My worst nightmare

Two years before finishing my PhD, I had to cover for a professor who went abroad. I had fantasised about being a professor, but as I have a severe speech disability I did not think it possible. In class, my adrenaline was pumping - I thought I gave a good lecture, but the test was how many students would come back. For the rest of the year, all the students returned. I had made the grade.

Baruch Kimmerling is a professor of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.