"In my course, I've been satisfied with thevariety of literature to which we've beenexposed," she says.

Students are not alone in defending thedepartment. Five other French Professors who wereteaching at Harvard last spring also wrote lettersto Le Figaro Magazine condemning Loupan'sattacks.

Loupan writes that when he visited Harvard lastspring, Associate Professor of Romance Languageand Literature Nadine S. Berenguier was offeringcourse on the Enlightenment.

"Using a strange methodology, she does notdiscuss the texts," he writes. "She pits themagainst each other in pairs, a woman's textagainst a man's text."

But in an interview, Berenguier says, "I wasnot teaching the course during the semester inwhich the article was written. I was on leave thewhole year."

"The journalist only used the catalog to writethe paragraph about me and I don't call that goodjournalism," she says.

Berenguier says she responded in her letter bycorrecting the facts.

"My teaching was misrepresented, so were thefacts," she says. "I just corrected the facts and[tried] to represent my teaching in general and inthe class that was under attack."

Suleiman echoes Berenguier's charge againstLoupan, who claims to have heard her course on20th-century Realism.

"My course on French fiction was given in thefall semester," Suleiman says in an interview."There was no way in the world that thisjournalist could have seen or heard me teach thatcourse in March 1994."

"Furthermore, he attributes to me thoughts andideas that I have never expressed," Suleiman says."This, I think, is really irresponsiblejournalism."

Suleiman emphasizes that although Loupanvisited Cambridge, and made Jardine and herselfthe "stars" of his story, "he never bothered totry contacting us either in person or bytelephone."

As a result, Suleiman and Jardine decided tosue Loupan and Le Figaro Magazine.

Everyone's Critic

Loupan is not alone in criticizing the Frenchsection of Harvard's Romance Languages andLiterature Department.