Hi Class,
Students often ask me: “Prof. Scanlan, since I am going to be an engineer (or nurse or programmer or chef), why do I need to read and write about literature? It has nothing to do with me or my career.”
I’ll use Ngugi Wa Thiong’O to answer this question, as he puts it so eloquently:
Language as communication and as culture are then products of each other. Communication creates culture: culture is a means of communication. Language carries culture, and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we come to perceive ourselves and our place in the world. How people perceive themselves affects how they look at their culture, at their politics and at the social production of wealth, at their entire relationship to nature and to other beings. Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world” (Lead, Follow, or Move Out of the Way 215-6).
I like this answer, though I can think of many other answers as well. What do you think? Is language, literature, and certain arts useless or useful?
For homework due on Monday:
Read Larsen, Baldwin, and Chopin. Then, for each of the three literary pieces, write up the 5-point Literary Analysis tool. Typed.
Also, print out Essay 3 assignment details.
Cheers,
Sean
