Why are you studying English? Why not business, economics or biomechanical engineering? Why didn’t you pick a field more immediately or apparently practical? Working at a traditional consulting firm this summer, I fielded these questions a hundred times. Depending on my mood, my response went one of two ways: I either defended English majors’ employability (look at me — I got a job here!) or attempted to persuade any listeners that we are not a selfish breed (reading the most important books ever written is work, too!).
Academics far brighter than me have mounted these defenses a thousand times in beautifully constructed and moving prose packages; they deploy their best metaphors for learning, rally the troops around imagined universal truths learned only through books, and make the case that studying the humanities makes for more just, more humane citizens. Unfortunately, no one seems to find these defenses particularly persuasive. Perhaps — just perhaps — that is because these defenses shouldn’t be winning.
Are humanities majors actually more humane? Recent studies argue that reading fiction can make doctors more empathetic in practice but, historically speaking, gross human injustices are permitted or perpetrated by even the most well-read. In many cases, really, those without access to the humanizing influence of books drive the most radical moments of change. Factory workers advocated for themselves without Dickens, and miners pushed for reform without Elizabeth Barrett Browning. To be clear, I don’t mean to suggest that these authors (among others) played no role in social change. I only mean that the cultivation of sympathy through literature does not necessarily lead to a sweeping galvanization of readers or a tempering of violence and exploitation.
It’s also difficult, although not impossible, to argue that English majors or professors are as tangibly productive as the innovators in Silicon Valley imagining and creating self-driving cars or space elevators. By my own admission, the work I do as an English major at U.Va. may never reach anyone outside of Grounds, except for my mother, who faithfully reads (or claims to read) most of my papers. I know this. I would bet that most English majors know it, too.
Back to the question I heard repeatedly this summer, then: why study English? If we English majors are not measurably better people, or leading the charge with 3-D printers, why do we matter?
Answer: it doesn’t matter whether we matter. For four years, or eight years, or however long it takes, I will read books and write papers on them because I love to read. I love to crack an old book open and smell its pages. I love to plunder the depths of Alderman for new-to-me books. I suffer through dull books because I love the beautiful ones. I read to time-travel, to imagine what fame feels like, and to know what it is to be hungry or profoundly lonely or persecuted.
Just as doctors choose medicine because they love their patients, and just as architects choose their craft because they appreciate the curve of a graceful arch half-hidden in shadow, I choose English because I love books. I can’t apologize for that, or give you a better defense of the humanities.
The humanities exist, and will continue to exist, because we are human. Because we exist not to build bigger buildings and computers that are more powerful but just to be: to be happy, sad, angry, wistful, passionate, horrified, winners, losers, friends, lovers, parents, leaders, followers. Does it matter that the humanities serve no practical purpose, if they give pleasure? I don’t think so. Do you?
Emma DiNapoli is a fourth-year College student majoring in English.
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