On the Pitfalls of Literary Study

Whenever someone asks me what I hope to do after college, or what I hope to have as a career, I find it a difficult question to answer. It's not that I have no idea. It's that I have so many ideas. I want to do everything! I want to write, I want to edit, I want to report, I want to work in a theater, I want to be a published playwright and poet and author and I just want to do! Everything!

One of the things that I really want to do is teach English literature. Granted, you might have guessed that from this blog, but I will pretend it's an enormous revelation, and we'll move on. But the endgame for me is probably a literature professor. I struggled with this, because it seems such an obvious answer for an English student to say that people assume it's all that an English degree is good for. And I've tried to work hard to fight against that perception.

And now here I am, really wanting to be an English professor. It's not the fault of the English degree. English study isn't useless. I have learned so much about how to formulate an argument, develop critical thinking skills, write like there's no tomorrow, and understand the human condition. There is a heck of a lot you can actually do with an English degree. And there is a lot that I plan to do with it.

It's just that nothing is quite as enjoyable to me as discussing the finer points of literature, or the hidden details in a movie, or the motivations of a character, or the recurring themes of a screenwriter's work. It's just my favorite thing to talk about, and if you get me talking about the cultural significance of a movie like Captain America: The First Avenger, you had better have a comfortable seat, because you will probably not be allowed to leave for a couple hours. And if I could share this passion with others as a part of my career? That would be the best thing in the world.

I actually spend a good deal of my daydreaming time devoted to making mental lists of possible curricula. I understand that this is probably the nerdiest thing I could do with my free time, save possibly for ranking all the mecha in Gundam in order of least to most available horsepower, but I honestly do not feel any shame about divulging this information. I often wonder what kind of classes I would or could teach if given the opportunity. Maybe I would teach a class on rhetorical usage in the films of Quentin Tarantino. Or perhaps a history of comic book adaptations from Superman through The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. Or a class on adaptations and reimaginings of various famous works, like the plays of Shakespeare or the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Or the influence of anime on Western cinema and the influence of Western cinema on anime.

If it seems like film is coming up a lot on that list, that's because film really is my favorite medium of literature. Do not get me wrong, I adore novels, I love poetry, I live for plays and music. But when it comes right down to it, I get the most mileage out of films. It's so much more of a recent mode of literature, and it has its very roots in adapting previous works. It has developed its own language of tropes and conventions throughout the decades, and new things are innovated all the time, and they are adapted and perfected and overused so quickly. Few forms of literature can be as escapist as film, but few forms of literature can be so symbolically and intellectually dense as film. Really, if you wish to examine the zeitgeist of a particular time from the beginning of the 20^th Century on, it is so clearly apparent in its film.

I would not, however, begrudge the opportunity to teach something else. I love teaching. My style is a bit more informal than some, maybe, but I think that in a university setting, this would be a good thing. I probably couldn't teach the way I want to in a high school. But for me, getting in front of people and talking about something I am passionate about or leading a discussion is actually something I can do rather naturally. And it's something I highly enjoy doing. So maybe there will be a few steps in between. And maybe it's the obvious answer. But when it comes down to it, I really want to teach literature. I'm sorry friends. I have fallen victim to the legions of English students who want to teach. You're going to have to find someone else who can lead that fight.