Generalist's Elysium

The oddest graduate school in the U.S. is a far-out arm of the University of Chicago called the Committee on Social Thought. Physically, it is a dingy office under the eaves of the social science building. Its faculty, which includes Novelist Saul Bellow and Political Scientist Hannah Arendt, numbers only eleven. But its goal is as big as the world. While other graduate schools atomize knowledge, this one aims toward "a unification of knowledge and a revealing of the human being as a whole."

The committee is a generalist's elysium, a haven for "eccentrics" commanded to "think in new areas." If they do, the school gives them the degree of Doctor of Social Thought. The committee vaguely counts "somewhere between 20 and 25 students" on the campus; others are loose in Europe ("We hope they're working"). The motto is "freedom," and the result is one of the world's liveliest intellectual experiences.

Back in 1942, when Chicago's physicists were brewing atomic energy in the squash courts under the football stands, Chancellor Robert Hutchins and three top scholars proclaimed themselves "the Committee on Civilization" and set out to found a graduate program in "interrelation." Anthropologist Robert Redfield changed "Civilization" to "Social Thought," explaining: "I haven't the slightest idea what it means, but I think I can get it set up under that title."

Unified Knowledge. According to Chicago's catalogue, social thought now is "understood to refer to the ideas concerning the intellectual and moral foundations of society." According to Economist-Historian John U. Nef, 64, the committee's co-founder chairman, the aim is to combat the kind of blind specialization that an Oxford don once illustrated by boasting: "At last I have written a really good book. Not only will nobody read it. Nobody can read it."

To earn a degree in social thought, students must prove that ordinary graduate work is too narrow for the "unifying" idea that consumes them. Any field is legitimate, including art, poetry or music. Without blinking, the committee has, for example, taken on explorers of innocence in 19th century America, Islamic dissenters in the Middle Ages, Chinese intellectuals and the West, and "the theory of self-love" in economics.

To handle such versatility, the faculty itself is a sort of vest-pocket university. Friedrich Hayek, the non-Keynesian economist, was a longtime regular. Hannah Arendt, a recent catch, is a famed expert on totalitarianism. Novelist Bellow is there, he says, because of his "interest in social questions. I like to keep in touch."

Others include Mathematician Marshall Stone, son of the late Chief Justice, and Arabist Marshall Hodgson, author of The Assassins. James Redfield, son of the founder, is a classicist with a bent for cultural anthropology. Mircea Eliade is a professor of the history of religions, a Jungian psychologist, a novelist in Rumanian, and the envy of his students for being able to "drink whisky all night and never drop a line of conversation."

To balance their own ideas, students first spend a chastening year or more mastering the similar ideas ("fundamentals") of such great thinkers as Plato, Marx, Tolstoy and Shakespeare. Tutors supervise the work, which is often livened by such guest lecturers as T. S. Eliot, Andre Malraux, Marc Chagall and Jacques Maritain. To check doctoral theses for accuracy, the committee calls in outside scholars who know the field. To combat jargon, "lay readers" with no expertise make sure that all theses are "interesting and comprehensible to any cultivated person."

Self-Starting Students. "I don't think I would be allowed to study what I want like this anywhere else," says Micaela Szekely, a charming exchange student from the University of Paris, with degrees in philosophy and political science. Student Szekely, who aims to chart the links between politics and literature in 19th century England, is leery of simple generalization, but says: "This is different. Here you must know something before you can cross the lines; you must have the background. It is hard, but it is done right."

The committee has a heavy dropout rate: 50%. But survivors have done well. Bradley Patterson Jr., the first committee student, is now executive director of the Peace Corps. Most others teach, in fields from science history to political philosophy, at schools from M.I.T. to Cornell. On the committee itself are two alumni, Arabist Hodgson and Classicist Redfield.

"We're looking for a student who theoretically should exist in every department," says Classicist David Grene. "I don't think we get better students than the departments, but we get fewer bad, dull ones. The onus of the work is on the student. He must teach himself."

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