Meet Master Eduardo Cadava

In July 2009, Eduardo Cadava, a Professor of English at Princeton for 20 years, assumed the role of Master of Wilson College from Marguerite Browning.  A prolific writer and an outstanding teacher, Master Cadava has been deeply involved with the residential colleges since arriving at the University. He spent several years as a Resident Faculty member in Wilson College, after which he served as Senior Faculty Fellow at Forbes College. There's plenty more to be said about Master Cadava's impressive credentials (which are summarized in this memo from the University), but we thought you might appreciate a more personal view of the new head of Wilson College. So get to know him through his own words--what follows is an interview of Master Cadava and his very thorough responses. Enjoy! 
--Diya Das and Briana Wilkins, Communications Co-Chairs, WCC

Eduardo Cadava: Diya and Briana, thank you for your questions.  I’m delighted to have this little chance to begin to introduce myself to you and to the rest of the Wilson Community.  My becoming Master of the College all happened very quickly, and I was very moved, honored, and happy to be asked by Nancy Malkiel [Dean of the College] to take on the position.  I always have enjoyed my affiliations with Wilson College and Forbes College, especially because they have enabled me to have a different relation to the University and, more importantly, because of all the students that I have had the pleasure of meeting and learning from in this more informal setting.

I look forward to working with the vibrant and diverse community at Wilson—its wonderfully devoted staff, its residential college advisers, its faculty fellows, and its upper-class and graduate fellows—and to the opportunity to meet the students who make Wilson their home, and with whom I hope to collaborate in order to continue to enhance the relations among residential, social, and academic life.  I see this as a great chance to help students take advantage of everything that Princeton has to offer, and I am eager to see what we can invent together. 

WCC: What's your favorite part of Wilson?

EC: There are many things I like about Wilson and, indeed, I was especially happy to be invited to serve at Wilson College in particular.  I began my association with the residential colleges here as a residential faculty fellow in the early 90s, when my dear friend and colleague, John Fleming, was the Master of Wilson, so I have a sentimental attachment to it.  I also have known and admired Maggie Browning, the former Master of Wilson, for many years, so it’s nice to inherit the position from her.  I'm hoping I can carry forward the grace, commitment, creativity, and openness that have been the signature of their leadership.  I also have to say that I like the history of Wilson College, not only because it was the first residential college, but because it was initiated by students as an alternative to the [eating] clubs and as a means of creating a social space in which students could feel free to be who they are.  I want to think that it can continue to be a place where ideas and activities for building community can begin with its students.

WCC: What are your favorite classes at Princeton (to teach and to sit in on)?

EC: I am trained in literature and philosophy, but increasingly my work and teaching have touched on the relation between these disciplines and the fields of history, politics, and ethics.  Although I enjoy teaching all of my classes, I think I especially like teaching a course I do for the European Cultural Studies Program on “Literature and Photography,” in which we read nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and philosophy that turns to metaphors drawn from photography in order to talk about memory and perception (so the course is, among other things, a course on what it means to remember or see things) and a course I have taught in the Freshman Seminar Program on “The Ethics of Friendship” (this course is particularly fun, since many freshman feel that, on entering the university, they are in a situation in which they are losing old friends and making new ones and they very much want to think about friendship: what its relation to love might be, whether or not there can be secrets between friends, whether men and women can be friends, whether we become friends with people who are like us or different from us, etc.).  I also have enjoyed my experiences in team-teaching.  I team-taught a course with Professor John Fleming at Wilson College, for example, in the 90s during the Columbiad.  The course was entitled “Europeans, Africans, and Americans in the Age of Discovery” and, since the course coincided with an exhibition at the Library of Congress that Professor Fleming had co-curated, it also included a visit to D.C. to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the exhibition.  I also team-taught a wildly enjoyable course with Professor Cornel West on Emerson, in which we spent the semester reading many of Emerson’s essays and lectures and putting them in relation to essays by Emerson’s contemporaries (including texts by Thomas Paine, Daniel Webster, and Frederick Douglass) in order to measure and evaluate his stances on issues of race, manifest destiny, democracy, and freedom. 

WCC: What's your favorite food/cuisine?

EC: I like this question!  You know how there are many people who say they eat everything, but they don’t.  I actually do.  I love to eat, and I love trying new and different cuisines.  I’m presently in Greece, where I eat a lot of fish and fresh vegetables, but I was in Barcelona before coming here, where I ate a wonderful melon soup and a great Catalonian crème brulée.  In general, though, I would say that I very much enjoy Japanese food, and almost anything that is thoughtfully and lovingly prepared.

WCC: What's your favorite song?

EC: When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I played guitar in a punk band called “No Requests” (our by-line was that “we wouldn’t do them, even if we knew them!”).  During this time, I particularly liked King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and many small, scarcely known British bands such as String-Driven Thing and Gentle Giant (yes, very obscure bands, I know!).  Over the years, I also have liked Public Enemy, U-2, REM, Garbage, and No Doubt.  I increasingly like world music sung by female performers and here I would mention Savina Yannatou and Maria Farantouri (from Greece), Margarita Zorballa (from Greece and Russia), Lhasa (from Canada and Mexico), Chavela Vargas and Lila Downs (from Mexico), Amanda Rodriquez (from Portugal), and Mercedes Sosa (from Argentina).  There are many others, of course, but these come to mind first.  As for my favorite song, this is very difficult.  Perhaps I can simply say that I’m moved by beautiful music that, in one way or another, speaks to me, resonates with me, and touches on the ruins and joys of life and love.

WCC: What's the best book you've read?

EC: This is another difficult question to answer, especially for someone who has been reading literature for many decades and, in particular, literature from many countries.  I think we live in an amazing time, when wonderful literature is being written all around the world.  Still, I must say that I love Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!  I think it is one of the most moving, articulate, and strong reflections on the conflicts and struggles that have informed and haunted our country.  To mention a few other books that I love and which belong to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (and which I hope I can encourage Wilson students to love, too!), I like the writings of the French writer, Marcel Proust, the French-Algerian writer, Assia Djebar, the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, the Czech writer, Franz Kafka, the American writers, Cormac McCarthy and (our own) Toni Morrison, the Argentinean novelist, Alan Pauls, the Greek poet, Yannis Ritsos, and the Romanian-German poet, Paul Celan.  As someone who also has spent much of his last thirty years reading Emerson, I have to say that I love his writings, too.  As you can see, this is a dangerous question to ask me!  There are many other writers I could mention here, too, but I hope that this list can help give you a sense of the kinds of book I like to read.

WCC: What's the best movie you've seen? 

EC: Since here, too, my list would be very long, perhaps I can restrict myself to movies made within the last decade, since they also might be more easily recognized.  I think Lars von Triers’ Dogville is an amazing movie (it stars Nicole Kidman in a rather unusual role), since it seems to me a rather biting exposé of the complicities that often exist between seemingly different political positions.  I also liked the Korean Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy, which is perhaps one of the most exquisite revenge films I’ve ever seen (but, because of this—however Shakespearean it may be—it is sometimes difficult to watch).  I also think that, on the American front, I have liked Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog, Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Todd Solontz’s Happiness, Fernando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener, Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, and the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men (although I love all their movies).  This is a fairly random list, though, and I’m sure there are many, many other films I could mention (and which I immediately will remember as soon as I finish this little interview!), since I love seeing and thinking about movies and, indeed, I see many of them.

WCC: What's your favorite sport?

EC: I played baseball when I was a teenager in Panama and I continued in high school in Arizona, so I think I would say that I enjoy baseball very much.  Although I haven’t kept up with the sport for some years now, there was a very long period when I was obsessed with batting averages, earned-run averages, and all sorts of baseball trivia.  I particularly liked learning about some of the more famous historical figures within baseball’s history, including Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, and, later, Rod Carew (who was born in Panama), Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, and Carl Yazstremski, although I know that these names already date me in some way.

WCC: What's your favorite place in Princeton (campus and/or town)?

EC: I’ve lived in Princeton since 1989, so this is my twentieth year here (although I have shared my time between Princeton and New York since 1994).  There are many places I like in Princeton, or near Princeton.  In Princeton itself, I love walking on the campus, which I still believe is one of the most beautiful campuses I know.  I like the gardens behind Prospect House and the lawn behind Nassau Hall.  I also like Pyne Hall and the Firestone Library.  In Princeton proper, I like Palmer Square (and, in it, Bent Spoon!) and the Small World Café.  In the nearby areas, I like going to Terhune Orchards, which is about a ten-minute drive from town and, a little further, I like going to Lambertville and Frenchtown, which are along the border between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, next to the Delaware River.

WCC: What's your favorite place in the world?

EC: I do a lot of traveling to give lectures and readings and, in the last three years, I have been to, among other places, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, China, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Canada.  I love discovering and exploring new places.  As for sheer beauty, however, I think I would have to say that Oia, the old capital of the Greek island, Santorini, is perhaps the most breathtaking and gorgeous place I have seen.  The island took its present form in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and so many of the houses are built into the “caldera,” the hills that form part of the crater left from the explosion. It’s very well-preserved and, because it’s a historical city, there are restrictions on what can be built in it and so it has maintained a strong and visible relation to its past.  It’s really a stunning place and the views of the sunset from the edge of the city are truly spectacular!

WCC: What are some of your hobbies?

EC: These are probably legible from what I’ve already said, but, in the little spare time that I have (I don’t have a lot of it), I like to read, to listen to music, to travel, to write, and to spend time with my family and friends.  I know that my answer here assumes a relation between one’s passions and one’s “hobbies,” but I suspect that hobbies can be, among other things, good signs of someone’s passions.  At least in regard to me, they are. 

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I thank you both for your questions and I hope that these brief answers at least can begin to introduce me to you and to everyone else who forms part of our Wilson community.  I look forward to meeting everyone and I’ll see you soon after I return from my summer travels!

Best Wishes,

Eduardo Cadava