Avivah Zornberg, in her remarkable collection of lectures on Genesis, The Beginning of Desire, writes: "The ark becomes a crucible in which a new type of sensibility is nurtured… The ark is to be a laboratory of kindness".
Speaking softly and with remarkable modesty, peppering his lecture with metaphors, Mr. Achebe talked with his hands, sweeping the air in an arc when referring to Nigeria, sometimes clasping his hands as though in prayer, pointing a long finger when speaking of the reign of dictators.
Then, he remembers, "Another Canadian student said, 'You must come and hear these lectures by this remarkable man Miliband.' " In the LSE's scuffed and functional lecture halls, he stood very straight on stage and spoke with booming conviction and a hint of a Belgian accent.
At the centre of Pausch's remarkable tale is "The Last Lecture," an old academic conceit whereby teachers are asked to imagine they're near death and must therefore sum up the entire collection of wisdom they wish to pass on to their students in a single lecture.
"What was remarkable, he had this ability to lecture or do his committee work and go to his desk and work," he said.
In 2007 Katie Smythe, a ballet teacher working out of her native Memphis, was driving her most remarkable student, Charles Riley, across the Mississippi to a lecture-demonstration in Arkansas.
As a teacher he was considered remarkable for his ability to enliven the standard medical lecture by using anecdote and humour.
The subject: a lecture he recently gave at Harvard on the remarkable properties of the number phi.
