reading
Five Reasons Why We (Should) Read
March 23, 2009
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by Auburn Rutledge
I’ll premise this post with a caveat: I have a natural predilection for reading. I have never not been a reader. And I’m also a brutal reader. I read in swift, short strokes, page conquering, digging for humor and drama and eccentricity and meaning, and if I don’t find it, I’m an unforgiving critic. On the other hand, books I love make me glow, and babble with enthusiasm at anyone who will listen.
I’ve come to expect a certain something from books. I read them because I want to look beyond the confines of my life and my psyche. I can be somewhat of an escapist fanatic, and books are my fix. It comes as no surprise that despite my increasingly busy schedule in a post-college world, I have found time for more pleasure reading than I ever did during my college years. I graduated and began looking for work in the midst of a growing economic recession, and my outlook tumbled back and forth between hopeful enthusiasm and dark depression. Few things provide a more immediate cure for the latter than a good book.
The National Endowment of the Arts has reported that the percentage of adult Americans reading has increased from 47% to 50% as of 2008, the first increase in the over two and a half decades since the NEA began its survey of adult literacy. That being said, the American public still by and large does not read nearly enough (half of all adults reading means that the other half of adults aren’t reading). And in times such as these, there are five reasons they should:
- Reading Enlightens & Stimulates Your Mind. Pick a topic, any topic. There is a book out there about it. Regardless of genre, you are discovering something new, different, strange, interesting—be it a technique to save money, every yoga position that has ever existed, how to build a treehouse, or what it means to be a Wiccan. Reading also challenges you to think, to be actively engaged and to process information. It is learning, regardless of whether you are flipping through War and Peace or a Biology textbook or a Harlequin romance or a comic book. People have sometimes asked me why I am “smart.” It’s not because of an extremely high IQ or because I’m a prodigy. It’s because I read. A lot.
- Reading is Therapeutic. “Curling up with a good book” (books on e-readers and laptops most definitely included!) can be the epitome of rest and relaxation in what has become an increasingly hectic modern life. Reading lets you shut out the rest of the world and focus only on what is in front of you: an engaging story. I prefer sitting in a corner of the couch with a hot cup of tea and my cat at my side, but that’s me. There is much to be said for an evening of reading versus an evening of grim national news in bright red capital letters on CNN. We know things are bad. The question is, what can we do for ourselves to stay focused, healthy, and positive?
- Reading Saves Money. Think of the purchases that modern Americans make to entertain themselves, and how much it costs them to do so. Video games. DVDs. Movie tickets. Eating out. Or… books. My sister bought me a 400-page, $7.99 fiction paperback for my birthday. At an average of 1 page a minute, that’s over six hours of entertainment. The vast majority of books aren’t expensive, make great gifts to others or to yourself, and are recyclable (err, re-readable). Plus you can always check out books at the library for that magic word: free. The New York Times reports that even through a recession, book sales in Europe continue to grow. Shouldn’t it be the same here?
- Reading Supports the Arts & Education. You don’t have to be a patron for a famous museum to support the arts or donate millions to a school to support education. Buy a book (or ten, or a hundred, or a thousand), and you support not only the author, but the bookstore, the publisher, the agent—every member of the industry that works to bring you more books, including those written specifically for education and those read by people of all ages to increase their knowledge. The more you read, the more opportunities you are presenting for writers to create new works for you. It’s a cyclical process. The same applies for reading to children and having your teens read. They learn, they share what they learn, they encourage others to do the same, and pass on said traits when they become well-educated adults.
- Reading is Cool. No, seriously. As a culture we have become more accepting of nerdy, geeky, and intellectual pastimes. (Think Internet-surfing, blog-writing, videogame-playing, comic books, and the like). Reading is the penultimate expression of your interest in the new and unknown, in learning and discovering, in fantasizing and dreaming. When I was younger, toting a book in my oversized purse whenever I went out was the cause of much laughter among my friends. Now people scroll through books on their cellphones, no matter where they are. Reading evolves with us, and stays with us.
If you have any reasons we (should) read, comment and let us know!
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A Crumbling Ivory Tower: Are the Humanities Becoming Irrelevant?
February 27, 2009
by Auburn Rutledge
One of my favorite childhood stories was (and remains) The Neverending Story, the tale of a young outcast boy named Bastian who is drawn by proxy into the fantasy world of the book he is reading. What draws him there is a being known as the Childlike Empress, who lives in a literal ivory tower on high. Her role in the story, however, depended on which version you were most familiar with—Michael Ende’s book, or Wolfgang Petersen’s film adaptation (more later).
I bring up The Neverending Story, and more specifically the Childlike Empress, as a metaphor for the study of humanities—of which most authors have had some form of intimate encounter with over the years. I read an article by Patricia Cohen in the New York Times on the humanities in colleges, entitled “In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth.” Cohen’s article suggests—in fact, outright states—that in our current global crisis, the humanities must fight for its very validity and continued existence:
questions about the importance of the humanities in a complex and technologically demanding world have taken on new urgency. Previous economic downturns have often led to decreased enrollment in the…“humanities”… Many in the field worry that in this current crisis those areas will be hit hardest.
In essence, why should we continue to study the theoretical, insubstantial, and creative elements of human nature and history when they give us no tangible skill set for dealing with reality?
Any writer could tell you why: because humanities are the backbone for our existence as complex creatures, the study of what it is to be human. And the arts, writing perhaps most profoundly, are created on the basis of this question. Fiction, nonfiction, biography or romance, horror or tragedy, self-help or satire, all great books rely upon the ability to find new answers or to ask new questions. I wax poetic, but the truth remains. Without humanities, writing becomes lost in translation.
This is not to say that a person studying engineering, or biology, or computer science, or a person who has never pursued higher education, cannot read and comprehend books. But school curriculums strive to place as much importance on humanities as sciences, occasionally even favoring the former. (While my classmates complained about major requirements, I happily signed up for two semesters of studies in Shakespeare—but I’m a book-reading nerd).
But the humanities have over the years come to represent something less tangible and more intellectual, something that exercises the brain but has no bearing outside of the circle of said intellectuals, growing ever-smaller with time. Cohen notes that the number of students pursuing degrees in the humanities has gradually shrunk since the 1960s, and the number of colleges hiring for positions within these fields of study is declining as well.
And here I finally return to my metaphor of the Childlike Empress in her tower. The outdated model of the study of humanities is like the Empress of the film, locked in her tower, a distant, mysterious and disconnected creature. She is the main element of the plot and yet she feels irrelevant—the very problem that students and their families, college administrators, and even professors themselves are finding with humanities today. Her book’s counterpart, however, recognizes the need to escape the tower and forge her own path, replete with danger and self-doubt, but inevitably the only way to save herself. And Cohen presents this as the humanities’ only option as well—to force its way into the world, to adapt its curriculum to tie classroom lessons in with real job opportunities, and to make the world understand why there must be a necessary unity between the arts and the sciences.
What are your thoughts on the subject? Has humanities-based intellectualism become a luxury? Will liberal arts colleges recover from the stress put on their programs by the economy? What elements of humanities are still important and relevant today?
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