Photograph of Commencement Speaker Robert Lowell: Graduation as a Tradition and Custom

During my time with Liv and Julián with the Archives and Special Collections this past Tuesday, we individually and quietly sorted through each of the boxes holding archives of different notable Kenyon alumni and professors. Most of the artifacts we had come across were old documents, letters, photos and photo negatives, books, and other forms of writing. Though we all kept to ourselves as we leafed through the objects, every couple of minutes or so we would present something we found to our other group mates that sparked particular interest. For example, Julián was fascinated by an old Kenyon Alumni magazine discussing Josh Radnor’s involvement on campus, and this led us down a rabbit hole discussing the movie Liberal Arts that he directed on campus. A woman working in the archives even began to chime in filling us in on secrets about the movie and filming process. I personally spent a lot of my time sifting through Robert Lowell’s archives, and many of the artifacts I found made me evaluate the things at Kenyon that have either stayed the same or changed over the years. For example, when sharing his college application with my group mates, we began comparing our own college experience to that of Lowell’s and discussing how the process has changed and become much more intricate as time has gone on. On the other hand, I was also drawn to artifacts that showed what has persisted throughout history and still stands today. In finding an image of Lowell as the commencement speaker at the 1989 graduation, I realized that the image could have been taken at virtually any Kenyon graduation. Looking at this photo after attending last year’s graduation for my older brother, I recognized the same robes that I saw across the stage. Though graduation is not an experience exclusive to Kenyon, in thinking about some of our readings this week, I’ve been brought back to this photo, thinking more deeply about how Kenyon has tied their own traditions to graduation and made the day so constant throughout time.

In “Introduction: Inventing Traditions”, Eric Hobsbawm makes the argument that a distinction must be made between tradition and custom. He uses the term “invented tradition”, and he defines this as something that is meant to connect the present to a continuous past through promoting “certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition.” (Hobsbawm 271: 2011) In other words, the basis of a tradition is the values held by society or a certain group, and it is meant to solidify such values into a repeated moment or ritual. In a way, tradition can bring structure to a changing world, and even when the world and innovations may be modernizing, a tradition can be a reminder of where society has come from and how, though changing in many ways, they are still the same in other ways. Traditions, however, are different from customs according to Hobsbawm. He claims that holding a tradition is not necessarily the same as living in a traditionalist society, and he argues that customs are much more integral to a traditionalist society. A custom is something that is “technical rather than ideological”, and while tradition is not flexible with the changing times, a custom is. (Hobsbawm 272: 2011) Though customs are similar to traditions in the way that they occur continuously, a custom will not necessarily happen in the same way every time. Even further, such repetitions of customs are not necessarily consciously done.

A Kenyon graduation can easily be thought of in the context of Hobsbawm’s argument, and one can discern which elements of it may be tradition, and which parts are custom. Based on his definition of custom, I believe that the graduation itself is considered custom in the way that it serves a technical purpose. Many jobs require a college degree, and graduation holds the purpose of giving graduates this important piece of paper. Kenyon graduations can also be quite flexible. For instance, if it rains, it will be held in the Lowry Center. A change in the custom such as this does not take away from the meaning of the ceremony itself. Kenyon's graduation, however, is also filled with traditions in many ways. As I mentioned before, in this photo we see Lowell and Allan Tate dressed in robes and other accessories such as Tate’s hat. Though I do not know what their specific robes signify, we know that they do have significance and can tell us something about their role in the ceremony. Thinking about Hobsbawm’s discussion of tradition, we know that these robes serve no real purpose. Such robes have been worn throughout the history of Kenyon graduations, and the intent of such details is simply to connect the day to graduations of the past and make it feel more grand. When thinking about this photo and its subject in the context of our group’s case topic, notable people, it becomes more challenging to decide whether or not the speaker of graduation would be considered a custom or a tradition. In one way, we might find flexibility in the speaker. While in 1989, Lowell was the speaker of the commencement, this person changes every year. We might understand this flexibility as a way to set a different tone in the ceremony based on what feels currently important to that class or is currently going on in the world. However, one could also argue that it is tradition to choose a new speaker each year. Though the speaker changes, the actual act of having a speaker is constant, and it is a way for a notable person’s ideas and speech to exemplify the values of the college.

References

Hobsbawm, Eric. 2011. “Introduction: Inventing Traditions.” Pp. 271-274 in The Collective Memory Reader, edited by D. Levy, V. Vinitzky-Seroussi, and J. K. Olick. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.