The Most Important Writing Exercise I’ve Ever Assigned; The New York Times, February 18, 202

 Rachel Kadish, The New York Times; The Most Important Writing Exercise I’ve Ever Assigned

"Unflinching empathy, which is the muscle the lesson is designed to exercise, is a prerequisite for literature strong enough to wrestle with the real world. On the page it allows us to spot signs of humanity; off the page it can teach us to start a conversation with the strangest of strangers, to thrive alongside difference. It can even affect those life or death choices we make instinctively in a crisis. This kind of empathy has nothing to do with being nice — and it’s not for the faint of heart."

The Enemies of Literature Are Winning; The New York Times, October 1, 2023

Matthew Walther, The New York Times; The Enemies of Literature Are Winning

"Banned Books Week is, or should be, eminently mockable. Its proponents trade on the moral currency of defiance (“See how brave we are, inviting people to read these daring books!”) but in practice they are doing the opposite — attempting to reify a consensus."

Opinion: I witnessed brutal censorship in Iran. We should all take U.S. book bans as a warning.; The Washington Post; February 14, 2022

Azar Nafisi, The Washington Post; Opinion: I witnessed brutal censorship in Iran. We should all take U.S. book bans as a warning.

"Azar Nafisi is the author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran.” Her new book, “Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times,” comes out in March.

First they burn books, then they kill people!”

That line often came to mind when I was living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, every time the regime closed a bookstore or a publishing house, every time it censored, banned, jailed or even killed authors. It never occurred to me that one day I would repeat the same sentiment in a democracy, in my new home, the United States of America...

It is alarming to think that American communities in 2022 are actively seeking to deprive people of the reading experiences for which my students in Iran paid such a heavy price. For I can tell you: Book bans are canaries in coal mines — indicators of the direction in which a society is moving.

In recent years, we have seen how truth is replaced by lies, and how dangerous a cultivated ignorance can be, especially when it is embraced by our political leaders and our loudest media commentators, those with the largest bullhorns. Book-banning is a form of silencing, and it is the next step along a continuum — one that I worry even in the United States presages a further slide toward totalitarianism."

Seeking Ethics Through Narrative During COVID-19; PittWire, April 16, 2020

Amerigo Allegretto, PittWire; Seeking Ethics Through Narrative During COVID-19

"In her redesigned Literature and Medicine course, Uma Satyavolu challenges students to study both past and current writings to deal ethically with pandemics such as COVID-19.

“The moment I heard of this pandemic, I reached for Albert Camus’ ‘The Plague’ and Daniel Defoe’s ‘A Journal of the Plague Year,’” said Satyavolu, a lecturer in the University of Pittsburgh Department of English in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. “I often teach the latter in my Essay and Memoir class. These books help people understand how people dealt with disruptions and being isolated due to epidemics in previous generations, like we relatively are today,” with stay-at-home orders in place in much of the U.S.

The course has pivoted to having students analyze narratives surrounding COVID-19 to tracehow medical knowledge is or is not transmitted during the pandemic, with particular attention to how some narratives gain authority and the status of “truth.” Their analyses will be posted in April on the Center for Bioethics and Health Law’s website, COVID-19 Narratives.

“What I want students to take away from this course is that we’re not just reading a few books. This is a form of important public engagement,” she said. “The course is based upon the idea of literature and the humanities serve as a bridge between ‘expert’ knowledge and the general public.”...

But Satyavolu isn’t stopping with the course; she also recently led the gathering of medical humanities materials to create COVID-19 Medical Humanities Resources, a webpage that went live in late March. The resource page contains suggested novels, essays, podcasts and films to analyze how stories taking place during epidemics and pandemics are told...

People interested in the ethical issues raised by the pandemic can visit the Center’s COVID-19 Ethics Resources webpage."

Keep your tidy, spark-joy hands off my book piles, Marie Kondo; The Washington Post, January 10, 2019

Ron Charles, The Washington Post; Keep your tidy, spark-joy hands off my book piles, Marie Kondo

"“Books are the reflection of your thoughts and values,” Kondo says, and she’s right, but then she’s so wrong when she goes on to tell her television audience: “By tidying books, it will show you what kind of information is important to you at this moment.”

That’s the problem with Kondo’s method. It presumes a kind of self-consciousness that no real lover of literature actually feels. We don’t keep books because we know “what kind of information is important to us at this moment.” We keep them because we don’t know.

So take your tidy, magic hands off my piles, if you please. That great jumble of fond memories, intellectual challenges and future delights doesn’t just spark, it warms the whole house."

Elena Ferrante: A writer’s talent is like a fishing net, catching daily experiences that can educate; The Guardian, January 5, 2019

Elena Ferrante, The Guardian; Elena Ferrante: A writer’s talent is like a fishing net, catching daily experiences that can educate

"There’s a very old function of literature that over time has lost currency, probably because of its dangerous proximity to the political and ethical spheres. I mean the idea that one of the purposes of a text is to instruct...

An individual talent acts like a fishing net that captures daily experiences, holds them together imaginatively, and connects them to fundamental questions about the human condition."

Starving for Wisdom; New York Times, 4/16/15

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times; Starving for Wisdom:

"“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”

That epigram from E.O. Wilson captures the dilemma of our era. Yet the solution of some folks is to disdain wisdom...

So, to answer the skeptics, here are my three reasons the humanities enrich our souls and sometimes even our pocketbooks as well...

My second reason: We need people conversant with the humanities to help reach wise public policy decisions, even about the sciences. Technology companies must constantly weigh ethical decisions: Where should Facebook set its privacy defaults, and should it tolerate glimpses of nudity? Should Twitter close accounts that seem sympathetic to terrorists? How should Google handle sex and violence, or defamatory articles?...

Likewise, when the President’s Council on Bioethics issued its report in 2002, “Human Cloning and Human Dignity,” it cited scientific journals but also Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” Even science depends upon the humanities to shape judgments about ethics, limits and values."