Philolexian Society
| Philolexian Society | |
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| Founded: | 1802 |
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| Category: | Debate |
| Website: | {{{Website}}} |
| Contact: | {{{Contact}}} |
The Philolexian Society is one of the oldest collegiate literary societies in the United States, and the oldest student group at Columbia. It is known primarily for its witty debates and unabashedly anachronistic air.
The society aims to "improve its members in Oratory, Composition and Forensic Discussion". The name Philolexian is Greek for "Lover of discourse," and the society's motto is the Latin word "Surgam", meaning "I shall rise". The society publishes a literary journal of the same name twice a year.
It has many famous alumni.
History
The Society was founded on May 17, 1802. Originally, freshmen were barred from entry, and to satisfy them, the Peithologian Society was founded four years later. For a century, these two societies would be rivals, until the latter was vanquished. After maintaining a continuous existence for over 130 years, a combination of administrative interference, the Great Depression, and student apathy following an internal power struggle led to periods of intermittent dormancy over the next 20 years. Allen Ginsberg is often apocryphally credited with having run the society into the ground. The society was revived once in the 1960s by Ben Stein and others, but the effort didn't last. In 1986 the society was reconvened again by a group of six college students with nothing better to do with their time. The society has been active ever since. The leader of the most recent revivalists, Thomas Vinciguerra, is now known as "the Avatar".
Activities
Beyond its weekly debating sessions, the society administers the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest. It also hosts a "Beat Night", reading poetry of the Beat Generation aloud on The Steps, and holds an annual "Croquet Tea" on Mathematics Lawn, in which members appear in 19th century costume.
Debate resolutions
- Student government is incredibly lame.
Alumni
- William Theodore de Bary - East Asia scholar
- Jacques Barzun - cultural historian
- James Warner Bellah - writer of Westerns
- John Berryman - poet
- Randolph Bourne - essayist
- Robert Neil Butler - gerontologist
- Sidney Buchman - screenwriter
- Frederic René Coudert, Jr. - congressman
- I.A.L. Diamond - screenwriter
- Jason Epstein - publisher
- Stuyvesant Fish - president of the Illinois Central Railroad
- Dixon Ryan Fox - president of Union College
- James W. Gerard - ambassador to Germany
- Allen Ginsberg - Beat poet
- Robert Giroux - publisher
- Robert Gottlieb - editor
- Paul Governali - football quarterback
- James Hamilton - Alexander Hamilton's son
- John Hollander - poet
- Richard Howard - poet
- Joyce Kilmer - poet
- Wellington Koo - Chinese politician and diplomat
- William Langer - senator and governor of North Dakota
- Brander Matthews - dramatic scholar
- Thomas Merton - author and monk
- John Purroy Mitchel - mayor of New York City
- Nathaniel Moore - Columbia president
- William Barclay Parsons - engineer of the New York City subway
- Ben Stein - humorist, speechwriter, actor
- Ralph de Toledano - conservative commentator
- Thomas Vinciguerra - journalist
- Walter Wager - novelist
- Gideon Yago - TV personality
