Josiah S. Carberry

He is said to still teach at Brown University, and to be known for his work in "psychoceramics", the supposed study of "cracked pots" (a play on words of the term crackpot).

The joke originated when Classics professor John William Spaeth, Jr. (1895–1973), posted a false notice for a Carberry lecture on a bulletin board at Brown on January 24, 1929.

The lecture's title was "Archaic Greek Architectural Revetments in Connection with Ionian Philology"; when asked to elaborate, Spaeth provided fictional details about the professor's family and academic interests.

Since then, Carberry has traditionally been scheduled to lecture every Friday the 13th and February 29 at Brown, and a general mythology has grown around him and his family.

Jars, many of them cracked pots, are placed in many of the administrative buildings as well as the libraries and students can donate change to Professor Carberry on these days.

Legal philosopher Joel Feinberg, whose teaching career began with a two-year stint at Brown, carried on a long and apparently furious feud with Carberry in the acknowledgement sections of his many books.

He was commended as a "bold explorer and eclectic seeker of knowledge, for his pioneering work in the field of psychoceramics, the study of cracked pots."