Well, most humanities at The University of Chicago. This New Yorker profile of Agnes Callard from 2023 is really about one person and her family, but also has so much of what I remember:

1. People determined to be honest, deliberate, and thoughtful about their lives.
2. Children of faculty who are in a very unusual situation, but seem happy.
3. “Night Owls” didn’t exist during my time there, but a late-night conversation series hosted by a philosophy professor sounds like something that I, and many others, would have loved.
4. Minimal acknowledgement that one’s intense self-examination and experience may not be generalizable.
5. Or maybe I mean something that feels like a strange combination of curiosity and insularity?
6. Mental health diagnosis.
7. The strong and often-indulged impulse to philosophical discussion.
8. Horny professors.
9. The kind of restless, striving determination that creates CEOs and political leaders, but applied to something conceptual and niche.
10. An figure who is both a dedicated and recognized theoretician in their academic field, as well as the subject of (what sounds like) a kind of gossipy celebrity culture on campus.

It was not a surprise to learn that Dr Callard was also an undergraduate in Hyde Park (before my time). She sounds like the kind of frustrating and exhausting person to be around that I’ll admit I sometimes miss having in my life.