besmudged_left_hand

Last night I went to the lecture by Dana Goia on why literature matters. I’ll copy out something I wrote as an extra credit assignment for one of my English classes on the lecture.

“Dana Goia suggested in his lecture that the answer to why literature matters is in what it teaches us: to imagine.
He listed the many kinds of knowledge in the world, scientific, conceptual, spiritual and poetic or artistic knowledge. Scientific knowledge is useful, as is conceptual and spiritual, he said, but life hardly ever is like those kinds of knowledge.
Life isn’t predictable like scientific knowledge. It isn’t always able to be interpreted objectively. Life isn’t all concepts either, like justice and humility. Life isn’t always so broad. Spiritual knowledge isn’t all of life either, though personally I believe that it plays a bigger part than perhaps Goia was allowing it does. However, he said that poetic or artistic knowledge addresses us in the “fullness of our humanity, in images, movement, sound, “ etc. He suggested that even Jesus knew this, and that’s why he told stories, he knew we’d understand.
Most of all, literature shows us options. He talked about how imagination is utterly important in all aspects of life, indeed even living itself. He mentioned how suicide victims often choose to end their lives because “they can’t imagine any way out of their situation.” Literature “awakens us to possibilities and enlarges them,” he said.
Another thing he mentioned that I found really interesting and encouraging, was a survey that was done of some of the most successful business people, to see what their academic background was. The answer? English! He said that to be great leaders, we have to be able to “create a story that other people want to be a part of.” Literature helps us to make the qualitative decisions that are so important in life. He encouraged us saying that if we’re in English or Literature, we can brag about it. We’re most likely there because we love it, and that is a wonderful reason to be studying something, not to mention we are learning skills that we use daily. I loved the lecture, it reaffirmed my decision to be an English major.”

Hooray for literature!