MA graduate John Allcock shares thoughts on studying Sociology at Carleton in the Sixties
MA graduate John Allcock recently got in touch with the Department to share his thoughts on studying Sociology at Carleton University in the 1960s.
“I came to Carleton by accident. In my final year at Leicester University I was at a loss as to what to do next. An acquaintance returning from a year in Ottawa, doing an MA in political science, was enthusiastic about his experience at Carleton. The graduate careers towards which I was being pointed seemed terminally boring. My fiancée Sheila had just qualified in librarianship, but had yet to find a job. In a spirit of adventure I applied for the newly-initiated MA in Sociology at Carleton, and was accepted. So we married, and sailed for Canada in September 1963.
The scholarship I was awarded, in return for providing tuition to first year students, was nowhere near enough for us both to live on. Sheila got a post in the library of the National Science Foundation, and we made our home in a small flat in 266 First Avenue, from where I walked to the university, often even in the winter. Canadians thought I was insane.
The newly-created Sociology Department was small, with a teaching staff of six, and as there were only six of us in their first cohort of graduate students, there was an intimate atmosphere in the place. Although we were taught by the doyen of Canadian sociology, John Porter, the head of the Department was Muni Frumhartz, who (unlike Porter) I remember for his sense of humour. Academics and students alike were kept in line by the departmental secretary, Pam Yaremko.
The topic of my thesis was the Canadian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I had been very active in the peace movement in the UK, and at Carleton as in Leicester political activity took up as much of my attention as did academic study. I remember the friendships I made through CuCaNC (the Canadian Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) with Cathie Rosenberg, Heather Sim, Kent Doe and Ian Angus.
The academic climate at Carleton was a shock to the system. My first sociology degree at Leicester (under Norbert Elias) had been heavily Euro-centric, with a good proportion of the time spent criticising the North American tradition. I realised suddenly that I was expected to take seriously the work of writers such as Talcott Parsons and George Homans. It was discovered immediately that I had never done any statistics during my BA course, and I was made to correct that omission. This was a real ordeal, as I had to tag along with majors in experimental psychology, all of whom were a great deal more numerate that I was. Additionally, I had to process the data for my thesis on the computer. Yes: THE computer. In those days the university had only one, for which there was intense competition. Because the machine didn’t work well in the heat of an Ottawa summer it was at its busiest overnight, when it was cooler. I remember checking into my slot, complete with my stack of punched cards, at 3,00 am.
I came back to Britain after only one year at Carleton, which I have sometimes regretted, but despite the shortness of my exposure to Canadian life several important experiences have stayed with me (in addition, of course, to the occasional breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup.)
My wider exposure to the work of North American sociologists was immensely valuable enabling me, in my subsequent career as a teacher of sociology, to present a far broader and nuanced view of the discipline and its history.
Acquaintance with the history of Canadian politics made me aware of the potential interest for political sociology of the North American tradition of rural radicalism. This had a major impact on my career, as I took up the study of peasantries in Eastern Europe, and particularly in Yugoslavia. The region became my dominant academic focus. My last commitment before retirement was as an advisor to the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in The Hague, and I retired in 2001 as Reader in the Sociology of South Eastern Europe.
Canada compelled me to value linguistic diversity, initially through my being asked to use my schoolboy French to translate a CCND leaflet. Following research on Emile Durkheim’s response to pragmatism, I continued to work closely with French scholars on various topics throughout my career. Consequently I always had a strong sense of science as a global venture.
The legacy of that year in Carleton has extended more widely than just my academic life. I was influenced very strongly in my understanding of religious belief and its implications by the Chief Rabbi of Canada at the time, Abraham Feinberg. He was not only a leading figure in the nuclear disarmament movement at the time, but a significant public intellectual with wide and vigorously expressed views of moral and spiritual life.
That course in statistics has also had its positive value, promoting a sharply critical view of the widespread ignorance of quantitative argument that is unfortunately commonplace among journalists and politicians.
My early retirement from academia, in order to work full-time as an artist, was reminiscent of that first impulsive decision to go to Canada. It is always possible to take a leap of faith and start again. Thanks, Carleton.”
John Allcock (MA Sociology, 1968)
