Context is important in understanding works of literature. But readers of literature — particularly those in Books@Work seminars — are not only historians. They read for all sorts of reasons. To hear stories. To encounter the other. To understand the world around them. To hear the beauty of the written word. To escape the familiar. To embrace the familiar. And so even as we acknowledge, unpack and rethink the meaning of works like Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum in light of the author’s past and how he concealed that past, we also continue to read. As you read, how much does the author’s past affect how you perceive the story?
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The festivities surrounding National Poetry Month reminds us that poems can speak to us in ways that few other things can, capturing fleeting moments or complicated emotions on their own terms. A first encounter with a poem can be difficult. But like so much in reading, peeling back the layers of the text to see new things reveals new meanings and new ways of seeing the world. Tight and taut, the poem invites scrutiny, gives space for reading and re-reading, encourages self-examination alongside reading, urges engagement — also the hallmark of the Books@Work learning experience.
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Allison Schifani, a veteran professor of Books@Work seminars reflects on the willingness of participants to engage with theory. She writes, “My experience leading Books@Work seminars has offered a wonderful, and surprising, counter to the narrative that seems most popularly accepted about literary theory. Participants arrive with ease and enjoyment at a critical reading that is sometimes nearly impossible to get from my undergraduate students. It helped me remember that while the literary critic and her language might be unpopular, the work she does is work that matters.”
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Inspired by Ann Kowal Smith’s previous reflection on the power of experience, Books@Work Board member Karen Nestor reflects on the ways in which that experience is compounded through social interaction of the sort provided in Books@Work seminars. She writes, “In Books@Work we have seen the exponential power that is unleashed when people share their life experience with others in new ways and begin to challenge their assumptions about the world and each other.”
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In this article for the Carnegie Council’s magazine, Policy Innovations, we argue that literature—whether a classic play or a contemporary novel—has everything to do with work. And given the chance to read and discuss books in seminars led by university professors, employees will make those connections explicit.
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News came last week that the famed literary editor Leon Wieseltier was joining the Brookings Institution, the venerable Washington, DC think tank as the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy. The announcement shows that policy work isn’t just the domain of social scientists. Whether they involve parsing texts or reflecting on the historical significance of cultural trends, the methodologies employed by humanities scholars such as Wieseltier are rigorous and important and offer a new way of understanding current problems.
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Last Friday was Employee Appreciation Day. Employee Appreciation Day is a nice start, but if it is to make a difference in employee engagement and loyalty, that day must be the start of something bigger — something that makes employees feel valued as contributors, partners and people every day of the year.
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There is something compelling and enduring (even if not literally!) about the paperback. It is the affordable, reliable, available book for the everyman. While serialized literature was a feature of nineteenth century newspapers, and while the concept of the free public (and sometimes lending) library dates to even earlier, the mass availability of serious literature in book format largely came with the advent of the paperback.
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We are excited to report on three exciting Books@Work developments that allow us to reach new audiences, deepen our engagement with the communities in which participants live, offer new ways for readers to reflect on texts and build relationships with one another, and build momentum toward transformational change across entire institutions.
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