Literature and Undergraduates
Posted on July 20th, 2010
Here are questions I confront once again as I prepare for my classes in the upcoming fall semester:
Why should undergraduate university students pursuing degrees other than the ones offered in English Departments be required to study literature? Is it necessary that 21st century students read William Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson or Anton Chekhov or William Faulkner or Flanner O’Connor or Gabriel Garcia-Marquez or Cormac McCarthy?
It must seem obvious to even the most casual observers that students addicted to texting, social networking sites, and other diversions generally have little interest in poems, short stories, novels, plays, essays, etc.
The foregoing questions relate to my annual professional crisis: Students ask (although not openly), “Why do I need to take a literature course? I suppose my answer to that student question, whenever it can be articulated, might be provoked by other people’s answers to the threshold questions above.
So, what is your opinion about the value of literature to undergraduate university students?
Tags: Anton Chekhov, Casual Observers, Cormac Mccarthy, Diversions, Emily Dickinson, English Departments, Fall Semester, Flanner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Literature Course, O Connor, Short Stories, Social Networking Sites, St Century, Student Question, Undergraduate University Students, Undergraduates, Value Of Literature, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare
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