By PALASH MAMTANEY, ELLIOT AVE-LALLEMANT and DEMIR KASAPOĞLU
Robert LaFleur, as he describes himself, is a “humble North Dakota boy,” moving around the Midwest until settling down in Madison as a preteen. Rob is a professor of Anthropology and History at Beloit College. He has been at Beloit since 1997, but is currently on sabbatical for an indefinite period of time.
Despite his professional specialty in East Asia, specifically China, Rob claims that he thought about China exactly twice in his childhood: first when his grandfather warned him that he’d dig all the way to China when digging at the beach, secondly in fourth grade when a substitute teacher who was rambling about nonsense turned around and pointed at Rob and asked who the leader of China was. “I’m like the student 101, how can I buy time?,” Rob remembered. “‘You mean like…now?’ and [the substitute] goes, ‘Right, Mao!’”
He started his higher education from University of Minnesota, where he stayed for a year before transferring to Carleton College to complete his undergraduate degree in (you guessed it) Anthropology and History. Rob said he transferred to Carleton to prove to his former girlfriend that he was smarter than her (in a friendly competition way of course). In Carleton, he was obsessed with African History and Studies.
His original plan was to go to the University of Chicago for PhD to study African Studies, and to learn an African language over the summer, but he was “tricked” into learning Chinese at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He told us that one of his professors told him to learn Chinese just for the linguistic benefit, but eventually fell in love with the culture and history of China. He said, “I knew I was getting tricked, I knew I was getting sucked in.”
Going to University of British Columbia for a summer class in beginner Chinese, he was placed with a group of students who had a mix of experiences in Chinese language. “I [was] the only person in the entire residence hall.” When asked why, he responded with, “I have a bigger why for you, why do you put [me] in the basement?” He described his experience, saying, “I’m miserable, I don’t know any Chinese, and so for 10 days I started smoking.”
In 1997 Rob came to Beloit after spending four years as a visiting assistant professor at Colby College. “I really enjoyed it,” he recalled. “For some reason I acted like I was on tenure track, with the freedom of being able to ask questions that I would never dare ask if they were deciding on my future. I would go up to a professor and say, ‘Why is everyone so miserable here?’”
From his experience at Colby College he realized that Beloit doesn’t restrict tenure and being a professor to those who achieve certain qualities like publishing a book. “So I just keep telling everyone from Gregory [Koutnik] to every newer professor, I tell this story, and we do it cause we love it here, let’s not break it. We’re one of the few places that hasn’t broken ‘it’ — ‘it’ being the soul and passion when it comes to teaching.”
He sees Beloit as a place that brings an advantage to professors; teaching at a small college, professors have more opportunities to branch out from their studies. “I could never have done all the projects I’ve done and have been doing if I were at a major university, they would be telling me to stay in my lane.”
Rob goes to China to study mountains. He has been fascinated by the works of Marcel Granet, who he is translating and hopes to publish those translations next year. Studying traditional Chinese culture led Rob to the eastern mountains, a popular spot in China. When he climbed it for the first time, he instantly fell in love with it.
Rob recounts that he spent 150 days on the eastern mountains alone in 2007, but had to leave to teach a class. He realized that there were four other mountains in China to study, and Rob spent the next few days in the central part of China. The following winter break, he went back to continue his study of the mountains, spending every bit of free time he had on the mountains.
He’s currently working on a pentalogy on five different mountains in China. He wants to return to teaching but “the books don’t write themselves.” When writing, one of his wishes is to give that classroom vibe across his books. He is truly passionate about being in a classroom, teaching and learning with others about the things he loves. He told us that one faculty member he spoke to said, “‘you still have a lot of boy in you, don’t you?’ Teaching is a part of what keeps that going, and I don’t want to lose that.”
We asked him what advice he would give to students who look up to him. “Have fun,” he told us, “there is no reason this all has to be a slog, there is stuff you have to do that is not all fun, but never lose the joy.” We asked him to give us a quote that he lives by, he said “Plan to live a joyful life, life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”
We truly believe that Robert LaFleur is one of the professors who left a great impact on our lives and how we think. His teachings made us redefine life as we know it. Robert, we will miss you dearly and we hope that we cross paths again before we graduate, because you truly are the GOAT.
[PS: we are excited to buy copies of of your books and read about your adventures “all under heaven”]
Featured image: Saumyaa Desai’28
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