On Taking My Job Seriously

I have long held the position that academics who complain about the state of the profession, and about public attitudes toward the profession, find it too easy to demonize and demean state legislators and demagogues who single out the ivory tower for criticism. They do so, I think, because they fail to look critically at themselves and their own blind spots.

Anyway, this essay is one of several I've seen recently that attempt to apply a measure of self-critique to the humanities in general and the teaching of literature specifically. Professor Morson's methodological critique is apt, I think. When my colleagues bemoan the shrinking class sizes and FTE's and what not, and look for administrative solutions, they are addressing only part of the problem, and in a way that does not in fact speak to students.

It would be a mistake, too, to suggest that it's merely some kind of adjustment in "pedagogy" in the abstract that can make literature classes vital again. Prof. Morson's emphasis on compassion and the engagement with moral and ethical problems is likely to help, yes. I would add what one of my professors at UNC said recently--that in learning to navigate the allusive, metaphorical, and rhetorical features of the best literary works, students enrich their minds in ways that they never could in other ways--and never would unless guided in the experience with the help of a committed and passionate teacher. The passion of the professor for the material she teaches (that I teach) is the most lasting legacy she (I) can offer.

This is why Prof. Morson ends on this note, and I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person who tries this approach (down to the reading out loud to the students part, which may be a topic I need to return to):

Because literature is about diverse points of view, I teach by impersonation. I never tell students what I think about the issues the book raises, but what the author thinks. If I comment on some recent event or issue, students will be hearing what Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, not I, would say about it. One can also impersonate the novel’s characters. What would Ivan Karamazov say about our moral arguments? How could we profit from the wisdom Dorothea Brooke acquires? Can one translate their wisdom into a real dialogue about moral questions that concern us—or about moral questions that we were unaware are important but in light of what we have learned turn out to be so? Authors and characters offer a diversity of voices and points of view on the world from which we can benefit.

Such impersonation demands absorbing the author’s perspective so thoroughly that one can think from within it, and then “draw dotted lines” from her concerns to ours. Students hear the author’s voice and sense the rhythms of her thought, and then, when they go back to the book, read it from that perspective. Instead of just seeing words, they hear a voice.

It is therefore crucial to read passages aloud, with the students silently reading along. Students should sense they are learning how to bring a novel to life. “So this is why people get so much out of Tolstoy!”

At that point, students will not have to take the author’s greatness on faith. They will sense that greatness and sense themselves as capable of doing so. Neither will they have to accept the teacher’s interpretation without seeing how it was arrived at or what other interpretation might be possible. No one will have to persuade them why Wikipedia won’t do.