Robbins-The Scholar in Society

Wow here we are at the end of the quarter and submitting our last blog of the quarter, and what does it get to be about except the good luck getting a job position that Robbins begins his article. When I began reading this article I was a little bothered by the way Robbins chose to position himself to start. It certainly expressed all the fears I have of not being able to get a job once I get out there and begin looking. So I was a little turned off from the beginning of the article.

I did like how Robbins spoke of Literature in relation to cultural studies. I was an American Studies major prior to changing to English Lit. I changed to English Lit because there really are no jobs in American Studies at the community college level so I had to think about what one thing we used in American Studies to study culture that I loved the most. That one thing was Literature. As Robbins says "Literature is social experience, and literature is also the dissolution or evasion or problematizing of social experience" (316). We used literature to look at the culture of the time in relation to the type of people that were written about and the time written about as well as the people who were doing the reading at the time. We also used Western Lit to look at the American West and regional literature to look at areas such as the Midwest during the pioneering times, etc. So there was always a strong tie between the two and I felt that was where I needed to head so that I can have a specialization.

I was also troubled by the assertion that Robbins made that Literature was losing its value in secondary schools and that many were discussing removing it from the curriculum. Had I not been exposed to literature in high school I probably would not have learned to appreciate it the same way that I do today. I know there are many people that take literature courses in high school and do not have the same reaction that I do but I just feel it is important that we expose our children to literature and let them make the decision for themselves whether they like it or not. I know as Robbins says we could never change the world but I hope to begin teaching and maybe my love of a subject will be contagious with my students. That I would get to have the privilege of helping students to learn about the classics or how to write an academic essay, whatever I get to teach I want students to know that I love what I do and I will hopefully have the opportunity to spread that enthusiasm to at least one student.