Title

Why read?

Description

Argues that questions about the uses of literature are essential to a literary education and that reading not for only training and education, but also for pleasure, can change students' lives for the better.

Identifier

2408169

1582344256

Creator

Edmundson, Mark

Format

1st U.S. ed.

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

2004

Program air date: December 5, 2004.

Publisher

Bloomsbury

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front endpapers and half title: Yale (grad stn) Wood stock Country School, Vermont. Long time agnostic. My children 12 and 14. Entered grad school in 1979. Alan Bloom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Rorty. Foucault-patron saint of wisdom? --To me is the builder of dungeons in the air. Derrida. Religion--1st question to students. Matter of belief is crucial to our common future. But what is old to the teacher is new to the student," "Get to politics, love, money, the good life--Socrates knew that's where real thinking starts. Emerson's circles p 29. Ability to expand ones orbits is essential to health of democracy. Best beginning reader--to admit--he among all the red is lost. Important for teachers: allow students to make contact with their ignorance p 35. Stanley Fish--his aim is to be as interesting as he can be teaching critical thinking. p 44. James Edwards--normal nihilists--people who believe in nothing--(except the achievement of their own advantage). Lionel Trilling--at first he 'bored' books. "So far we've left the quest of truth to Falwell and to faith," p 51. Truth read for truth? Wordsworth--dull ache setting into his spirit "we are blessed always if we lived in the present"-Thoreau 58. Henry James-Portrait of a Lady--hated his lead character. I often teach Iliad (Yale grad) because of way women treated. Achilles--never accept 2nd place 71. Student athlete--go back Yes! It would make life incredibly intense. Homer teaches thymos--incredibly intense desire for glory and praise. Do you like competition. African American student--Christian--like the Iliad who would be Jesus or Achilles. Ultimate test of a book: is the difference it would make in the conduct of life. Lamb underlines parts of titles on "By the Same Author." Notes in back flysheets and end paper: Schopenhauer question--what is life. Shakespeare--cannot tell what he believed. Story of Emerson endorsing Walt Whitman's poems. Taking a deep ritual delight in a book or an author is a like falling in love p 94. In grad school became a student of Freud. You say--your fellow scholars most of whom actually dislike the authors they teach. 82 I sometimes preside over a raucous classroom. I teach to "shape the future" not the past. All student perspectives are welcome in class. Classroom is free space where they can speak their minds. A Prof. I met philosophy of teaching. Humanism--secular writing a way to shape people's lifes. History p 115 condemns one to be the idealist in youth who becomes the disillusioned reactionary in old age. Grad students become despondent--they must make themselves marketable--and that often means betraying themselves. Author--grew up in white working class. Read Auto. of Malcolm X. "The test of a book lies in its power to map or transform life," "author 129. Pop culture--more and more taught at university high school student to college. Teacher loved Faulkner--student read Stephen King. Hermeneutics --we can teach what is worth taking seriously. "They need to know what's worth taking seriously"--Why? Literature we've come to value--most especially the novel. Religion is now very strong in US but I feel that promise for a large scale turn away from religion is near at hand. 137. Freud, Nietzsche, Arnold. *Democracy, and the democratic humanism can make it unfold, these are my religion. Proust 107. They would not be my readers but readers of their own selves. Dickens--liberalism isn't condescending--it confers a vitality on the believer. Burke prejudice p 115. Author: our current students--less rebellious than any group I have encountered. Teachers don't want power over students p 100. "To me there are few pleasures greater than being influenced: learning something I need to know from another," author. P. 102 many professors claim to be on left fact--they do not trust or like unschooled people, they tend to despise the people in whose behalf they claim to be working. Robin Lerner--headmaster Woodstock Country School. Educational genius--understanding and affection for 16 yr olds. I've never seen surpassed. "My kid's a loser," parents. School closed down 25 years later--a reunion. Writers--Orwell on Dickens--socialism D. wouldn't endorse. Writers write books because they are not satisfied by what's on the shelf p 99. Shelby Foote, Marcel Proust. Emerson--Robert Richardson. Underlinings/Notes: Underlinings: underscore and add details to ideas expressed in the notes. Notes: "30 years ago, reading," "teachers," "liberal arts education" "Bloom love hate," "going badly," "consumer culture," "little fire in students," "TV," "Rare student," "major in econ.," "Dickens," "computers," "facts," "college photos," "tenure," "marketing," "humanities degrees sink," "no C's and D's," "1st 2 weeks," "professors," "Leno etc in my class," "Jerry Falwell," "Muslim,""T.J.," "God?" "Evil," "Morality," "ironists," "the good life," "Socrates," "90% believe in God," "Ralph Waldo Emerson," "circles," "question," "books," "liberal arts education," "used books," "ignorance," "poems," "Derrida," "critical thinking," "nothing matters except to me," "Buddhists, ego annulled," "to thrive in a university," "So far we've left the quest of truth to Falwell and the faith," "a work, question," "poem," "dull ache," "horrors," "blessed if we live in present," "heal ourselves," "Anti-James," "feminist teachers deal with emotion," "Iliad," "women, how regarded," "never accept 2nd place Achilles," "Orwell 1984," "bad idea," "*end of 800 Booknotes 9:35 A.M. Sat. Oct 23, 2004--BPL." "Freud in grad school," "delight in book," "socialism," "love for Dickens," "teachers power," "Woodstock," "Robin Leaver," "Proust," "Burke," "current students," "Nixon," "what books," "pick own books," "pedagogy," "teaching," "David Rieff," "a book," "students," "need maps," "Oscar Wilde," "movies," "money," "my religion."

Subject

"Literature--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States."

"College students--Books and reading--United States."

"Education, Higher--United States."

"Books and reading--United States."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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