Students are having trouble reading books in class. Just ask the professors! More educators struggle to assign readings longer than a few paragraphs without students losing interest. It seems like the capacity to pay attention for long periods of time is under serious assault in our digital, Tik-Tokified world.

However, distracted Gen Z college kids aren’t the only ones to blame for the loss of serious reading (and writing, thanks to ChatGPT) in higher education. A new essay in Compact claims that professors also share responsibility in the decline of literature in the ivory tower. “Students may be turning away from literature, but we abandoned it, too,” writes Reinaldo Laddago. Laddago claims that professors veered away from assigning the complex and enriching texts of the past to “meet the needs” of these modern students, who apparently would be much more interested in reading newer works granting relevance to pop culture. Laddago continues,

Literature professors developed a curious apathy when confronted with the literary texts that they had previously valued above all, and moved from structural, historical, or rhetorical analysis of these texts to cultural, gender, or area studies applied to all kinds of objects. 

When Theory Gets in the Way

Reading literature primarily through the lens of race, class, and gender precludes readers from engaging with old books on their own terms, and interpreting within the parameters of historical context. Professors, not students, were the ones to push this brand of literary criticism, and they are now reaping the result: a total loss of enjoying books for their own sake. And also, failing to understand or appreciate books in general!

Laddago delivers another nail in the coffin in his indictment:

Literature professors became less enthusiastic about texts and more avid about audiovisual media or pop music, less likely to engage with the past than exploring the surface of the present, and less likely to discuss aesthetics (the singularity of Nathanael Hawthorne as a writer) than ethics (Hawthorne’s view of the Puritans). Out went the distant and the strange, its place taken by the familiar and the current, and the attention to language that was central to the discipline was summarily dismissed. 

Liza Libes, who runs a Substack on literature and the humanities called Pens and Poison, details her own experience in higher education, getting her work “shot down” if it didn’t abide by the theoretical framework of her teachers. She writes,

[L]iterature was open to interpretation, but only if the interpretation said something clever about oppression, societal injustice, or gender theory… I had figured out the themes I needed to use to succeed in literary study, but I was no longer studying literature.

Shortly after, I decided not to pursue a PhD in literature. 

Libes’ literary endeavors were constantly being thwarted by “theory,” which is why she ultimately forewent a PhD in the field. Perhaps she was wise to do so; her interest in literature might have been entirely squelched otherwise.

Obviously, digital technologies and ChatGPT, which is just a high-tech plagiarism calculator, are eroding students’ ability to focus, read, think, and write with confidence. But practicing bad pedagogies in the classroom also isn’t harmless.

Recovering Literary Joy

I took a composition course as a high school student with a professor who was so excited about Jane Austen and Shakespeare, Frankenstein and The Lord of the Rings, that the enthusiasm was contagious. He simply loved what he was teaching and wanted to share the joy with his students. I’ll never forget the class. Not only did I learn a lot about literature, how to read complex works more effectively, and write solid composition papers, but the professor actually instilled in me a deeper love for books. Maybe that’s what’s missing in the current academic picture: A loss of delight in the act of reading itself. If we can’t enjoy reading a book without first worrying about its subtle social or political commentary, then we may never manage to receive literature as it was intended for us.

So, to all those composition and English teachers feeling tempted to throw out the Western canon and have your students do online discussion boards about Taylor Swift lyrics, or allow for only narrowly political interpretations of certain texts, maybe rewind. Consider the great literary tradition, which still calls out with its timeless voice, reminding us that it’s still there for the taking for those who eyes to see and ears to hear.