SUTA: Humanities majors are not worthless
Column: The Suta Slant
Netflix’s recent mini-series, "The Chair," offered an honest, oftentimes funny, look into modern English departments. If you do not know about it, or you are not familiar with it, here is a 3-minute video that introduces the show and its ambitions.
The humanities and, especially English departments, have, for a while, been in crisis: A political rhetoric that minimizes them, coupled with financial crises that reduces their apparent value, has made humanities seem out-of-touch.
Of course, there are issues within English departments and that must be addressed. Issues of the literary canon (who do we read and why?), issues of representation in the field and issues of accessibility to the field for all: These are all crucial issues that should not be overlooked.
"The Chair," actually, does a good job — maybe even some of its best work — when it accounts for the shortcomings of the university’s structural racism, sexism and ageism.
While accounting for those failures, "The Chair" also maintains why studying literature can allow a grappling with these matters that few other mediums can.
The grappling with important issues and the ability to solve problems comes from a place of empathy that the English major engenders among its students. Empathy does not mean feeling sympathetic to people, but instead, understanding what people want or need — it is more about being able to listen and to connect than just react.
This empathy comes from a place of reading (a lot!), but also from a place of being able to think through complicated, complex moments often written by someone of a different background.
But empathy is not just the result of reading, it is also a byproduct of finding and embracing nuance. If you have taken an English course, especially at Rutgers, you will probably know that central to any English class is nuance.
Nuance demands you dig into difficult passages and to embrace complicated language. For in the complexity there is meaning, and in density there is insight. "The Chair" does a really good job at making this clear — that central to any academic study must be an embrace of nuance, there are never easy answers, and that reward from that process is worth it.
This process to find nuance — the careful attention to detail, the questioning attitude one brings to bear and a special attention to the clear communication of ideas — creates an ability for English students to grapple with a variety of difficult questions in a way that is clear-minded and focused on making things better.
The way an English major — or a humanities major in general — thinks is different from how a STEM or a business major thinks. While scientific or financial knowledge is incredibly important, there is also something about being able to contextualize and make something more understandable and persuadable.
Rutgers has a strong English department, with rankings of the graduate program usually among the best. The department teaches how to write and how to read critically, of course, but it also teaches how to situate ourselves in this moment.
The cultural forces that have shaped the moment we are in to make sense of the past, to hopefully inform an uncertain future are often the motivating factors behind English course content.
In the course offerings —for example, Introduction to Literature and the Environment or Introduction to Literature, Health and Medicine— an interdisciplinary culture exists that investigates how English can aid critical problems of contemporary culture.
These types of courses combine empathy and also a sense of what the English major can lead to careers in. Perhaps, public health or perhaps environmental policy work. While English does not have a hard set of skills, like engineering or finance, it is a major that is applicable to a variety of different things and the skills are transferable.
The background and the empathy derived from the major facilitates an approach to these issues differently and, perhaps more importantly, an approach that is needed to combat some of these pressing crises.
Even if you are not an English major, you should try to take at least one course in the English department.
"The Chair" is so successful because it gives attention to the nuanced layers of an English department. That nuance translates to a study of literature that is at once a personal relationship to the text, but also an incredible ability to look at the world differently. An English major is not worthless, at all.
Richard Suta is a School of Arts and Sciences junior majoring in English and political science with a minor in French. His column, "The Suta Slant," runs on alternate Tuesdays.
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