Gilmour back teaching at U of T
Author caused uproar by saying he had no interest in female or minority writers
After ruffling feathers last year with comments that were called homophobic, racist and sexist, David Gilmour is back at the University of Toronto — and he’s added one female writer to his courses on white male authors.
The university confirmed Gilmour is teaching a third-year seminar on modern fiction and a creative-writing course on writing novels, though it would not say whether the authors to be studied include any women or visible minorities.
Weekly schedules for Gilmour’s two elective courses, however, appear on the university website. While one mentions reading Virginia Woolf, her work is not included in the required readings nor as a topic for any class. The only woman included in either course is Lorrie Moore, who shares a single class with David Bezmozgis.
Last September, students and fac- ulty at Victoria College held protests and vented their outrage online after Gilmour was quoted in an interview saying he’s “not interested in teaching books by women. “I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys,” he told the online literary magazine Hazlitt. “Very serious heterosexual guys. Elmore Leonard. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy guys. “When I was given this job I said I would teach only the people that I truly, truly love. And, unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Um. Except for Virginia Woolf,” he said. Gilmour, an award-winning author and prominent film critic, has been teaching part-time at U of T since 2007, though he has never earned a PhD. His interview sparked a fierce debate between those who saw Gilmour as ignorant and narrow-minded and those who sought to defend his academic freedom. Some students and faculty decried his comments, saying teaching literature is more than just talking about authors you like. “David Gilmour does not talk or think like a professor of literature,” wrote U of T English professor Holger Symeon his blog. “Good teaching requires empathy — an effort to understand things, ideas, and people totally unlike you.” Others, including the principal of Victoria College and Margaret Atwood, defended his right to voice his opinion. Until last week, Gilmour was listed as the Pelham Edgar Professor on the Victoria University website. After the Star asked how he could still hold the one-year post seven years after he first got it, the university changed his title to “lecturer” and explained that the current Pelham Edgar Professor is Camilla Gibb. The university would not respond to questions on Gilmour’s contract renewal or whether last year’s controversy had resulted in any sanc- tions or policy changes, saying these details were confidential. Gilmour could not be reached by email or telephone before deadline. In an interview with the Star last fall, Gilmour said he stood behind his words.
“My only point is that I tend to teach people whose lives are close to my own,” he said. “I’m an old guy and I understand about old guys.”
He went on to apologize to students and the university.
“I’m certainly sorry of the mess that this has caused. It’s not the first time I’ve used words carelessly, and as a writer it’s probably not going to be the last time,” he said.
He explained that the comment about only teaching heterosexual guys, however, was said in jest.
“Unless a university professor has no brain at all, they’re not going to talk about the superiority of teaching heterosexual guys over other human beings. It was a joke,” he said.
He pointed out that he teaches well-known gay writer Truman Capote in his classes. Capote is mentioned as an author that will be studied in Gilmour’s third-year seminar, called Love, Sex and Death in Short Fiction.