I think that hard conversations reveal that we possess a fundamental sense of justice and responsibility and care. Hard conversations show us, experientially, that we are moral beings, and any education worth the name will allow us to reflect upon, and understand, that personal moral core. . . The last thing I would want my students to do is take a purely dispassionate approach to Chris Burden’s self-destructive performance pieces, the systemic, institutional racism and torture found in J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, the traumatic historiographic ambitions of the World War II combat film genre, or the extremely graphic murders described in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho.
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At Books@Work, we exhort people to leave their positions at the door and to enter the seminar space ready to engage as individuals. And it works. Like Alice and the Fawn, in that short hour, our participants openly enjoy each other’s company in ways the workplace does not normally occasion: free of hierarchy and preconceived ideas. But unlike Alice and the Fawn, as they return to the workplace and resume their “names” and roles, that powerful leveling experience lives on.
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In which we say goodbye to Rachel Burstein, our Academic Director, as she pursues opportunities closer to home (and her young child) in California. Rachel wrote frequently about the program on this blog, and in other venues. In this post, she reflects on special aspects of the Books@Work experience. Please join us in thanking Rachel for her powerful contributions to the growth and development of Books@Work, and encouraging her to keep in touch.
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Reading, writing and discussing poetry has the power to open windows in life-changing ways, giving readers the freedom to tell their own stories and view themselves as capable learners and contributors. Our current partnership with the East Cleveland Municipal Court and From Lemons to Lemonade (FL2L) bring Books@Work to a group of single mothers and other women whose lives rarely afford them the opportunity to read, let alone reflect.
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In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Mark Bauerlein, Emory University English professor, took aim at an increasingly broken higher education system, this time with professors in his cross-hairs. “You can’t become a moral authority,” he writes “if you rarely challenge students in class and engage them beyond it.” But Books@Work demonstrates that the professor is not only a moral authority, but a powerful agent for effective change.
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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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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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