David Hume and Buddhist notions, Wellness and Capitalism, CK Williams' new collection, Margaret Atwood talks technology, Patrick Modiano: Books and Writers for September 22

Mags on technology

• I really liked this long piece in The Atlantic, about a woman's mid-life crisis and how discovering that British philosopher, David Hume, may have encountered Catholics with experience in Eastern religions, mainly Buddhism, in a small town in France, which may have radically changed his entire philosophical approach. Montreal makes a cameo appearance here as it turns out Alison Gopnik is the sister of Adam Gopnik.
• 3AM Magazine continues to amaze me with their solid roster of writers who explore all kinds of topics. This one is a review of a book about how our entire capitalist-based approach to "wellness" continues to grow at the same time that neo-capitalism continues to present us with problems that contradict our approach to wellness. "Our concern in this book is not with wellness per se. Our concern is how wellness has become an ideology. As such, it offers a package of ideas and beliefs which people may find seductive and desirable, although, for the most part, these ideas appear as natural or even inevitable. The ideological element of wellness is particularly visible when considering the prevailing attitudes towards those who fail to look after their bodies. These people are demonized as lazy, feeble or weak-willed. They are seen as obscene deviants, unlawfully and unabashedly enjoying what ever sensible person should resist."
• Poet C.K. Williams has died. I ripped apart my bookshelves yesterday because I swear I had a collection of his (I could even picture it in my mind) somewhere, but either I've lost it or I've given it away.  In any case, he has a new collection out today, Later Poems.
• Someone's gone and animated Margaret Atwood as she talks about how technology influences the way stories are told and created.
• A piece on Patrick Modiano. Winner of the Nobel Prize last year, Modiano is one of the first authors I read in its original French. I found the language not nearly as challenging as in other French-language works. Not to say he's a lightweight but that his language is accessible and clear.

Stéphane Mallarmé: often cited, rarely read; Valeria Luiselli's teeth, Twitter fiction; another Holocaust book; write for 3am magazine: Cultural Digest for September 16

• The new edition of The Quarterly Conversation is out and includes pieces on Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, frequently cited but rarely read author Stéphane Mallarmé, and a review of Mexican sensation, Valeria Luiselli's latest book with the fascinating title of The Story of My Teeth.
• Mental Floss article on what they call the "latest trend": Twitter Fiction. Mmmmm I'm skeptical...it's out there, no question. But a trend? Nah. More like a flash in the pan, I'd say.
• Adam Gopnik asks: Why do we keep studying the Holocaust? "Do we really need one more book on the Holocaust? The facts are in and clear...while so many other horrors demand our historical understanding and get so much less: how many new books have been published this year on the Belgian genocide in the Congo? Doesn't endlessly retelling the same story ... let us give ourselves the appearance of moral seriousness while immunizing us to the urgencies of actual moral seriousness? Piety is the opposite of compassion, which is better directed toward those who need it now than those who were denied it then."
• The Millions asks: "Why do we care about literary awards?" The writer doesn't really explore the question in much detail though it is an important question and one we ask ourselves around our offices a lot. The answer: it's less about "literary merit" and more about marketing, communications and selling a book/writer/event to the public and the media. Literary quality is part of it, no question. But it's only one factor in deciding who to give an award to.
• Want to write reviews on culture, literature, art, music? 3AM is looking for writers.

English education: is it anachronistic? Adam Gopnik's opinion...

A very interesting piece by Adam Gopnik on the New Yorker blog this morning, an argument that has been banding about for years: is it necessary to "major" in English anymore? Or, more precisely, is the major becoming obsolete or abandoned in academia?

It's something I think about, being an English major myself (and hesitantly so, after starting out in the sciences, every one I knew told me that I should be studying humanities and a career aptitude test I took when I was 18 or 19 suggested something similar) and feeling strongly that an undergraduate education in humanities is an excellent foundation for most types of professions.

Gopnik sidesteps (at least throughout most of the piece) the real argument which he only glances at sideways in the final paragraphs:

No sane person proposes or has ever proposed an entirely utilitarian, production-oriented view of human purpose. We cannot merely produce goods and services as efficiently as we can, sell them each other as cheaply as possible, and die.

Right. I wholeheartedly agree but this argument isn't then applied to the entire approach to education in much of the developed (and developing) world: education as commodity as opposed to education as foundation, as experience, as a shaping and influencing period of time. But that's where we are: people now go to college with the intent of "getting a good job," whereas I don't think was necessarily always the case (at least not in North America). And literary studies does not necessarily equal gainful employment (though I know people who've studied science, law and other fields who can't find jobs after graduation whereas I studied literature and have never had trouble finding work in my entire adult life knock on wood!).

Perhaps the argument can be made that we no longer have that luxury: to send generations of young people to school to simply learn about who they are and now it has to have a more practical concern, i.e., learn a trade, learn how to balance your personal needs with larger external concerns, learn to jump through hoops, learn to socialize in the "right" way with the right people.

But I think this is precisely the advantage of the system we have now. By studying humanities as an undergraduate, by giving our young people freedom to extend their youth and learn about things they may never have another chance to learn about, they can become better citizens, can develop how to think better, etc., before they do their graduate degrees and have to put on the garb of a productive citizen. Does it really matter, actually, what one studied as an undergraduate once you finish your graduate work and have been in the real world for a few years? Give undergraduate students free license to study what they want to study without having to think about the beyond. There will be plenty of time for that (this leaves out the entire cohort of students who don't even go to college at all, an argument for a different day).

Another issue that Gopnik doesn't address is how the English/literary academic system itself certainly has some blame in the fall of literature as a field of study: one can quite literally do an entire degree in literature and never read any primary texts at all. Academic literary studies can be incredibly obtuse, useless and obscure. Because I work for a literary festival and I come to literature from a "general readers'" point of view (an epithet in academia), I notice frequently the rift between those who simply like to read and those who do "professionally."  Academic institutions' insistence on isolation and obscurity has to play a role in the fact that so few people want to study English or literature any more.