Good morning. David Runciman has written the cover story, “A Dream of Cambridge”, on the Jason Arday affair. The university’s place in the public imagination is as illusory as Jason Arday’s academic credentials. You can read the piece here. If you’re not subscribed, you can have two months for £2 here
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Oceans of virtual ink have been spilled about the case of Jason Arday because it was the right story at the right time to grab the maximum attention. It happened in high summer, when apart from the interminable heat there wasn’t much else going on. It unfolded in stages, which kept people interested: first the accusations of plagiarism, then the piece-by-piece unravelling of Arday’s life story in the run-up to the publication of his now absurd-seeming memoir.
Above all, though, this was Cambridge. Had Arday been exposed while still a professor at Glasgow University it would have caused a fuss, but nothing on this scale. The contrast between the augustness of the institution and the very contemporary dynamics of Arday’s downfall is what gives the tale its piquancy.
Race, class, snobbery, wokery – somehow they’re all thrown into sharper relief when the setting is that cloistered little world of ancient colleges and elite reputations, some of them now in tatters.
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