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Distributed coordination function

Distributed coordination function (DCF) is the fundamental medium access control (MAC) technique of the IEEE 802.11-based WLAN standard (including Wi-Fi). DCF employs a carrier-sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) with the binary exponential backoff algorithm.

DCF requires a station wishing to transmit to listen for the channel status for a DIFS interval. If the channel is found busy during the DIFS interval, the station defers its transmission. In a network where a number of stations contend for the wireless medium, if multiple stations sense the channel busy and defer their access, they will also virtually simultaneously find that the channel is released and then try to seize the channel. As a result, collisions may occur. In order to avoid such collisions, DCF also specifies random backoff, which forces a station to defer its access to the channel for an extra period. The length of the backoff period is determined by the following equation:

$$\mathrm{Backoff Time} = \mathrm{random} \times \mathrm{aSlotTime}$$

A few features about DCF:

 * has an optional virtual carrier sense mechanism that exchanges short Request-to-send (RTS) and Clear-to-send (CTS) frames between source and destination stations during the intervals between the data frame transmissions;
 * includes a positive acknowledge scheme, which means that if a frame is successfully received by the destination it is addressed to, the destination needs to send an ACK frame to notify the source of the successful reception;
 * it does not solve the hidden node and/or exposed terminal problem completely, it only alleviates the problem through the use of RTS and CTS, and recommends the use of a larger carrier sensing range;
 * it is defined in the IEEE 802.11 standard and is the de facto default setting for Wi-Fi hardware.

802.11 DCF consumes a significant amount of airtime, 802.11 control messages usually convey very little information. For example, an ACK message can take up to 60 μs to transmit completely, which includes an amount of airtime sufficient to transmit 3240 bits at 54 Mbit/s, during which it conveys a single bit of relevant information.

The IEEE 802.11 standard also defines an optional access method using a point coordination function (PCF). PCF allows the access point acting as the network coordinator to manage channel access. The IEEE 802.11e amendment to the standard enhances the DCF and the PCF, through a new coordination function called Hybrid Coordination Function (HCF).

title: Distributed coordination function


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West Island

The West Island (l'Ouest de l'île) is the unofficial name given to the city, towns and boroughs at the western end of the Island of Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. It is generally considered to consist of the Lakeshore municipalities of Lachine (specifically the Western Lachine area, also known as Dixie and later Summerlea),Dorval, Pointe-Claire, and Beaconsfield, the municipalities of Kirkland, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Baie-D'Urfé, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, the village of Senneville, and two North Shore boroughs of the city of Montreal: Pierrefonds-Roxboro and L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève.

Historically, there was a linguistic division of the island of Montreal into French and English 'halves', with Francophones typically inhabiting the eastern portion of the island and Anglophones typically inhabiting the western half. The West Island's population is approximately 238,000 and although the overwhelming majority of its residents are today bilingual if not multi-lingual (given the cosmopolitan nature of this vast suburban area), anglophones still make up a plurality of the West Island's population. As late as the 1960s, much of the West Island was farmland populated by French Canadians, which in turn accounts for a significant Francophone cultural influence in the region.

The region is home to the Montréal–Trudeau International Airport, John Abbott College, Cégep Gérald-Godin, the Macdonald Campus of McGill University, the Fairview Pointe-Claire and Galeries des Sources malls, as well as Montreal's largest park, the Cap-Saint-Jacques Nature Park. Hospitals include the Veteran's Hospital in Sainte-Anne's and the Lakeshore General Hospital in Pointe-Claire. Municipalities range in character from the modern bedroom communities of Kirkland or Dollard-des-Ormeaux to the former cottage-country homes of Dorval, Pointe Claire and Beaconsfield. Development and the concentration of industrial activity along highways 20, 40 and 13 over the last twenty years has made securing the region's remaining tracts of open land a priority for many West Island residents. The West Island is home to one of the last large remaining tracts of Montreal-region wilderness on island.

Pre-contact, colonial and agricultural eras
The history of human settlement in the West Island of Montréal likely predated European colonization which began in the early to mid 17th century, but little is known of the history of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians who inhabited the island in the pre-colonial era. Indeed, between Cartier's first contact in 1535–1536 and the arrival of Champlain in 1608, the local Iroquoians had completely disappeared, most probably from near-constant warfare with other neighbouring Iroquois tribes, particularly the Mohawk. The West Island may have had areas of regular human habitation as the history of human settlement in Montreal goes back at least as far as 8,000 years.

European colonization led to the establishment of parishes and small trading outposts along a Chemin du Roy laid out in the 17th century that corresponds more or less directly with the Gouin & Lakeshore boulevards of today. Lachine, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Sainte-Genevieve and Pointe-Claire developed in a more or less interconnected fashion as colonial outposts spread out along the edge of the island. During the Ancien Régime of the early colonial era, these communities had their own parish churches, many of which still exist. In addition to the churches and rectories, religious orders of various types had set up monasteries and convents, novitiates and the like throughout the West Island, given its proximity to Ville-Marie. Seigneurial system land divisions and the development of the 'montée & rang' main road system allowed for the development of a vast agricultural territory, protected by forts, seigneurial manor houses and the geographic advantages of being on a densely forested island. Though much of the West Island is today a vast low-density modern suburban development, most of the principal roads were developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, inasmuch as land division follows examples common to the Ancien Régime. Moreover, the West Island has a small number of critical 18th century heritage properties, in addition to parish churches, summer villas, windmills and the remnants of Fort Senneville, constituting the principle remnants from the early and middle colonial period in this area. Other important heritage properties include the numerous 19th century summer homes, farm houses and the turn of the century villages in Pointe-Claire, Saint-Anne's or Sainte-Genevieve. A key element of local architecture, as noted by author-historian Jean-Claude Marsan, is that the Habitant house-style of the 17th century proved so reliable, affordable and aesthetically pleasing it was repeated well into the 20th century with few major structural modifications. Houses of this kind can be found throughout the region.

Two seigneuries were founded on land that is now part of the West Island:
 * 1678, Seigneurie de l'Île-Bizard (b)
 * 1636, Seigneurie de l'Île-de-Montréal (c)

This led to the creation of the first three parishes:
 * 1703, Sainte-Anne-du-Bout-de-l'Île
 * 1713, Saint-Joachim-de-la-Pointe-Claire
 * 1741, Sainte-Geneviève-de-Pierrefonds

In 1672, the seigneurie de l'Île-Perrot was founded, which is now part of the Off-Island region.

Key early settlements leading up to the major post-war suburban developments include:

Dorval, founded between 1665–1667 as a Sulpician mission, became a village in 1892, a town in 1903 and a city in 1956. Its development came largely in 1855 when the Grand Trunk Railroad established a station at Dorval, leading the hamlet to develop into a summer retreat for wealthy early-Victorian Era Montreal elites. Later, through the start of the century until the Second World War, the village became a town well known for its beaches on Lake Saint-Louis.

Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, first explored and settled between 1663 and 1712, though widely used by Iroquois and Algonquins for hundreds if not thousands of years before contact, due to its strategic importance at the confluence of the Ottawa and Saint Lawrence rivers and at the western tip of the Island of Montreal. A mission was established at the present site of the Baie-D'Urfé Yacht Club in 1663, while Fort Senneville was developed beginning in 1671. A post office was established in 1835 while the Saint Anne Canal was established in 1843. Train service on the Grand Trunk began in 1854, and the village was first incorporated a year later. Though the village had been principally oriented on parish activities and agriculture throughout the 19th century, the early 20th century saw the development of Macdonald College in 1907, the creation of Gardenvale and the Harpell/Garden City Print Company, an important industrial cooperative, in addition to the Veterans Hospital in 1917.

Early 21st century: merger and demerger
As part of the 2002–2006 municipal reorganization of Montreal, all individual cities on the Island of Montreal, including those in the West Island, were merged into the expanded city of Montreal on January 1, 2002. However, following a change of government and a 2004 referendum, the residents of most West Island cities voted for demerger, and were re-constituted effective January 1, 2006. However, they remained part of a new supra-municipal structure: the urban agglomeration of Montreal. Pierrefonds, Roxboro, Sainte-Geneviève and Île-Bizard remained in Montreal, as the boroughs of Pierrefonds-Roxboro and L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève, respectively.

One argument for amalgamation was that West Islanders enjoyed lower taxes than the old city of Montreal, but still used its theatres, concert halls, and museums. With amalgamation, tax rates were harmonized across the island. In fact, the West Island contains several wealthy neighbourhoods, parks and historical sites.

When referring to the towns that touch Lake Saint-Louis, such as Dorval, Pointe-Claire and Beaconsfield, many people called the area the Lakeshore. Whereas in reference to towns that touch Lake of Two Mountains and Rivière-des-Prairies, such as Pierrefonds, Sainte-Geneviève and Roxboro, they called the area the North Shore.

Housing and infrastructure
The West Island has a cosmopolitan feel and at times an eclectic design (with modern buildings and classic Québécois country homes side by side). The region boasts large green spaces bordering rivers and lakes, bike trails, nature parks, museums, cross-country ski trails, ecological farms, golf courses and cultural sites. As a testimony to its 300-year-old history, residents and visitors alike will discover 18th-century buildings along the former Chemin du Roy, today Gouin Boulevard and Chemin du Bord-du-Lac, in addition to the remnants of Fort Senneville. The shores of Lake Saint-Louis offer a unique setting with café-terrasses, restaurants and boutiques filled with quaint Old World charm. The area today is largely middle and upper-middle class residential zoning along with the strip-malls and other services one might expect in a North American mega-suburb. Large tracts were developed in the period between 1955–1975 (such as Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Pierrefonds, Roxboro and Kirkland) where the majority of homes are similarly-sized variations of the basic bungalow design, though with traditional Québécois architectural influences. Lots tend to be more or less even in size without much variation across entire cities or boroughs. As such, the West Island tends to give the impression of being a somewhat homogeneous construction.

Nature
The environment and climate of the West Island is almost identical to that of Montreal, and is affected by the same ecological conditions, namely, it is a large open plain of wide plateaus and marshland. The West Island is surrounded by the other islands in the Hochelaga Archipelago as well as Lake of Two Mountains and Lac Saint-Louis and their inter-connected rivers and creeks. The territory was largely agricultural from the 17th century until the middle of the 20th century, when it was then quickly developed into a sprawling network of bedroom suburbs. The West Island has numerous large tracts of uncultivated land, some of which are protected parks while in other cases they're merely the fallow fields of former farms, waiting to be sold to residential property developers. Other portions of land have been designated for the construction of a highway to connect the 40 with the 440, through Kirkland, Pierrefonds, Île Bizard and Laval, but the plan has gone nowhere. A significant portion of the Northwestern corner of the West Island is so sparsely developed it constitutes the last portion of Montreal's pre-settlement ecosystem. Though agriculture on the island is limited to the Macdonald Experimental Farm, the remnants of farmland in Senneville and Pierrefonds are likely to be developed into low-density residential housing. Conserving the remaining segments of local island wilderness has become a focal point of West Island politics over the course of the last thirty years, and is point of common concern.

Flora and fauna
Due to the primarily residential character of the West Island and the influence of the City Beautiful and Garden City movements in residential urban-planning in older suburbs on island, the West Island is primarily composed of single-family dwellings on spacious lots organized along small winding roads leading away from large thoroughfares. The area is notable for its many parks and a general emphasis on retaining as much of the rustic, rural charm that characterized the region and led to its development as a popular summer retreat in the early part of the 20th century.

Due to these and other traits, a wide variety of flora and fauna common to the Saint Lawrence river valley can be found in a somewhat balanced natural ecosystem in the largely undeveloped Northwestern corner of the West Island, in addition to the developed low-density residential areas. Flora and fauna found in the West Island fall within the broader spectrum of the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests ecoregion. Of note is the presence of non-native, borderline hardiness trees, such as the tulip tree, which thrive in small section of Senneville near the Île aux Tourtes Bridge.

Mammalian species that inhabit the greater West Island region include white-tailed deer, coyote and cottontail rabbits. The current population of white-tailed deer is substantial, estimated at over a thousand. It is not uncommon for moose to occasionally cross the ice onto the island in winter. Other species endemic to the western portion of the island include grey squirrels, red squirrels, flying squirrels, mink, chipmunks, raccoons, beaver, skunks, porcupines, martens, woodchucks, muskrat, otters, and fox. The number of bird species varies according to season and migration. During spring and fall many species pass through the area on their way to southern breeding grounds. During winter months, depending on climatic conditions and availability of food in the northern Quebec, many species of birds will take up temporary residence, such as great grey owls, snow buntings, snowy owls, and others. The West Island has enough variation in suitable habitats, such as marsh, ponds, forest and field that many species of birds nest here. Various species of reptiles which can be found include garter snakes, red bellied, brown, milk and the northern water snake. Species of turtles include painted, map and snapping turtle. Amphibians include bullfrogs, green frogs, leopard frogs, spring peepers, wood frogs, and others. Salamanders such as the eastern newt, red backed salamander, blue spotted salamander are also found in the more humid habitats. In the surrounding waters of the west island, notably the Lake Saint-Louis side, large fish species such as northern pike, sturgeon, garfish, carp, catfish, muskellunge can be found. Given the Saint Lawrence's heavy traffic and years of misuse, the ecoregion is negatively effected by high pollution which in turn has resulted in diminished local populations of native fauna. That said, residential development in the greater West Island suburban region (including the Vaudreuil-Soulanges area and parts of Eastern Ontario), has resulted in occasional sightings of black bears, wolves, lynx and cougars (which are generally believed to be extinct though sightings and some physical evidence suggest otherwise) as they themselves are pushed out of their habitats.

Nature parks
The Morgan Arboretum in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue is 610 acres of protected urban forest with over 180 bird species, of which about one-hundred breed within the park. It is also home to the Ecomuseum Zoo, which features a collection of species native to the Saint Lawrence River valley.

Cap Saint Jacques is Montreal's largest park at 711 acres of protected forest, featuring 30 km of cross-country trails, a beach and a small organic farm.

There are also the L'Anse-à-l'Orme Nature Park, Angell Woods, Terra Cotta Park, Centennial Park, the Rapides du Cheval Blanc linear park, and the Bois-de-Liesse Nature Park. These constitute the major forested areas in the West Island, with remaining community green spaces typically designed in conventional park layout. Other principal large open green spaces include Macdonald Experimental Farm and remaining tracts of open land around the Morgan Arboretum in Senneville and western Pierrefonds.

Municipalities and boroughs
The West Island is an informal term for a large territory of low-density middle and upper-middle class housing, low and medium density commercial sectors and vast industrial operations roughly constituting the western third of the Island of Montreal. As such there are no precise boundaries, but rather a fundamentally similar cultural and societal identity. The West Island is not a city, but rather a collection of independent cities, towns and villages in addition to several boroughs of the City of Montreal that share an intimate relationship and identity with the citizens of Montreal, and yet have also developed a unique common identity and strong sense of local character. Again, for this reason it is difficult to say exactly which communities constitute the West Island, though it is largely understood to mean all communities, independent or otherwise, developed on the island of Montreal West of Highway 13 and 32nd Avenue. The West Island generally consists of the following towns, cities and boroughs:

 * Baie-D'Urfé – a primarily residential town of 3,900 people notable for a more rural charm, established in 1910. Served by 5 bus lines and a train station.
 * Beaconsfield – a small residential city of 19,000 people served by 8 bus lines and 2 train stations, also established in 1910.
 * Dollard-des-Ormeaux – a city of about 49,000 residents with large residential, commercial and industrial sectors, established in 1924. It is the West Island's most populous city outside of the Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough of the City of Montreal.
 * Dorval – a city of 18,000 initially founded in 1667 and developed initially as a summer retreat for urban dwellers. Today it is largely industrial.
 * Kirkland – a city of 20,000 largely developed in the 1970s and 1980s with a sizeable industrial sector.
 * Pointe Claire – a city of 30,000 initially founded in 1698 as an important outpost along the fur-trade routes. Pointe Claire has several significant historic sites.
 * Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue – an exceptionally unique 'college-town' of 5,200 initially founded as a parish in 1703, and home to several key West island institutions, including the last fully operational farm on the Island of Montreal, Canada's only national veterans hospital and the second largest English language college in Quebec.
 * Senneville – a village of almost 1,000 residents initially founded in 1679 and the former site of the Colonial French Fort Senneville. Senneville has a peculiar local microclimate which allows non-native 'borderline hardiness' plant species to thrive.

These independent communities constitute the de-merged West island municipalities. In addition, there are two City of Montreal boroughs:

 * L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève – with a population of 17,500 people, traces its roots back to the fur trade, and features a large nature park, a public college and an old parish church.
 * Pierrefonds-Roxboro – the largest West Island community, with a population in excess of 60,000 almost perfectly divided along linguistic lines and featuring the largest nature park on the island, in addition to many small businesses and over 24,000 private dwellings. This borough is served by two stations along the Deux-Montagnes Line of the Agence Métropolitain de Transport, in addition to regular express bus service to and from the City of Montreal throughout the day. This borough is particularly notable for the large number of primary and secondary schools, religious and community centres, playgrounds, sports facilities and other green spaces evenly distributed throughout the territory.

In addition to the areas listed above, the western communities located in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality, are part of what is known as the Off-Island area, which is sometimes considered as an extension of the West Island:
 * Vaudreuil-Dorion
 * Hudson
 * Saint-Lazare
 * the four communities of Île Perrot

Demographics
Population

Language spoken at home
From the Canada 2006 Census:

The West Island is home to Quebec's largest concentration of native English-speakers, most of whom are bilingual. Includes West Island municipalities only, not West-Island boroughs of Montreal. The West Island can also claim to have the highest demographic concentration of German Canadians in the province of Quebec. With an even higher concentration located in the Town of Baie-D'Urfé, where the German language school, The Alexander von Humboldt Schule Montréal – German International School is located.

Education
Post-secondary institutions

The Macdonald Campus of McGill University, which traces its roots back to 1905, when Macdonald College was originally constructed as an agricultural college. The buildings which currently house John Abbott College are those of the original Macdonald College, which in 1972 became a satellite campus of McGill University and moved into newer buildings east of the original site. The Macdonald Campus supports McGill's Morgan Arboretum, the J. S. Marshall Radar Observatory and the last operational farm on the Island of Montreal, in addition to the Canadian Aviation Heritage Centre.

John Abbott College was opened in the old Macdonald College buildings located in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in 1971 and has since become one of the largest CEGEPs in Quebec, with well-over 7,000 students. The campus was initially split between two sites until the construction of the Casgrain Centre in 1981, and a new science and technology pavilion is currently being completed along with campus-wide renovations and upgrades. The site features the nearly completely abandoned Brittain Hall, the former men's dormitory. In this respect, Brittain Hall is a near identical copy of Stewart Hall (the original women's dorm), and features the same stacked 'gym-cafeteria-pool' layout, along with massive fireplaces and other features of an Edwardian-era rural college dormitory. Today it is still owned by McGill University and is almost exclusively used for film and television production. Despite a rapid increase in school population and the subsequent lack of space, there are no plans to renovate or rehabilitate Brittain Hall at the moment. Another feature of the campus is the location of steam pipes and access tunnels located directly under the sidewalks, so as to permit natural snow-removal. Moreover, there are a series of tunnels connecting all buildings on campus, designed so as to facilitate moving about the sprawling campus. A portion of the system connecting Stewart to Brittain Hall, has been closed since the 1970s and remains largely inaccessible.

Cégep Gérald-Godin was opened in a former novitiate of the Fathers of the Holy Cross in 1999 and is a prominent West Island post-modern architectural achievement. It features the Salle Pauline-Julien a performing arts venue, and is home to roughly 1,200 students. It is so far the only uniquely Francophone CEGEP in the West Island. The development of the CEGEP has had a positive impact on the development of the village of Sainte-Geneviève as a smaller primarily Francophone equivalent to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.

Public primary and secondary

English-language instruction in the West island is provided primarily by the Lester B. Pearson School Board while French-language instruction is provided by the Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys. The LBPSB counts some 28,000 students in 12 high schools, 40 elementary schools, 2 adult education centres and 4 vocational schools. The CSMB counts some 45,000 students across a larger territory principally focused on the western portion of the island, with 61 elementary schools, 12 high schools, 2 specialized schools, 6 vocational schools and 4 adult-education centres.

Important West Island public high schools include, but are not limited to:

 * Beaconsfield High School – founded in Beaconsfield in 1958, 1130 students.
 * John Rennie High School – founded in Pointe Claire in 1955 it boasts the Sports-Etudes program for student athletes as well as a highly regarded local theatre and dramatic arts program.
 * Lindsay Place High School – founded in Pointe-Claire in 1962 with 1,600 students, one of the largest in the West Island.
 * Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School – founded in 1971 in Pierrefonds to support Catholic francophone and anglophone students, it is an architecturally significant school given its open concept design along an axial core, not to mention industrial visual cues, such as exposed concrete walls and overhead pipes, small windows and rooms without doors. Roughly 1200 students attend PCHS, which is co-located with the LBPSB administered West Island Career Centre (WICC). PCHS offers an international baccalaureate program and shares its grounds with the George Springate community sports complex.
 * Riverdale High School – once one of the largest schools in the West Island (approximately 2,600 students in the early 1970s until the early 1980s), Riverdale's population has declined significantly in the last thirty years, but it still remains a special place in the community of Pierrefonds. An adult education centre now occupies most of the first floor.
 * Saint Thomas High School – public high schools in the West Island, St. Thomas is consistently ranked in the top-ten of Quebec's schools. It offers an IB program and is home to some 1,300 students.

Media
The West Island is served by several weekly newspapers including the English-language The Suburban, West Island Gazette and Montreal Times as well as Cités Nouvelles, published in French.

The North Shore News once served the communities of Pierrefonds, Roxboro & Dollard des Ormeaux when those communities were primarily focused along access routes to and from Gouin and Sources Boulevards and the Sunnybrook and Roxboro train stations. Though the publication was touted as the West Island's only independent weekly throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it died out in the 1980s. Another longtime publication was the English language West Island Chronicle, which began in 1925 and ended in 2015.

A local radio station CFOX broadcast from Pointe Claire at 1470 kHz in the AM broadcast band from 1960–1989. It offered several different program formats including country as well as top-40 music before its sale to the CKO all-news network. Declining revenue led the station's closure in 1989.

Sports and recreation
The West Island boasts multiple public and private sports and recreation facilities, many of which are co-located at local secondary schools or gathered around municipal buildings. As with many suburban areas, residents have access to numerous community pools, parks, greens and playgrounds, in addition to soccer and football fields, rugby pitches and baseball diamonds. All West Island residents have access to amateur sports clubs and associations, and minor-level hockey, soccer, basketball and football are all quite popular. Moreover, various leagues and associations are generally very open to accepting residents from all communities. As with most Canadian communities, there is at least one hockey rink in every city or town in the West Island. These facilities have, in the past, also served as venues for rock concerts and the like. A notable example was the old Pierrefonds Arena, demolished in the late-1990s, which once attracted bands like the Eagles and Black Sabbath when it was difficult for most West Island youth to reach downtown concert venues.

DDO and Pointe Claire both boast large civic centres replete with Olympic-sized pools and appropriate diving platforms, and the West Island has a noticeable youth subculture focused on swimming, diving and life-guarding at community pools.

The world-famous Royal Golf Club of Montreal is located in Ile-Bizard and is one of eight golf greens in the West Island, the majority of which are private. Other typical West Island sports and recreation facilities include numerous tennis clubs and courts, curling clubs and the occasional bocci pitch.

Other notable West Island sports and recreation facilities include the West Island YMCA and YM/YWHA, Dollard-des-Ormeaux's Centennial Park (with hills ideally suited for tobogganing and forests inter-laced with cross-country ski trails), Cap St. Jacques (which features the only remaining beach open to the public on the island) and the facilities affiliated with John Abbott College. In addition, numerous sports leagues for children and youth utilize facilities shared with local primary and secondary schools.

The area is home to the North Shore Lions football Bantam team as well as their older team the North Shore Mustangs, which compete at a midget division 1 AAA level, which holds the most division and provincial titles in Quebec Midget Football League (QMFL) history.

Points of interest
Fritz Farm, a community cultural centre in Baie-D'Urfé located at 20477 Chemin Lakeshore on a large common green bordering picturesque Lake Saint-Louis. Fritz Farm is one of several examples of preserved heritage homes dating back to the 18th century that can be found in Baie-D'Urfé, which are a direct link to the West Island's colonial era.

Église Sainte-Geneviève, a parish church established in 1741 by Antoine Faucon and completed in its present form in 1844. It is located at the intersection of Rue St-Louis and Gouin Boulevard West in the village of Sainte-Geneviève and is part of a larger complex that includes a presbytery and cemetery and a municipal park along the banks of the scenic Rivière des Prairies.

Saint-Joachim de Pointe-Claire Church & Pointe-Claire Village, another parish church established in the mid-18th century, though completed only in 1885 in a Gothic-revival style, designed by noted local church architect Victor Bourgeau. It is located at 2 Ste-Anne Street in Pointe Claire Village. Permanent settlement in this part of the West Island dates back at least as far as 1710, when the emblematic Pointe-Claire Windmill was completed. The Village features many 19th century and early 20th century buildings and forms an important local small-business sector. There are many restaurants and boutiques in the area, in addition to the exclusive Beaconsfield Golf Club and the Pointe-Claire Curling Club. Othe sites of interest include the Pointe-Claire Windmill & Summer Retreat of the Congregation Notre Dame.

Centennial Hall, in Beaconsfield – a community cultural centre and small-scale performance venue.

Stewart Hall, in Pointe-Claire – an art gallery and community cultural centre and small-scale performance venue.

The Museum of Local History and Heritage located at 1850 Lakeshore Drive and adjacent to the large linear parks that stretch from Dorval along the edge of Lac Saint-Louis east towards Old Lachine Village where the old public beaches used to be. There are several marinas in the area and each summer the lake is filled with diverse pleasure craft. Wind-surfing here is quite popular, though public bathing is illegal and generally discouraged. Fishing is popular, though again, it is unwise to consume anything caught.

The Morgan Arboretum and Ecomuseum Zoo, a zoo dedicated to animal species endemic to the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forest, located in one of the last old growth example of the type on-island. The Ecomuseum is, along with Montréal's Biodome and Insectarium, one of the key local public zoological institutions that have found innovative solutions to the problems with 'traditional zoos'.

Old Saint-Anne's Village and the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Canal, another area in the West Island where permanent settlement dates back to the mid-late 17th century, Sainte-Anne's became a focal point for local services with the development of Macdonald College and the Veterans Hospital during the early 20th century. The Village has many restaurants and bars and other services supporting the comparatively large student population. The area features a boardwalk, the old Rex Theatre and numerous specialty shops. Other features include the Gallipeault Bridge which connects Sainte-Anne's to Ile Perot.

The Canadian Aviation Heritage Centre and the Macdonald Experimental Farm, co-located at McGill's Macdonald Campus in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.

Fort Senneville, originally built in 1671 and destroyed and re-built twice, the Fort was captured and destroyed by Benedict Arnold in 1776 during manœuvres associated with the Battle of The Cedars during the American War of Independence. A commemorative plaque located along Chemin Senneville by the Lake of Two Mountains records the location of the battle associated with the fall of the Fort. All that remains today is part of the windmill which doubled as a watch-tower and the foundations of the seigneurial house, if not some portions of the walls. The site is on private property though the proprietor has been known to allow visitors if they ask politely.

Cap-Saint-Jacques Nature Park – the largest nature park on the island also features the only remaining public beach and an organic farm.

Rapides du Cheval Blanc Listed as one of the ten Eco-territories of Montreal The park has a view of the Whitehorse rapids and a wooded area.

Bois-de-Liesse Nature Park, the second largest nature park on-island and home to some protected heritage properties.

Notable people

 * Eugenie Bouchard — Tennis player
 * Evelyne Brochu — Actress
 * Jason Demers — Professional ice hockey player
 * Geoffrey Kelley — Provincial politician and former MNA for Jacques-Cartier
 * Anthony Duclair — Professional ice hockey player
 * Ann Lambert — playwright, author, and professor
 * Mike Matheson — Professional ice hockey player
 * Thomas Mulcair — Former NDP leader and federal politician
 * Sergio Momesso — Retired professional ice hockey player
 * Harley Morenstein — Internet personality and founder of Epic Meal Time
 * Caroline Rhea — Actress
 * Norma Shearer — Actress
 * Joseph Veleno — Professional ice hockey player
 * Marc-Édouard Vlasic — Professional ice hockey player
 * François Legault — 32nd premier of Quebec
 * Vincent Lecavalier — Professional ice hockey player

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: West Island


text:
Mary Lyon

Mary Mason Lyon (February 28, 1797 – March 5, 1849) was an American pioneer in women's education. She established the Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts, (now Wheaton College) in 1834. She then established Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1837 and served as its first president (or "principal") for 12 years. Lyon's vision fused intellectual challenge and moral purpose. She valued socioeconomic diversity and endeavored to make the seminary affordable for students of modest means.

Early life
The daughter of a farming family in Buckland, Massachusetts, Lyon had a hardscrabble childhood. Her father died when she was five, and the entire family pitched in to help run the farm. Lyon was thirteen when her mother remarried and moved away; she stayed behind in Buckland in order to keep the house for her brother Aaron, who took over the farm. Lyon attended various district schools intermittently and, in 1814 at 17, began teaching in them as well, first invited to teach summer school. Lyon's modest beginnings fostered her lifelong commitment to extending educational opportunities to girls from middling and poor backgrounds.

Lyon was eventually able to attend two secondary schools, Sanderson Academy in Ashfield and Byfield Seminary in eastern Massachusetts. At Byfield, she was befriended by the headmaster, Rev. Joseph Emerson, and his assistant, Zilpah Polly Grant. She also soaked up Byfield's ethos of rigorous academic education infused with Christian commitment. Lyon then taught at several academies, including Sanderson, a small school of her own in Buckland, Adams Female Academy (run by Grant), and the Ipswich Female Seminary (also run by Grant). Lyon's attendance at the then novel, popular, lectures in laboratory botany by Amos Eaton influenced her involvement in the female seminary movement.

In 1834, Laban Wheaton and his daughter-in-law, Eliza Baylies Chapin Wheaton, called upon Mary Lyon for assistance in establishing the Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College) in Norton, Massachusetts. Lyon left teaching and collected donated funds in a characteristic green purse to raise money for the seminary's creation. She created the first curriculum with the goal that it be equal in quality to those of men's colleges. She also provided the first principal, Eunice Caldwell. Wheaton Female Seminary opened on 22 April 1835, with 50 students and three teachers. Lyon and Caldwell left Wheaton, along with eight Wheaton students, to open Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.

Mount Holyoke

During these early years, Lyon gradually developed her vision for Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which would resemble Grant's schools in many respects but, Lyon hoped, draw its students from a wider socioeconomic range. The college was unique in that it was founded by people of modest means and served their daughters, rather than the children of the rich. She was especially influenced by Reverend Joseph Emerson, whose Discourse on Female Education (1822) advocated that women should be trained to be teachers rather than "to please the other sex."

Mount Holyoke opened in 1837: the seminary was ready for "the reception of scholars on November 8, 1837." Lyon strove to maintain high academic standards: she set rigorous entrance exams and admitted "young ladies of an adult age, and mature character."

In keeping with her social vision, she limited the tuition to $60/year, about one-third the tuition that Grant charged at Ipswich Female Seminary, which was central to her mission of "appeal[ing] to the intelligence of all classes." In order to keep costs low, Lyon required students to perform domestic tasks—an early version of work/study. These tasks included preparing meals and washing floors and windows. Emily Dickinson, who attended the Seminary in 1847, was tasked with cleaning knives. But this would not last. As of 2019, Mount Holyoke now estimates the cost of attending the college to be $71,828 per year. The college offers various forms of financial aid.

Lyon, an early believer in the importance of daily exercise for women, required her students to "walk one mile (1.6 km) after breakfast. During New England's cold and snowy winters, she reduced the requirement to 45 minutes. Calisthenics—a form of exercise—was taught by teachers in unheated hallways until a storage area was cleared for a gymnasium.

Though Lyon's policies were sometimes controversial, the seminary quickly attracted its target student body of 200. Lyon anticipated a change in the role of women and equipped her pupils with an education that was comprehensive, rigorous, and innovative, with particular emphasis on the sciences. She required:

"seven courses in the sciences and mathematics for graduation, a requirement unheard of at other female seminaries. She introduced women to 'a new and unusual way' to learn science—laboratory experiments which they performed themselves. She organized field trips on which students collected rocks, plants, and specimens for lab work, and inspected geological formations and recently discovered dinosaur tracks."

Lyon developed her ideas on how to educate women when she was assistant principal at Ipswich Female Seminary in Massachusetts. By 1837 she had convinced multiple sponsors to support her ideals and the nation's first real college for women. The town of South Hadleyhad donated the land and main building. Lyon's layout of the campus provided a widely imitated model for the higher education of women by providing a physical environment that supported a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum equivalent to that of men's colleges. Lyon's innovative goals set her Seminary apart from other female seminaries of the period, offering a curriculum equivalent to those at men's colleges. All the students worked in one building with little privacy. There was close contact with the all-female faculty, and daily self reports on their personal strengths and weaknesses. The college cut staff to the minimum as the 100 or so students each performed one hour of work a day, handling most of the routine chores like cooking and cleaning and maintaining the grounds. Lyon rejected the goal of the men's colleges to promote individualism and independence and instead fostered the collective ideal of a united team of women could match the success of nearby men's colleges like Amherst and Williams. The curriculum allowed women to study subjects like geometry, calculus, Latin, Greek, science, philosophy, and history, which were not typically taught at other female seminaries in the 19th century. Lyon's efforts in founding an institution of higher education for women, despite the economic challenges of the time, paved the way for more women to have the same opportunities for higher education as their brothers.

Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was one of several Christian institutions of higher education for young women established during the first half of the 19th century. Prior to founding Mount Holyoke, Lyon contributed to the development of both Hartford Female Seminary and Ipswich Female Seminary. She was also involved in the creation of Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College) in 1834. Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was chartered as a teaching seminary in 1836 and opened its doors to students on 8 November 1837. Both Vassar College and Wellesley College were patterned after Mount Holyoke.

According to historian Amanda Porterfield, Lyon created Mount Holyoke to be "a religious institution that offered a model of Christian society for all to see." Students "were required to attend church services, chapel talks, prayer meetings, and Bible study groups. Twice a day teachers and students spent time in private devotions. Every dorm room had two large lighted closets to give roommates privacy during their devotions". Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was the sister school to Andover Seminary. By 1859 there were more than 60 missionary alumnae; by 1887 the school's alumnae comprised one-fifth of all female American missionaries for the ABCFM; and by the end of the century, 248 of its alumnae had entered the mission field.

Religion
Conforti (1993) examines the central importance of religion to Lyon. She was raised a Baptist but converted to a Congregationalist under the influence of her teacher Reverend Joseph Emerson. Lyon preached revivals at Mount Holyoke, spoke elsewhere, and, though not a minister, was a member of the fellowship of New England's New Divinity clergy. She played a major role in the revival of the thought of Jonathan Edwards, whose works were read more frequently then than in his day. She was attracted by his ideas of self-restraint, self-denial, and disinterested benevolence.

Death

Lyon died of erysipelas (possibly contracted from an ill student in her care) on March 5, 1849. Lyon was buried on the Mount Holyoke College campus, in front of Porter Hall and behind the Amphitheatre. Her burial site is marked with a granite marker surrounded by an iron fence.

Legacy
Mary Lyon developed her ideas on how to educate women when she was assistant principal at Ipswich Female Seminary in Massachusetts. When she was age 40 she had convinced sponsors to sponsor her new school—the first real college for women. Mount Holyoke Female Seminary opened on November 8, 1837, in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The town had donated the land and main building. Lyon's layout of the campus provided a widely imitated model for the higher education of women by providing a physical environment that supported a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum equivalent to that of men's colleges. Lyon's innovative goals set her Seminary apart from other female seminaries of the period, offering a curriculum equivalent to those at men's colleges. All the students worked in one building with little privacy. There was close contact with the all-female faculty, and daily self reports on their personal strengths and weaknesses. The college cut staff to the minimum as the 100 or so students each performed one hour of work a day, handling most of the routine chores like cooking and cleaning and maintaining the grounds. Lyon rejected the goal of the men's colleges to promote individualism and independence and instead fostered the collective ideal of a united team of women could match the success of nearby men's colleges like Amherst and Williams. The curriculum allowed women to study subjects like geometry, calculus, Latin, Greek, science, philosophy, and history, which were not typically taught at other female seminaries in the 19th century. Lyon's efforts in founding an institution of higher education for women, despite the economic challenges of the time, paved the way for more women to have the same opportunities for higher education as their brothers.

According to historian Annette Baxter, Lyon was devout, practical, and firmly committed to the educational orthodoxies of the era, while pioneering an entirely new role for women educators and students. She was adaptable and adventuresome, self-sufficient, and devoted to service. Her personal strengths reemerged in the foundations of Mount Holyoke Seminary. For example, it required all students to work, regardless of family wealth, which helped reduce costs, insured equality on campus, and promoted responsibility for young women living away from home without servants for the first time in their lives. Attention to the curriculum as established by the leading men's colleges, was broadened by her promotion of Protestant missionary activism. The college's pedagogical approach stressed gradualism, expecting steady progress rather than sudden leaps forward. Her standard of achievement was much higher than the typical finishing school for young women, which was the main competition for the upscale Yankee clientele. Lyon's energetic, compassionate and engaging personality earned the affection of faculty, students, alumnae, and supporters. While her own background was relatively narrow, her aspirations for her students were to give them the self-confidence that they could achieve whatever they set out to do.

Many buildings have been named in her honor, including Mary Lyon Hall at Mount Holyoke College. Built in 1897 on the site of the former Seminary Building, the hall houses college offices, classrooms, and a chapel. Mount Holyoke College continues to honor her legacy through the commencement ceremonies held next to her gravesite. The main classroom building for Wheaton Female Seminary, originally called New Seminary Hall, was renamed Mary Lyon Hall in 1910 and still features prominently on the campus of Wheaton College. Dormitories named after Mary Lyon can also be found at Miami University, Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, Swarthmore College, and University of Massachusetts Amherst. Mary Lyon Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington is named after her.

Vassar College, Wellesley College and the former Western College for Women were patterned after Mount Holyoke and Mary Lyon's work led to Ann Dudin Brown founding Westfield College in London. Oklahoma's Cherokee Female Seminary (now Northeastern State University) acquired its "first faculty for their female seminary from Mount Holyoke, [and] also used the Massachusetts school as a pattern for the institution they established."

In 1905, Lyon was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in New York. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

She has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 2¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Films

 * Mary Lyon: Precious Time, directed by Jean M. Mudge; San Anselmo, Calif.: Viewfinder Films, [n.d.].

title: Mary Lyon


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Family Theater

Family Theater is a weekly half-hour dramatic anthology radio program which aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the United States from February 13, 1947, to September 11, 1957.

Production history
Family Theater developed from a Rosary prayer program on a local radio station in Albany, New York, started in 1943 by Holy Cross priest Patrick Peyton. On Mother's Day 1945, he produced a similar national radio program on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

In 1947, Peyton formed Family Theater Productions, a film and radio studio extension of the Family Rosary Crusade founded by Peyton to promote family prayer. The program had no commercial sponsor. By agreement with the Mutual network, the radio dramas were nonsectarian but focused on moral problems. Mutual provided the airtime, while Peyton covered production costs through donations.

A total of 482 original episodes were produced. The program featured not only religious stories, but also half-hour adaptations of literary works such as A Tale of Two Cities, Moby-Dick, and Don Quixote.

Peyton and Family Theater Productions continued in radio and expanded into films and television. Peyton arranged for many of Hollywood's stars in film and radio at the time to appear on Family Theater. Throughout its ten-year run, well-known actors and actresses, including James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Dennis Morgan, Irene Dunne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Shirley Temple, Natalie Wood, Barbara Whiting, Raymond Burr, Jane Wyatt, Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott, Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, Gene Kelly, Kate Smith, William Shatner, and Chuck Connors, appeared as announcers, narrators, or stars. Many donated their services.

Family Theater was broadcast in the United States, Canada, Latin American, Australia, Mozambique, and the Philippines and won a number of industry awards. The motto of Family Theater Productions is "The family that prays together stays together."

Television
In 1951, while the radio version was still on the air, Family Theater moved to television, where it aired in syndication. The spelling of the title was altered to Family Theatre and the series was extended to one hour. Father Peyton also hosted the TV version, which ran for seven years.

One of the TV episodes was "Hill Number One", famous for featuring an early appearance by James Dean as John the Apostle (not John the Baptist, as is commonly thought). It combined a Korean War story with the story of the Crucifixion of Christ.

Present day
After Peyton's death in 1992, Family Theater Productions became part of Holy Cross Family Ministries, sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Family Theater, now digitally remastered, continues to air in reruns in the United States and many other parts of the world. EWTN, for instance, airs the program on Sunday nights under the name "Family Theater Classic Radio". In addition, the program is available to download or stream on internet services such as the Internet Archive.

title: Family Theater


text:
Talk:Harold Bloom

Recent Writers
"Since Murdoch's death, Bloom has expressed admiration for novelists such as John Banville, Peter Ackroyd, Will Self, and A. S. Byatt." Are there any online links that illustrate Blooms admiration for these writers? They all seem like writers Bloom would like, but have only ever come across him discussing Banville. A reference would be much appreciated, did he talk about them in a televisual/newspaper interview not available online, or in a recent book? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.2.80 (talk) 21:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Took care of it.--Artimaean (talk) 00:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I am surtprised there is no mention of his dismissive attitude to Cam,us in his intro the the book publ in the series Bloom's Modern Critical Views (Chelsea, 1989) "time ... hqas worn The Stranger rather smooth" (1); "The Stranger is bartely able to sustain an aestheticdignity and certainlyis much slighter than we thought it to be" (2);  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.253.4.160 (talk) 16:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as novelists Bloom has, in books as recent as his 2000 "How to Read and Why?", often called Philip Roth one of the most important living novelists. He included "Blood Meridian" and "The Crying of Lot 49"-- by Cormac McCarthy and Thomas Pynchon respectively-- in his list of American novels to read; they are also living writers. I don't believe he included a book by Roth in this section, but has stated his admiration for "Sabbath's Theater" and "Operation Shylock" elsewhere. As a final note on living novelists, he expressed admiration of "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Mason and Dixon", both by Pynchon. 75.110.31.87 (talk) 00:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

As for poetry, Bloom has expressed the opinion that both John Ashbery and Anne Carson are important living poets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.110.31.87 (talk) 23:53, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

In Novels and Novelists, a collection of his Modern Critical Views intros for novelists, he praises many of Roth's novels, including The Human Stain, I Married a Communist, American Pastoral, My Life as a Man, Portnoy's Complaint, etc. He says that none of his books are "period pieces", though Letting Go, The Breast, The Facts, Our Gang, and When She Was Good never found him. In his Paris Review interview (Vol. 2 of the collected interviews), he says that Deception is very good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.31.7.21 (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Robinson
In "Genius," p. 714, he does indeed name Robinson, along with Pound, Williams, Crane, Frost, Eliot, Stevens, Merrill, Ammons and a few more, as one of the "superb poets" in American literature of the last century. To me it seems more reasonable to name the poets of the century rather than naming those who are "recent", as "recent" will mean something quite different to different people reading the entry at different times. -- Damion

It should be fairly obvious from the names mentioned that 'recent' in this context refers roughly to those appeared in the post-WWII period (Penn got started earlier, but Bloom only regards his later work), which is the period in which the canon appears to be completely unsettled, and the period of Bloom's professional life. The only reasons to include this section at all are that the writers Bloom favors are, for the most part, unknown or barely known to the average person (Ammons, Merrill, McCarthy, Saramago, Geoffrey Hill, etc.), and that some of his choices are unusual or controversial. By contrast, the probably canonicity Eliot, Frost, Pound, Hart Crane, Faulkner, Auden and others who were established before the war is so commonly known that there's no particular signifigance to the fact that Bloom also believes in it. - 66.190.242.110 December 12, 2003

If by "recent" you mean post-WWII, you should state so in the entry; otherwise, how is anyone to know? -- Damion

I clicked on a link to find allegations about Bloom's sexual misconduct with a student. It seems odd to have such a link without any sort of response... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

 * New comments on the bottom please, and please sign them, which you can do with four tildes (~). If there is a response from Bloom that you are aware of, please add it to the article. Gamaliel 20:47, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bloom has also said, at times both in "The Western Canon" and "How to Read and Why" that the poets John Ashbery and Anne Carson are important; and that the novelists Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, and Cormac McCarthy (mentioned above) are important. From all I have read of Bloom, which is alot, I realize he is often prone to inconsistencies in list making; or, better yet, his lists are inconsistent from publication to publication. 75.110.31.87 (talk) 00:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding inconsistency, in 'The Western Canon' he said that he was unhappy about including Robert Lowell in his final list, but assumed that because nearly every other critic esteemed him, he (Bloom) must be wrong. In 'Till I End My Song', he said that after rereading Lowell's poems, he realised that the poet was indeed canonical and that he had been mistaken earlier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.31.32.30 (talk) 11:18, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Sexual harassment allegations
This ought to be included: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9932/index4.html

"Although she acknowledged that what she alleged Bloom did was not harassment, either legally or emotionally, she claimed to have harbored this secret for 21 years." -- This is inaccurate. She does not "acknowledge" that it was not harassment "emotionally" -- instead, what she says is that "encroachment" and "transgression" are more accurate than "harassment." In other words, she did not actually say that emotional harassment did not occur. The word "harassment" in the context of "sexual harassment" means something different than "harassment" alone. While "harassment" alone suggests persistence, "sexual harassment," simply means a sexual advance. (See definitions for both at www.dictionary.com.) Thus, "sexual harassment," in the emotional sense, is still accurate. Naomi Wolf simply used alternative words, "encroachment" and "transgression" because they get more to the point, whereas there is more ambiguity based on the differences between "harassment" and "sexual harassment." Laulaulau26 (talk) 18:22, 4 April 2011 (UTC)laulaulau26

 * It's unclear what point you're trying to make, but it's obviously wrong to say that "'sexual harassment' simply means a sexual advance". Here, from the Dictionary.com entry on Sexual Harassment. is some relevant language: "In order to recover against an employer under a sexual harassment suit, the plaintiff has to show that the harassment affected the employment (as by being severe or pervasive)."  Similar criteria apply to educational settings.Nightspore (talk) 23:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Specific allegations from a well-known named source (Naomi Wolf) in major media (New York). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.129.124 (talk) 21:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

 * However, the allegations came 20 years later, when it would be only a "he said, she said" type deal. There is no actual evidence in terms of the Lewinsky/Clinton ordeal. I've read the article, too, and she essencially blames him for the fact that she was failing at Yale, when he had nothing to do with it. Unregistered User

That doesn't change the fact that she accused him of it. --68.90.239.4 (talk) 02:11, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

 * I don't understand what your point is. She did not accuse him of sexual harassment.  She explicitly denies that she is making such an accusation, and says that what she claims he did was NOT harassment.  If you accept her at her word, accept all of it.Nightspore (talk) 14:56, 9 May 2010 (UTC)Nightspore

 * Oh, c'mon this is the same tired old game of trying to assassinate the character of someone you don't like for political or cultural reasons, the same hack job Bloom tried to pull on the venerable Thomas Wolfe who, had he still been living, would have rammed back down his throat with brio. To put Bloom's sardonic view in perspective, one can look to the Wikipedia article on Wolfe describing his literary reputation while he was alive which included being vaunted by Sinclair Lewis during his Nobel Prize acceptance oration.  I have serious questions whether Bloom actually read Wolfe's work in any detail before writing that review for the New York Times in 1987 beyond trolling it for ammunition to use in a hit piece motivated by animosity towards Wolfe's anti-semitism, which in the end came across like one of Wolfe's caricatures of such an individual. In short the contempt of Yankee upstart "New York Intellectuals" towards Wolfe was something entirely reciprocated by him who loathed their milieu.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.172.225 (talk) 19:22, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Dead link in references
"Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes" was being used as a reference but it gave me a 404 error; I've used a reference that was already in the article which seems to cover the same or similar material. Jokeslayer (talk) 15:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

"Notable works"
I'm thinking about removing the "notable works" listed in the box. Probably more than 10 of his works are notable by Wikipedia's standards (see WP:NOTABILITY), which is too many to be included. I think with living writers in general it is best to leave this section of the infobox blank, since it remains to be seen which works will survive most strongly. Gregcaletta (talk) 20:27, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd say that he is best known for The Anxiety of Influence, but maybe that's just because I'm an old-timer. — goethean ॐ 22:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That was certainly true for the 20 years following its publication, but I don't think it's particularly true of the last few years. But even if it is true, the question is whether it is necessary to assert it in the infobox.  Gregcaletta (talk) 23:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Gregcaletta. It's not as if he has one defining work. He has many notable works; too many to bother mentioning here. Farrtj (talk) 00:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree... it's a lot of data. But why delete instead of creating a subpage, ala Mark Twain bibliography? Best, Markvs88 (talk) 13:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Markvs88, I think we have our wires crossed. I think the bibliography at the bottom of the page is necessary.  I'm talking about the three works listed as "notable works" in the infobox, in the top right-hand corner of the article.  Gregcaletta (talk) 20:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I don't know how I missed that. I agree with your idea. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 22:14, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Typical Wiki Plagiarism
From this entry:

"Bloom organized what he called "the factory" in New Haven, employed 16 full-time staffers at one stage, as well as scores of freelance graduate students, and at his peak knocked out 15 books a month and three introductions a week."

From http://chronicle.com/article/Harold-Bloom-by-the-Numbers/127211/ (linked from this entry):

"Bloom organized what he called "the factory" in New Haven, employed 16 full-time staffers at one stage, as well as scores of freelance graduate students, and at his peak knocked out 15 books a month and three introductions a week."

Typical.35.24.46.141 (talk) 11:30, 28 June 2012 (UTC)fed_up

 * I've removed the section per WP:COPYVIO. — goethean ॐ 22:15, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Reducing the extraneous material in this bloated article
Hi,

There is a great deal of extraneous and disorganized material in this article. So I am removing it. To begin, there is no need for any of this text to be in the introduction:

 * Bloom teaches two classes at Yale: one on the plays of William Shakespeare; the other on poetry from Geoffrey Chaucer to Hart Crane. Some of his writing has reflected this teaching, from Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998) to The Anatomy of Influence (2011), which he has called the summa of his career.

 * At the start of his career, Bloom studied the Romantic and Modernist poets, in particular Percy Bysshe Shelley, W. B. Yeats and Wallace Stevens. From this study, combined with the influence of Freud, Emerson and many others, Bloom developed theories of poetic influence, marked by the publication of The Anxiety of Influence (1973). These theories dominated his writing for a decade, after which he began to focus on what he named "religious criticism", in books such as The Book of J (1990) and The American Religion (1992). Another shift in his career began with an impassioned defense of the non-politicised teaching of canonical literature in The Western Canon (1994). He has continued his religious criticism in books such as Jesus and Yahweh (2005) and The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of The King James Bible (2011).

These superfluous paragraphs need to be removed or reduced significantly. I've done the latter:

 * ''Bloom has frequently recounted that his attachment to poetry began when, at the age of ten, he discovered Hart Crane's Collected Poems at the Melrose Branch of the Bronx Public Library.[9] "Together with William Blake (an influence upon him)," Bloom would write, "Hart Crane was my first love among the great poets, and like Blake he gave me a lifelong addiction to high poetry."[10] He also found and read the Poems and Prophecies of William Blake. "I saw the Oxford English Dictionary there for the first time," he said many years later. "I remember being so touched by the enormous availability of large and complex dictionaries and concordances. I remember ransacking them."[11] Bloom says he knew "by age eleven or twelve that all I really liked to do was read poetry and discuss it."

 * Bloom entered Cornell University in 1947 on scholarship (as one of 65 people in the Bronx that year to win a scholarship from the State Department of Education). At Cornell he found a mentor in M. H. Abrams, a leading scholar of Romanticism and the founding and general editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature. He earned his B.A. in 1951. He then spent a year at Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1954-55 as a Fulbright scholar, where he met and "regularly talked with" C S Lewis.[12] He then went to Yale University, to finish his Ph.D.''

This section needs concision, which I've begun:

 * ''Bloom received his Ph.D. in 1955 and won the John Addison Porter Prize the following year. He has worked as a member of the Yale faculty ever since. For some years, he has taught two classes at Yale: one on the plays of William Shakespeare; the other on poetry from Geoffrey Chaucer to Hart Crane.[citation needed]
 * In 1959, Bloom married Jeanne Gould and they enjoyed their honeymoon in Spain.[13] They have two sons, Daniel Jacob and David Moses.[citation needed]''

 * In 1985, Bloom was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. From 1988 to 2004, Bloom served as Berg Professor of English at New York University while maintaining his Sterling Professorship at Yale and continuing to teach there. In 2010 he became a founding patron of Ralston College, a new institution in Savannah, Georgia that focuses on primary texts.[14][15]
 * Bloom claims to have been able to read 400 pages an hour in his prime.[2]
 * In an interview promoting his book, How to Read and Why in 2000, he claimed he has voted Democratic Party members or for socialist candidates in elections since he was franchised in 1952, and had no desire to ever vote for the Republican Party.

''

The "Thinking about Influence" and "Influence" sections are vague, poorly written, and need to be shortened.

174.49.172.92 (talk) 14:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

 * I am not okay with those changes. Why are you removing the bit about Hart Crane and Blake and the public library? — goethean 14:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

 * The Hart Crane piece has been put back in. The library bit is irrelevant. The vast majority of the biographical blather is unimportant and much of it lacks citation. It's material that might be useful on a blog or biographical webpage/study, but it is not appropriate for an encyclopedia entry. Even with the material removed, this page is still much too long and verbose on details that have no place here.174.49.172.92 (talk) 16:53, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

 * You can remove unsourced material, but I disagree with your characterization of biographical material as "blather". — goethean 17:00, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Blather might be too strong a term. But irrelevant details--like the number of words Bloom claimed he could read or where he went on his honeymoon--whether sourced or not, are inappropriate to be included here. As an encyclopedia article, the text should have a sharper focus on his work and its influence, and any biographical detail should relate to his work/its influence.174.49.172.92 (talk) 17:45, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Goethean. Bloom's presence and notability are partly manifestations of his own massive self-presentations in the world.  People reading this article are going to want to know about the some of the things he refers to repeatedly in interviews and in his books when he talks about himself.  This is the sort of thing that they'll want to know, and I must say the kind of wholesale deletion you feel entitled to take on yourself after many people have worked on this article for many years risks looking arrogant. Nightspore (talk) 20:59, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Blooms magnamity or modesty has no bearing on how his information should be presented on Wikipedia. Many years of people working on an article does not a good text make—in fact, this article is piecemealed, incredibly unorganized, and full of material that is not suitable for an encyclopedia (see my reference to some of them above).174.49.172.92 (talk) 22:55, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't say anything about magnanimity (I don't know what "magnamity" is) or modesty. I attempted to suggest that Bloom's notability is partly ascribable to just those things you in your wisdom have decided have no place in this article.  You've made your point and I've made mine.  I am reverting your wholesale deletions once again.  I suggest that now that this is an issue we both lay off for a while and let some other editors decide weigh in.  You're not the final arbiter as to what is appropriate for an encyclopedia article, and I think you should be a little more modest in your revisions.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nightspore (talk • contribs) 03:34, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Whatever the nature of Bloom's notability, the article should not be disorganized and include random factoids that have no bearing whatever on his importance or the influence of his work. As you revise here, please do it piece-by-piece, as the editor did above re: Hart Crane.174.49.172.92 (talk) 13:06, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Page protection
I've added three days full protection following a request from FreeKnowledgeCreator on RfPP. The request was for semi-protection but as it seems to be a content dispute about a BLP, I thought full protection might be more appropriate. Let me know if you need an extension, or if it can be lifted early.

To 174.49.172.92, if the text you're changing is long-standing, the best way forward is to gain consensus for your changes before you make them. If there is material in the article that violates our biography of living persons (BLP) policy, that can be removed immediately; you can ask for help at the BLP noticeboard if that is an issue, or if there's an urgent BLP problem, you can find an admin at WP:AN/I. Otherwise, discussion is the way forward, rather than repeatedly reverting. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 04:06, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

 * Do you think the material 174.49.172.92 has removed violates BLP? If so, in what way? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:14, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

 * The material that was removed included the subject's home address and other personal details; without checking the sources I don't know whether it has all been published, but I think even if a home address has appeared in a secondary source it's not a good idea for us to publish it. The point of adding full protection was to get you all to discuss this so it's a pity that isn't happening. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:07, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

 * Thank you for drawing attention to this. I'll certainly be careful about what material I restore, when protection expires. 174.49.172.92 still needs to discuss with other editors, however. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:14, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

 * (edit conflict) As 174.49.172.92 isn't discussing the issue, I've removed the protection. Please take extra care BLP-wise just in case there's a concern that isn't obvious, and to err on the side of caution I think the home address should not be restored even if it's in a good source – unless the subject has published it himself, which is a different matter. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:17, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi--I've discussed the removed text above. I cut a series of statements that have no place on the page, such as where he went on his honeymoon. Bloom's honeymoon destination could be noteworthy if he met someone who inspired him there or had some revelation that influenced his importance while honeymooning, but he didn't. The honeymoon bit and the rest of it is just fluff. If someone would like to keep something I've taken out -- that's fine, just note why here on the talk page.174.49.172.92 (talk) 04:08, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

 * Some of the material you removed may have been either questionable under BLP, or trivial, and if so you were right to remove it. But you have no veto over article content. I've restored some material that you deleted without any apparent good reason; please don't remove it again. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 06:25, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

POV in intro
Automamet has serially reverted text without explanation of anything on Talk page. This is against wiki policy, WP:3RR. The intro section should not be celebratory. While Bloom may be notable as an "important" critic in popular spheres, that concept is not shared by many contemporary literary scholars. The hagiographic lead-in section is a POV issue.Macroscope7 (talk) 10:15, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Per WP:LEDE, the lead needs to summarize the article body. What material does your edit summarize? — goethean 17:22, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The criticism section. It could be further developed to reflect that Bloom has been unimportant in literary circles for decades.Macroscope7 (talk) 18:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The text added to the lead does not accurately summarize the material in the criticism section of the article. Instead, it brings up an entirely new point of criticism. Accordingly, I will be moving the material from the lead to the body of the article. — goethean 18:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem with the lead-in is not what is or isn't summarized (incidentally the quotes you've left in the lead do not summarize anything from the article, either--I trust you overlooked that) the problem is the hagiographic POV. Made summaries and moved the quotes.Macroscope7 (talk) 20:35, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Goethean. Please stop adding this tendentious material. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:43, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree as well -- though there was tendentious material he/she left there in the lead. Thanks for moving it.Macroscope7 (talk) 15:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The Daemon Knows
There is nothing about his latest book, the daemon knows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.11.235.25 (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Deep appreciation?
FreeKnowledgeCreator, re my edit, which you reverted. Perhaps I should explain why present wording galled with me. Present wording is ambiguous 'Bloom has a deep appreciation for Shakespeare' means both that he is a 'big fan of', 'has a considerable admiration for' (the sense I imagine in which he wrote the words). It also (literary appreciation?) means that his 'appreciation' (literary criticism) has intellectual depth to it. That is a statement which I and many would agree with, but should WP be saying it as an objective fact, sourced to Bloom's own writings? Especially as an opening statement, that meaning ascribes a value bordering on 'fan-nish' rather than informing what his ideas are, which is what makes him interesting.

Why not open 'Bloom considers Shakespeare etc' and leave out (or move) his 'deep appreciation', (and, if used, put it into his voice?). I have considerable regard for Bloom, who I always find thought-provoking, even when I don't fully agree with him, or lack the knowledge to form an intelligent response, but I believe he is better served by under-statement and 3rd person evaluation of his worth.

Please 'ping' if replying.Pincrete (talk) 23:25, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I can see your point, however, respectfully, I do not consider it important. I found your alternative wording ("Bloom writes of his deep appreciation for Shakespeare") to be awkward and not really an improvement over the older wording. You could consider asking for a third opinion if you consider this issue worth pursuing any further. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:50, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

 * It's only important if we think that WP should be objective fact plus credited 3rd person evaluation. My afterthought suggested wording was to go directly to 'Bloom considers Shakespeare to be the supreme center of the Western Canon'. Sourcing an evaluative statement to Bloom's own writings, and starting a section with that evaluation of Bloom (rather than his thoughts on WS, which would allow US to consider whether his appreciation is indeed 'deep'), did not seem the best way to represent him and his opinions. It is rather as if we wrote 'Pavarotti was the greatest tenor of the 20th Century' (source Pavarotti's journal). The effect is to diminish - or at least distract - rather than enhance, one's respect. Pincrete (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You can request a third opinion here at WP:3O. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:01, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I am not sufficiently involved with Bloom to pursue a 3rdOp. I still think it reads as the man 'blowing his own trumpet' and that focusing at the outset on the content of his ideas would be better, though not necessarily my orig. edit. Pincrete (talk) 21:08, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

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Influence theory
The 2003 interview cited states that Bloom cannot believe that an "all-knowing," all-powerful God could allow Nazi death camps & schizophrenia.

This sounds like Ronald Laing's account of hearing Martin Buber speak before a Glasgow Jewish men's society in the early 1950s. Buber was going on about Abraham & the Covenant when he stopped, raised his Oxford dictionary-size Bible above his head, slammed it on the lectern, & shouted, "What good is that book to us after the death camps!" BubbleDine (talk) 18:29, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Nominated for the main page at ITN
-Ad Orientem (talk) 06:31, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

The Canon Wars
The authors use a statistical approach analyzing millions of syllabus and conclude the Western canon is still being widely taught and has prevailed, with some new voices included as well - both sides win. However, the humanities in general are declining in enrollment regardless of what is being taught fewer people are reading. -- Green  C  00:03, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Harold Bloom