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Why Literature Now?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

Not being an evangelist, i wasn't sure how to respond to the question “Why major in literature-what do we tell our students?” In over twenty years of teaching and advising, I have never sought to persuade students to major in any field. Occasionally, when a woman advisee who came to Brown to major in physics or engineering has decided to shift to literature, I have tried to talk about the difficulties women face in the sciences, the science classroom's chilly climate, and gender competition to persuade her to stick it out and become the engineer or physicist she wanted to be. But proselytize? Never.

Type
The Changing Profession
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2002

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References

Works Cited

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Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.Google Scholar
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