“Becoming an English major” = “being a human being”?
You can thank your new principal (the “Dr.” before his name refers to his English Ph.D, by the way) for alerting the ECA English department to this compelling article about what it means to pursue a serious college education in literature. Not only does the author articulate powerfully all the joys that reading can bring, he also quotes Biggie Smalls, my favorite rapper.
Here’s a sample: English majors “read for the same reason that people grab a glass of chardonnay—to put a light buzz on. The English major reads because, as rich as the one life he has may be, one life is not enough. He reads not to see the world through the eyes of other people but effectively to become other people.” . . . “Given the ragged magnificence of the world, who would wish to live only once? The English major lives many times through the astounding transportive magic of words and the welcoming power of his receptive imagination.”
Do consider reading this in its entirety, especially you seniors who are doubting the relevance of literature in the years ahead.
Jess Barga
ECA English with Ms. Barga 
The English major and its true importance in both education and life seem to be getting much attention these days. The following article from The New Yorker, titled “Why Teach English?”, deals with similar questions as the one Ms. Barga posted from The Chronicle of Higher Education. The link is the following: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/08/why-teach-english.html
I thought it was a very convincing piece. It deals with the issue of the significance of literature and its academic study in a very different way than the Mark Edmundson article does. In fact, it even opposes some of the ideas illustrated in that article. Here’s a glimpse to some of Adam Gopnik’s contesting arguments: “Nor do humanities specialists, let alone English majors, seem to be particularly humane or thoughtful or open-minded people, as the alternative better-people defense insists. No one was better read than the English upper classes who, a hundred years ago, blundered into the catastrophe of the Great War…Victorian factory owners read Dickens, but it didn’t make Victorian factories nicer.”
I highly suggest giving it at least a glance. It’s, truly, an interesting read. “We need the humanities not because they will produce shrewder entrepreneurs or kinder C.E.O.s but because, as that first professor said, they help us enjoy life more and endure it better.”
Ena, I read the article you posted a few months ago (*oops—upon re-reading, I realized that your Gopnik article is brand new . . . I swear I read something making the same points at the end of last school year. Anyway, I take it back! But it’s true that this topic has been hashed and rehashed in what seems like every publication over the past several months), along with this one from the New York Times:
Although the Times piece comes at the predicament of the humanities major from a somewhat more positive angle than the New Yorker article, I’m inclined to agree with both of them a little more than the original article from The Chronicle. Honestly, it seems silly to claim that any college major can make you “more human” than another, even if I still harbor some doubts about certain overly practical pursuits like business and marketing. This article talks more about writing and literacy than it does about the serious study of literature, but regardless, I think the author makes a good point when she says that “writing well isn’t merely a utilitarian skill. It is about developing a rational grace and energy in your conversation with the world around you … No one has found a way to put a dollar sign on this kind of literacy,… But everyone who possesses it — no matter how or when it was acquired — knows that it is a rare and precious inheritance.” This, along with Gopnik’s statement that “you choose a major, or a life, not because you see its purpose, which tends to shimmer out of sight like an oasis, but because you like its objects,” seem to me to justify any choice of major, be it underwater basket-weaving, exploitative money-making, rocket science, or my personal preference, reading, writing and talking endlessly about books.
p.s. Thank you so much for actually reading my random posts. You are most likely the only one. But, that’s enough to make me continue posting . . .