Reading Mindfully: Billy Collins’ “Genius”

Reading Mindfully: Billy Collins’ “Genius”

The writer John Updike praised the poems of Billy Collins as “limpid, gently startling. . . they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides.” Arguably the most popular American poet of the modern era, Collins served two terms as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and one term as New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Despite his many accolades and awards, he did not begin his career as a poet until the age of forty. His work is widely known for its humor, which Collins refers to as “a door into the serious.”

As you read Billy Collins’ poem “Genius,” consider these questions if genius is something we have or we create.

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Weekend Reading: January 2018

Weekend Reading: January 2018

In 2013, Google conducted a study called Project Oxygen to determine its top employees’ most important qualities. The idea was to test its hiring algorithms, which were set at the time to sort for elite computer science students from top universities. The study concluded that STEM expertise – widely revered at Google – was the least important quality of the eight discovered. Founding director of the Futures Initiative Cathy N. Davidson elaborates in The Washington Post:

“The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.

Those traits sound more like what one gains as an English or theater major than as a programmer. Could it be that top Google employees were succeeding despite their technical training, not because of it?”

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The Power of Unexpected Questions

The Power of Unexpected Questions

Three unrelated experiences came together in the last few weeks that led me to revisit an idea that has stayed in the back of my mind for quite some time: MIT Professor Edgar Schein’s notion of “humble inquiry,” which Schein defines as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, or building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.”

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Reading Mindfully: Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”

Reading Mindfully: Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”

In 2016, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan became the first musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, sparking a debate about the nature of “literary” writing. Can we equate song lyrics with poetry? Should we distinguish between songwriters and a novelists? Does Dylan deserve the same literary prestige as Toni Morrison and Pablo Neruda?

Can we embark on a mindful literary exploration of one of Bob Dylan’s most famous songs?

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Who Reads Shakespeare?

Who Reads Shakespeare?

This American Life’s “Act V” tells the story of “one of the most evocative productions of Shakespeare done anywhere in 2002,” not on Broadway or the West End, but at a high-security prison in eastern Missouri. Arranged by an organization called Prison Performing Arts, the prison staged one act of Hamlet every six months. “Act V” portrays the prisoners’ preparation for and production of Hamlet’s final climactic act.

So how can prison inmates, many of whom have never finished high school, stage a production of one of Shakespeare’s most philosophical plays?

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Beware the Bullet Point: Critical Thinking and Well-Told Stories

Beware the Bullet Point: Critical Thinking and Well-Told Stories

At first, some are skeptical of the role literature can play in corporate settings. After all, a novel (or short story or play) can take a long time to make even a single point about human experience. In Hamlet, for example, Shakespeare expends 30,000 words to provide a window on the pitfalls of decision-making. Wouldn’t a short article (or even a PowerPoint presentation) more efficiently summarize the salient factors that produce good or bad decisions for work teams? But what might we miss?

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Breaking an Academic Taboo: Professor Laura Baudot on Books@Work

Breaking an Academic Taboo: Professor Laura Baudot on Books@Work

We recently had the chance to speak with Laura Baudot, an Associate Professor of English at Oberlin College who has facilitated Books@Work sessions at a private high school and an adhesive manufacturing company. Among other things, we discussed her experience as a facilitator and how it differs from her experience teaching at a university. How do the humanities translate out of the academic world?

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Embracing the Interrogative: Vulnerability and the Power of Unanswered Questions

Embracing the Interrogative: Vulnerability and the Power of Unanswered Questions

The interrogative is a dying form – not only of grammatical expression but of life. At a time when efficiency and productivity seem the driving forces of culture, it makes sense that emphasis should lie on the generation of answers rather than the formulation of questions. Answers, after all, mean closure – answers grant one permission to put one thing to rest and move on to the next, and that seems the very definition of progress. Questions, on the other hand, are messy, imprecise things that tend toward the propagation of their own kind, leading ad-infinitum to heaven knows where.

How do we get a group of strangers during a Books@Work session- many of whom do not consider themselves “readers” and for whom being in a room with an English professor evokes unpleasant classroom memories – to embrace their vulnerabilities and enter into an interrogative mindset?

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Weekend Reading: March 2017

Weekend Reading: March 2017

Happy Friday! We’ve scoured the web for thought-provoking articles and essays for you to enjoy over the weekend.

In the Scientific American, the University of Missouri’s Director of the Master of Public Health program Lise Saffran writes on the crucial role of storytelling in searching for truth. When confronted with facts, we often filter out evidence that contradicts our cultural predispositions. But when we hear a subjective story and feel a personal and authentic connection with someone, are we more willing to override our bias?

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Reading Mindfully: James Joyce’s “Eveline”

Reading Mindfully: James Joyce’s “Eveline”

James Joyce is one of the most celebrated and influential writers of the 20th century. Born in 1882 in Dublin, his novels are known for their stream-of-consciousness prose and experimental style. His early short story volume Dubliners is a more straightforward read. Published in 1914, the powerful collection depicts Irish middle class life through the eyes of Dublin’s residents, including young Eveline Hill. His short story “Eveline” is a musing on home and family. How does our definition of home evolve throughout our lives?

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