Last week I dreamed that I was back in college and walking into the English department. There I ran into, saw for the first time in years, three of my favorite English professors, each perfectly in character, each a joy to see. Two have moved on from that wonderful West Tennessee school, but I consider all of them significant to my formation as both an English major and a Bible major.
English majors and the things they love and do well have been in the media a bit recently. A couple of my English major friends posted Facebook links to the New York Times article, “The Decline and Fall of the English Major.” The quality article focuses primarily on the broad significance of the humanities and the hallmark skill of writing in which English majors find themselves immersed.
Steve Strauss, columnist and small business expert, shared his thoughts in praise of English majors over at the Huffington Post in an article titled “Why I Hire English Majors.” Strauss praises English majors for their smarts, boldness, writing ability, and how easy they are to work with.
Being a solid writer is important. I can’t help but believe, though, that being a solid reader might be the more important quality sometime soon. I grew up thinking that all adults read, which I have since found to be not-so-true. People are busy. We love sound-bytes and status updates. We prefer 2-1/2 hour adaptations to reading the 400-page book that serves as the movie’s source. Few people have time to “waste” reading a good book unless we’re on vacation. But I think that Karen Swallow Prior is on to something in her article at the Atlantic, “How Reading Makes Us More Human.” True: there’s a lot of controversy around the benefits of reading fiction, but her approach to “spiritual reading” is spot-on. That she quotes Eugene Peterson makes me trust her even more. Give the article a read . . . and be sure to read the comments. It’s an interesting conversation that we would all do well to think about.
I grew up in a pre-STEM world, where the humanities were of primary importance. And while I respect mathematics and science greatly, I do believe that literature (and literary writing) will be of vital importance as culture moves forward. Good literature read well both anchors us and challenges us in ways that logical problems and their significant solutions cannot. Civilization is made up of buildings and roadways and telescopes to see the stars and research to stop diseases, but people are at its heart. And if we’re not careful, if we allow ourselves to stop reading deeply, we will find ourselves in a great societal deficit we could only know exists if we have made it a point to read the best of our stories well.
Space Enough, and Time 
The most interesting aspect of this resurgence of is that it’s not just restricted to specific areas of education. If anything we’re seeing a blend of science and English in ways previously unheard of. Notable astrophysicists such as Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, and Carl Sagan have done well to, not only spark interest in science, but they have inspired a new way to approach art. Check out this incredible comic strip set to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Most Astounding Fact.” http://goo.gl/1KO7F Personally, it’s the closest thing to an unintentional poem physics has ever gotten.
As to whether or not social media diminishes interest in the humanities or reading for the sake of reading, I think it’s a toss-up of sorts. While I believe reading to be the optimal way of enjoying a story, sometimes movie adaptions and audio books are a way of enjoying the story (story being an important aspect I’ll address later) in a new perspective. For example, as you know, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” was recently adapted for the big screen. Speaking for my generation, it’s rather difficult to conceptualize the context to which the story takes place. It was a period of unimaginable economic growth which starkly contrasts today’s recession which further outline the disparity of the culture then and now. The movie gives us an image of sorts where the set design and costumes put a frame around the painting, the story.
Frankly, I don’t understand the controversy about fiction vs non-fiction. Reading, in and of itself, is greatly beneficial. I just happen to prefer fiction over non-fiction because if non-fiction is a slice detailing all the layers of a cake, fiction is getting the entire cake with an extra helping of creativity. It all depends on a reader’s interest, but the most important part of that is that they’re reading and interested. Sorry about the long response. If it was too long, here’s a quote from my favorite author which summarizes my arguments.
“Most people don’t realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn’t value its librarians doesn’t value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?”
― Neil Gaiman
Thanks for the response, Bryson. Creative cartoon. And anytime someone quotes Gaiman, it’s a good thing.
It’s not good art or quality writing or creativity that I worry about. There are a lot of great artists out there right now. It’s finding people who are engaged with creativity as recipients of art’s gifts. I think that in some ways, people in the humanities have always felt like wallflowers at the party. That insecurity can sometimes be what drives the creative impulse. Or that insecurity can result in cultural isolation, which isn’t always a good thing, either. David Foster Wallace talked about education being the means through which people become “well-adjusted.” I think reading goes a long way in that kind of education, be it fiction or non-fiction. How, though, do you help people see the great gift that reading can be? How do you help them willingly receive the good gift of another person’s creative endeavor? I imagine it to be one book, one song, one canvas at a time. That just might seem frustratingly slow.
If there is any trend that I have noticed in my time teaching, it is that students are reading texts but not necessarily texts with non-personal content. I see no magazines. I see no favorite works of fiction. These days, when a student gets time after a test to do something else, they just stare into space or ask to go to the bathroom. Granted, there are a few out there who read John Green novels, but I don’t really see them out in my class. And as curriculum becomes more “practical,” more non-fiction creeps in. That’s definitely an unfortunate trend, but how does one combat that effectively? The solution, of course, it to create and maintain a culture of reading for the engagement it brings.
Glad to hear that you’re reading and that you enjoy it. Thanks for reading my post and responding to it.