Robert Bliwise, adjunct lecturer of public policy, editor of Duke Magazine and assistant vice president for alumni affairs
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"The honest answer: to be a super speed reader. So much to read, so little time in which to do it!"
Aaron Greenwald, Executive Director of Duke Performances
“I suppose that I’d opt for invisibility, so that I could better eavesdrop—a favorite pastime, anyway—and a good skill, I’ve found, at Duke. That superpower would also allow for solid sightlines to the action at Cameron (something I currently lack).”
Stephen Jaffe, Mary and James H. Semans professor of music composition
“One power I’ve always wanted to have would fulfill the following fantasy: I’m driving in my car, thinking about a piece that I’m composing, and then that very same piece, finished, full, beautiful, comes on the radio! That would be a pretty cool superpower to have—to imagine so fully into what I’m doing that it actually takes form before it has one. Otherwise, I think the ability to engender a worldwide moment of awe and silence would be amazing. Murderers and tyrants might stop, thieves would suspend thievery, we would cease extracting raw materials and cultural understanding might at that moment be imagined, as all of humanity could feel awe and silence. We would all be changed.”
Stephen Kelly, visiting professor of the practice of public policy and Canadian studies
“I would like to be able to read minds, human and otherwise. That way I could tell instantly if my students had really done the readings for today, how much my bosses were really prepared to give me as a raise and why dogs seem to like me.”
Melissa Malouf, associate professor of the practice of English and director of the Office of Undergraduate Scholars and Fellows
“I’d like to have a superpower that would strip the entire world of its lethal weaponry. I would close my eyes, like Hiro Nakamura [from the TV show Heroes], and it would all vanish: all the guns, bombs, machetes (sorry, farmers), missiles, drones, poison gases and all of the knowledge about how to make this stuff. And how to use it: so no more war games and the like on our computers, in our movies. I’d like to see how we manage without any of it whatsoever.”Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
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