Ciao, Professore!

Living in Bologna, Italy and teaching at L’Università di Bologna is still one of my fondest memories. I had finally arrived on the scene, or so it felt like that. I will never forget being introduced by my Joycean mentor there, Rosa Maria Bosinelli, one of the greatest mentors of young Joyceans to have played the role. Always gracious to the nth degree, when I first visited the Forlì campus, which is where I would teach for a year and a half (commuting from Castiglione Fiorentino part of the time), she introduced me as “Professore Fulton.” Ciao!

It was a heady time. I had been teaching for several years prior at The University of Texas at Austin, my alma mater, but now I was teaching the alma mater studiorum. Not bad for a kid who had dropped out of college a bit more than a decade before. But, while at UT, I was not allowed to be called “professor,” because I was primarily hired as an Academic Advisor, and my superiors did not cotton to the fact that the students were beginning to see me as their potential equals. I was told more than once to be aware of my “place,” so the furthest I got was a compromise of “Dr. Rob” by the those fun-loving rugrats of the Liberal Arts Honors Programs. But, that is neither here nor there, I was now “Professore.”

That was not the main reason why I have such fondness for the time there, but it was part of it. It was a sign that I had graduated from being post-doc to being doc. Moreover, it was based upon who I was, not from anyone I knew that was helping me along, and that can be an important feeling in life. Rosa Maria had believed in me as me, and that was priceless.

Once I learned how to interact with the Italian students and had sufficiently convince them that I actually do not have a Texas accent, the rest was the sheer joy of teaching.

But, what for me was most important about living in Bologna was that it was the first time that I was living in a country where I had to learn to survive in a language that was not my own without the constant aid of a native speaker as had been the case in Belgium. In Italy, we were both stranieri and had to learn the ropes as such. In Forlì I found my groove and had my haunts and coffee shops and lunch spots. I really felt that I was making it there as a foreigner. I was well aware that one will always be a straniero in Italy if not from there originally, but at least I was getting the support and acknowledgment from the locals that I was making an effort. I was drinking my morning espresso and eating my paste with them.

It was a major transition for me as a teacher and within academics. Because of Rosa Maria’s help, I was able to publish my book on James Joyce and to attend several conferences as a visiting scholar of interest. Unfortunately, as it was merely a visiting appointment and we had obligations to go to in Castiglione Fiorentino, it came to an end and things have a natural tendency to do. I was no longer “Professore” and by the time we got to CF, I was back to being Dr. Rob as we were teaching for a UT Study Abroad program. I was just “Rob” again, humbled back several years, and for the most part, I had to tell people that I really did teach at Bologna. It was a blow to the ego, which I did not always handle well, but in hindsight, I now see the significance. We can change from the inside, but if our environment is unwilling to see that change, than there is often nothing we can do, but wait out the course of Time.

While checking some stats on my blogs, I noticed that someone had typed in “professore fulton forlì” for a search on this blog, so perhaps to some people still out there, I am indeed still “Professore Fulton.”

Ciao!