It was always embarrassing when professors assigned their own books. Even Madeleine, who found all the reading hard going, could tell that Zipperstein's contribution to the field was reformulative and second-tier.
In "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides, the protagonist reflects on the discomfort of professors assigning their own books in class. This practice often comes off as self-serving, and students can feel awkward when they recognize it. Even a character like Madeleine, who struggles with the reading material, perceives that Zipperstein's work is merely a reformulation of existing ideas rather than groundbreaking. The passage suggests that there is a hierarchy in...