Marina van Zuylen, author: We spend our lives acting for others'

"Academic and writer Marina van Zuylen, who holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard, left Columbia to devote herself to an unusual project: Bard College's Clemente Course in the Humanities, which offers free humanities courses that can later be converted into college credits. She taught there voluntarily for 25 years, until a philanthropist decided to fund the initiative and turn her commitment into a professorship. This is a clear example that Van Zuylen's priority is not personal recognition."

"A recurring theme in your books is the culture of self-demand. Answer. I decided to write Monomania because many of my colleagues, professors at the most important universities in the U.S., remained dissatisfied despite having achieved great things in their careers. It's a topic that worries me. With that mentality, you never feel like you're enough, and you live in a constant state of alert."

Marina van Zuylen left Columbia to devote herself to Bard College's Clemente Course in the Humanities, offering free humanities courses convertible into college credits. She taught there voluntarily for 25 years until philanthropic funding turned her commitment into a professorship. Her research explores fatigue, boredom, distraction, difference, and the golden mean as legitimate forms of knowledge and resistance to productivity. Two recent books are The Plenitude of Distraction and Monomania: The Flight from Everyday Life in Literature and Art. She exudes warmth described by her son as aggressive hospitality and is widely praised by students as an exceptional teacher. A recurring concern is the culture of self-demand and perpetual dissatisfaction among academics.

Read at english.elpais.com