first thing you do? Lecture the other members of the Court!"
"I'm not an ACLU poodle, I'm a Guantanamo Bay pit bull!"
"It isn't just the vagina that functions - the brain functions!"
"It's always Ira. He's the mythical Jew!"
"Sports is like Roe v. Wade - it never leaves the conversational agenda."
"Even then there was a need for viagra." - in reference to Ancient Greece
"Jesus is not responsible for this! What does Jesus know of football?"
"I know you...you want to be a lawyer...because you lust...for a judgeship."
"You can't dress, you can't drink. What can you do?"
On music: "Everything in the modern era is noise, just noise."
On computers: "They're always asking questions, Who are you?, Who am I?. Always needing passwords..."
On champions of abortion: "Roe, Roe, Roe your boat..."
On Brennan's jurisprudential divining technique: "First, find the right. Then, clothe the right and elevate scrutiny. Now, knock down the law."
"Now John Marshall liked bourbon, which in my book is second only to scotch. But you wouldn't understand that. (In falsetto to imitate students) 'I like Busch Light!'"
"I told you, I'm a square! I'm so square!"
"Everything the Kennedy's do is dishonest!"
"Some of us thought there would be only one Bush - but it turns out the Bushes are like Rocky movies!"
"All you youngsters want these days is to be loved - (In falsetto to imitate students) 'I don't wanna be loved...I just want to pass the goddamn midterm.'"
"Politics is the easy way out in life."
"You know who has tenure? The pope has tenure. The Queen of England has tenure. So does Fidel and the communists - because they represent the people, of course (scoff). Federal judges have tenure as well - no federal judge has ever successfully been removed. And then there's the college professors. Me. How do you like that?"
"Everything I say is impeachable...except my tenure."
JM Doran - Ira Carmen would never say something like that. Never. Not even in jest.
I sent this post to Professor Carmen, and he sent the following reply:
"With all its inaccuracies, the blog is a lot of fun and I appreciate the attention from several of my superior students. I think it's Katie who calls me a "small Jewish man." Jewish, yes; man, yes; but small?? Hey, I may be shrinking every day, yet I'm still 5 feet 9 inches soaking wet. Thanks to everyone who participates in this grand exercise. IHC"
Ira Carmen in my mind is a legend. I can't decide what was the most important part of my Illinois career, Carmen or dollar bottles. I do know that that man taught his pants off and made Con Law I and II a breeze in law school.