Here’s a challenge: Find 10 random people. It doesn’t matter where you get them from. Now, try to make a list of 10 books that you have all read and are able to discuss intelligently. Exclude “The Da Vinci Code” and anything by Mitch Albom. If you’re really daring, scrap anything on the New York Times bestseller list. I’m talking books — the central units of intellectual development, and the most serious catalysts for human growth.
If you have never read Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and pondered the mysteries of sexuality and community, you have missed a defining transcendent experience. If you have not read a poem by Keats, you are blind to the perfection of since-unmatched poetic architecture. If you have never pondered Rousseau’s “Noble Savage,” you have guaranteed your complacency in a world order whose norms might still be negotiated if enough thinkers remain. And if your only experience with Shakespeare was a gloss-over of “Julius Caesar” in high school — well, what can I say to you? By denying yourself Shakespeare, you deny yourself communion with your original psychologist.
But I digress. I assume you’ve found your 10 people, or at least thought about who they might be. Do you have your 10 books yet? Didn’t think so. Give it an hour, and you might be able to come up with a crude list. In a perfect world, the exercise would take about a minute.
One of my good friends assures me the humanities will never die, that every generation has written their eulogy erroneously. But I don’t know. When the death knell for the humanities is signaled, it will likely be less stark than we anticipate. Most likely something that looks very much like the humanities will have emerged in their place. And so it is with today’s universities: Most students still read, but few read the same things. We are left with hundreds of people talking past each other (as if you could ever seriously be a humanist in isolation). Here’s a simple proposition: if you read a book and can’t find anyone outside of class to discuss it with, you have gotten almost nowhere.
How did we get where we are today? The critic Harold Bloom believes enthusiasm for multiculturalism shattered the humanities into a zillion self-congratulatory impulses. He’s off-base. The problem with the humanities isn’t that they now celebrate the works of underrepresented peoples; if anything, this has prevented a catastrophic enrollment drop in literature courses. My argument, thankfully, does not require me to be a cultural imperialist.
No, the issue is simpler than that. It’s two-fold: Reading as a communal experience barely exists anymore, while meanwhile the normative case for studying literature has become confused. As a consequence, people are not just reading alone; they are also denied the intellectual perspective to revolt against this sorry situation.
The shrewd University of Wisconsin student can, if they so choose, steer their education to provide a healthy dose of robust, communal liberal-arts scholarship. (It’s called an Integrated Liberal Studies certificate, and most people discover it by accident.) But let’s be honest. ILS certificates are not exactly a dime a dozen. And UW will always be primarily a scientific research institution.
That’s why it feels good to have a humanist as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin. If you believe no life is complete without literature, Biddy has your back. Chancellor Martin (a Ph.D. in German literature) could be a revelation — if she is able to revive the humanities on campus.
When I got Martin’s recent e-mail announcing the “Go Big Read” common book program for 2009-10, I was impressed by the ambition. Until now a “Common Book” program has only existed for freshmen in the Letters & Science honors program. Martin’s initiative extends across all colleges and classes, replicating her successful efforts at Cornell. It’s a brilliant move which should be getting more media attention. The preeminent scientific-research university in the Midwest has determined to break for a moment to read a book and discuss it. Think about that.
The catch is that “Go Big Read” is voluntary. But I hope a lot of people participate (especially hard science majors), and that students abandon the cynical perspective usually used to appraise things like this. This is not a mere kitschy, feel-good exercise. It’s the first step in an intervention of UW culture which I hope will be massive. Whether or not “Go Big Read” succeeds, this university has to develop more respect for the humanities.
Eric Schmidt ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and legal studies with an ILS certificate.
