# 172: Lighting a Fire
Story behind the Passage
I attended an online workshop today. It was interdisciplinary but very literary-studies-scholar dominated. It was kind of a reverse culture shock for me. If you are used to working so much with so many different disciplines (theory and practice), always in the in-between, you kind of forget the language and culture of your ‘own’ field. Actually, to be bloody honest, this told me that my mono-disciplinary identity is lost — irreversibly. I have no idea if I ever talked and thought like some of my colleagues there anyways. I am not judging, to make this clear, I am just noticing the difference very strongly.
The great thing is, however, that literature will always be the bond that ties me to the literary studies crowd. I mean, hello, I am even writing about literature every day on this blog! Still, there is a crucial thing that makes me feel a bit sad. I do not know if this has always been the case in my field and if this applies to others as well. What I mean is that for me, it was always about the literature itself and not about all this stuff that people talk about when they turn into “scholars.” I mean, when listening to their quotes and their insights, I would never assume that they are having fun when reading books. But they actually do, I know that. Otherwise they would not be doing this all their life. Still, they do a great job hiding their fun behind some professional habitus and professional sophisticated bullshit vocabulary.
Does that explain why I am talking about Yeats quote today (if he really said it)?
My Learnings
“Education is not about filling a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Actually, Yeats is an interdisciplinary endeavor of mine here because he is Irish and I did not study English literature in depth. Not that I care about this, as you probably know. It does not prevent me from writing about it. I read and discuss books from so many cultures and fields and I do think I can share thoughts about these works, even if I will never be able to study all of them academically. I just wanted to mention this for the record because universities still work like this — they think in disciplinary terms. In any case, as I exchanged some thoughts with someone from the group after the meeting today, she quoted Yeats. Yes, this is totally why I am a literary jihadist in some way (maybe I should not be writing this term because some secret intelligence service will e-stalk me?).
What I mean is very simple: I love igniting the flame inside others when talking about all kinds of topics. But I like it even more when talking about literature — with literature meaning whatever YOU consider to be literature. And I truly believe that our field can do a better job at this. You know, people from other fields tend to think that people who deal with narration have a passion for storytelling and for putting things in words that make them easy and exciting to understand. The truth — the sad truth— is that the only literary “exercise” which literary studies scholars still pursue is to write and actually READ their papers to the audience. I am not kidding. I know, I am offending a bunch of people with this remark right now but I simply have to say that I cannot follow papers that are being read to me — no matter how well-crafted they are and how nice the voice of the reader.
So, what I mean by “lighting a fire” is to set off this spark in people. I personally feel that joy when teaching people about literature who have no idea about it because they do not read that much or that often. If they read the story of someone, follow the protagonist, find parallels to their own life experience, are touched, amused — these are the moments when that flame erupts. And then, all of a sudden, 100 pages are not that much anymore because they want to read on, they want to know what happens next and they automatically start reflecting about all this from different perspectives by also transferring some of these insights to the real world, even though this book they are reading might be from a completely different time period such as the work of Yeats who wrote at the end of the 19th century.
What I am saying is that literature can only have a future if people actually read it in the original. Talking about literature is not the same as reading it. I think, if there is anything that I can do in this world of literary studies, this is what it always boils down to: literature is the mirror in which we all see different reflections. It is a projection space on which we can start moving closer together. Literature can — yes, this sounds cheezy — connect cultures. And cultures consist of human beings. If there is any essence that literature can convey — it is the essence of humanity, of what makes us human.
Is that so complicated that we need all this meta-talk that threatens to put out the fire of lifelong education in people?
Reflection Questions
1) Was there ever a teacher who lightened a fire of education in you?
2) If you were a literary studies lecturer — which books would you teach?
3) No matter in which field you are working — do you feel like the essence of your work is clear to “outsiders”?