I suppose I should wax thoughtfully about the value of a liberal education in a global context, recount the significant work undertaken by my students in Oxford, convey the manner in which I was positively transformed by the pedagogical opportunities, and relate how my teaching was renewed by the experience abroad. It was only one of many unintended but pleasurable diversions during my assignment overseas. When I applied to teach there, I hadn't anticipated William and Kate's royal betrothal, much less the calendar of their nuptials. I came to the realization of my antimonarchist, pro-wedding stance while teaching at the Bing Overseas Studies Program in Oxford last spring. One looked like a giant IUD fastened to a woman's forehead, and that alone was worth the price of admission. I can't suffer the idea of William the future king, but I think it is a perfectly good use of my time to debate the merits of Kate's wedding dress, not to mention all those hats on display-the aptly named fascinators. In short, I'm a glutton for garish British entertainment. A fear of its pomp and circumstance, like the terror of plague, drove them to holiday in the Cotswolds, to take bucolic hikes in the Lake District-any pastime far from the BBC's coverage of the 'stately' pageantry.īut I'm decidedly pro royal wedding: As an American I'm smitten by the superficial ceremony of it all, its senseless pomposity, histrionic spectacle and grotesquely false opulence. On the other hand, they despised Prince William and Kate Middleton's royal wedding, especially the hullaballoo leading up to it. While I find the notion of inherited privilege unsavory, most of my colleagues at Oxford University seemed totally unperturbed by it.

As an American citizen, the idea of a British monarchy-or any monarchy-seems absolutely preposterous to me.

Did they eat napkins in the movie spy?