Jameson Workman ‘06

“… For thilke tyme, as I have understonde, Beestes and briddes koude speke and synge.”

That is Jameson Workman’s answer if you ask him to tell you anything that comes through his mind. They are Chaucer’s words, and Jameson knows them pretty well. The 26-year-old former AUP student is now in his first year of the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Medieval Literature at Oriel College, University of Oxford, after graduating summa cum laude in European Cultural Studies and Philosophy with a minor in Comparative Literature from AUP, a Postgraduate Certificate in Apologetics from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford in 2007, and a Master of Studies with Distinction in Medieval Literature from Oriel College, Oxford in 2008. Workman is currently working on a doctoral dissertation concerning the philosophy of poetic language with a special focus on the poetry of Chaucer. He has come a long way, yet he still has a lot to say about his first years of university education in Paris and his old institution AUP where, in addition to receiving his BA, he also picked up some “pigeon French,” what he considers an “enduring wine habit,” but also an inflamed interest for philosophy.

Workman: “I’ve nothing but the very highest regard for the originality, intellectual nimbleness, and general daring-do of AUP professors. The theoretical level achieved in AUP philosophy lectures is very high, very abstract, without losing the aesthetic impact of ideas. I’ve been in lectures rich in information and thin on inspiration, and others so decontextualised that they seemed to be sung at some pitch only audible to a few very special creatures, but I found my lectures in Paris to be a happy mix – authoritative but not intimidating, open to discussion but strong in direction, philosophically challenging but personable.”

Currently, he is reading Max Black, Paul Ricoeur, and Sheldon Sax on metaphor. Plato “always,” Descartes “when possible,” and Chesterton “makes the world turn.” Obviously, Workman is no philosophical lightweight. However, philosophy – he points out – can be a benefit to anyone, no matter how broad his theoretical knowledge or dense and intense his academic investigations. Workman: “Well, I’m not sure if philosophy will make a man more lucrative but surely nuance, belief without fiery programmatic gestures, intellectual liberality, and curiosity help to make anyone less of a bore. In that sense – the sense in which no one likes a bore – philosophy is for everyone. It is a cottage industry that can save someone from coming to a dinner table or roundtable academic discussion and being overly excited about fine and obvious points, e.g., ‘The existence of God is at once a strong and troublesome metaphysical position,’ or ‘Marx’s worth may extend beyond the Soviet project,’ etc.”

I think we may rest assured that Jameson Workman is probably not one of those special dinner guests. At least my correspondence with him was anything but boring or obvious.