Noam Chomsky in SBU Linguistics graduate seminar meeting

Having to teach entirely online the second half of the Spring 2020 semester posed great challenges for all of us, but it also provided unexpected opportunities. Mark Aronoff and Richard Larson co-taught a graduate seminar centered on one of Noam Chomsky’s most important articles, Remarks on Nominalization, published in 1970. Both had worked with Chomsky in the MIT Linguistics Department before coming to Stony Brook, Aronoff as a Ph. D. student and Larson as a faculty member. Chomsky had agreed early on to participate remotely at some point in the semester, but the COVID-19 pandemic placed great demands on his time. At the age of 91, many Americans still look to him for his insights on political developments of all sorts, and the politics of this crisis has proven to be no exception.

Chomsky agreed to participate in the final meeting of the seminar. We opened the Zoom meeting at 2:30 on a Wednesday and the screen quickly filled with familiar Stony Brook faces, with one exception, a gentleman with an unfamiliar name. It took a moment to realize that it was Noam Chomsky, appearing under a pseudonym as a caution against zoombombing. He spoke for over an hour, placing the article in its historical context and discussing its relation to the current state of the field, which he continues to shape today.

A little while after he had signed off, Chomsky sent a note: “Just want to say how much I appreciated the seminar. The kind of occasion I really miss.” He was thanking us! A truly remarkable moment for all, and especially for the 25 or so Stony Brook graduate students who had just had the experience of a lifetime.