Why Teach Literature?

First Presenter:  Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Stanford University
"Literature and the Future of the Past"

Literature is valuable for what it can for the future and past.  We as a country have a habit of obliterating unflattering facts as evidence in our history books.  In fact, five million history textbooks issued this year left out KKK and Jim crow laws.  The Civil War and slavery gets white washed; lynchings are often left out, except by some statistics.  Race and American memory can be kept more complete through literature which enables human perspectives to come alive.  Literature can hear voices from the past that have been silenced.

Bone Dance by Wendy Rose, illustrates how Indian art and artifacts often get more respect than Indians themselves.  Literature prompts us to reexamine what we thought we knew of our history, such as the experience of Internment Camp prisoners, those involved with the Treaty of Mexico, and women’s experiences regarding gender and equality in the family and the workplace.  Such works as Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall, Michael Harrington’s The Other America: Poverty in the United States, and Thanhha Laie’s Inside Out and Back Again are good examples. 

Mark Twain used irony to attack Racism in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Yet, Hannibal, Missouri, has since erased any history of slavery in the town, even in exhibits about the book.  They have an eye for keen historical preservation, but only if it makes them look good.  Faye Dant, author from Hannibal, has worked to preserve the facts that her town has erased; now, Hannibal has a new Black History Museum, although the Hannibal Trolley drives right past the museum without mention.  Literature can reveal choices that need to be made and aspects of our selves.

Second Presenter: Robert Warrior, University of Illinois, Urbana
“I Teach Literature Because I Believe in It and Think It makes the World Better”

Dr. Warrior discussed the book Tracks by Louise Erdrich, which is one of a dozen books written about the Ojibwe Native Peoples and the reservations of North Dakota.  The Allotment Act, which has removed land from the reservation, plays a role in the book.  The prose, says Dr. Warrior, is pure beauty.  Other books include The Bee Queen and Love Medicine.  Federal history and tribal stories do not tell the same stories; literature adds insight. 
 

Third Presenter:  Lisa Lowe, Tufts University

"Metaphors of Globalization"

Dr. Lowe began with two epitaphs, one by Salman Rushdie, who was born Indian, who said, “It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity.” And the second by Audre Lord, who wrote,

for the embattled

there is no place

that cannot be

home

nor is.

Lowe said that homelessness is a common and differential experience for Americans and displacement known generally.  Many people hark from another place, changing languages, forming the diaspora.  Because of globalization, homelessness is universal.

Lord’s poem unites being at home and homelessness.  To become at home is not the same as having a home.  Dr Lowe teaches world literature, which reflects the ongoing globalization and sees literature as a window to the culture of our period.  In Jhampa Lahiri’s story “Interpreter of Maladies,” 10 year Lilia’s perspective on her American world is juxtaposed to that of a friend of the family who is no longer Pakistani due to the restructuring of national borders. Lilia sees that her own connection to her home is not what she thought it was. 

Dr. Lowe says that she teaches literature because it introduces this disconnected, connected experience, homelessness, to readers.