As he headed to college, Edmundson (Why Read?) told his father that he might pursue a prelaw track. Though he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a lawyer, he figured that lawyers made decent money. His father, he says, “detonated”: “He told me that I was going to college only once, and that while I was there I had better study what I wanted,” which was literature. In this collection of 16 essays, some of which have appeared in Harper’s and the New York Times, University of Virginia English professor Edmundson explores how higher education has devolved into a place where “preprofessionalism is the order of the day”; where the study of literature “has become arid and abstract”; and where universities behave like corporations, teachers like service providers, and students like customers. He offers, at turns, a meditation, a jeremiad, some musings, and some possible solutions. The questions (what to teach? what to study?) find answers in the values Edmundson discovers in becoming an English major: “Love for language, hunger for life, openness and a quest for truth or truths.” Addressing teachers, students, and parents, Edmundson defends the intellectual and spiritual value, even the usefulness, of the “scholarly enclave” and “seeking knowledge so as to make the lives of other human beings better.” (Aug.)
If I meet any students heading to the University of Virginia, I will tell them to seek out Mark Edmundson…Mr. Edmundson reminds us of the power strong teachers have to make students rethink who they are and whom they might become.” —Michael S. Roth, New York Times
“Mark Edmundson's lively account of the way we educate now offers enjoyment and enlightenment.” —Harold Bloom
“A spirited and cheering read…accurate and insightful, even inspiring.” —Chicago Tribune
“In prose so fresh and personal that it leaps off the page, Mark Edmundson launches a stinging critique of higher education today. Everywhere he sees teachers flattering students, confirming their prejudices, and training them for the success game rather than opening their minds to new ways of looking at the world. His teaching ideal, developed here in exemplary detail, is at once utopian and absolutely essential. This book deserves to be widely read.” —Morris Dickstein, author of Gates of Eden and Dancing in the Dark
“Edmundson may have strong words about culture, education and the common reader's quest to be entertained above all else, but he provides a bracing tonic against the decline of higher education.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Edmundson's accessible prose will motivate both students and teachers. Highly recommended for all involved in higher education; an enjoyable and inspiring read.” —Library Journal
“A meditation, a jeremiad, some musings, and some possible solutions. The questions (what to teach? what to study?) find answers in the values Edmundson discovers in becoming an English major: ‘Love for language, hunger for life, openness and a quest for truth or truths.' Addressing teachers, students, and parents, Edmundson defends the intellectual and spiritual value, even the usefulness, of the ‘scholarly enclave' and ‘seeking knowledge so as to make the lives of other human beings better.'” —Publishers Weekly
“Some of the best essays around about the meaning of a college education. Wise, passionate, frank, funny, and always intimately in touch with the texture of the classroom experience, this is a gift to all of us who care about the future of higher education.” —William Deresiewicz, author of A Jane Austen Education
“Why Teach? is a heartfelt and provocative book that will interest anyone who wonders what happened to the idea that college should be a life-altering, mind-expanding experience. With wry humor and hard-won wisdom, Mark Edmundson offers an inspiring vision of the liberal arts as a vehicle for personal transformation.” —Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children and The Leftovers
“You may not like everything Mark Edmundson has to say in this shimmering series of essays, but you will never again need to ask his question, ‘Why Teach?' Read his answers and make your own revolution.” —Megan Marshall, author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
“A wonderful book. Indispensable reading for all those concerned with what higher education in America and in the world should be.” —J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Research Professor, University of California, Irvine
“Mark Edmundson manages to be old-fashioned and radical at the same time, skeptical of every latest thing and yet deeply comprehending of students' hyperlinked and hyperactive lives. Edmundson is a school of one, a voice of calm and refection with lessons worth teaching.” —Edward Ayers, president, University of Richmond
“Mark Edmundson obviously missed the intellectual timidity gene that's so helpful for an academic career. He has the audacity to argue in this book that universities should not be business and consumer training facilities, internet hookup spots, and workout centers, but places where students grapple with ‘perspective-altering' intellectual challenges.” —Gerald Graff, Professor of English and Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, former President, Modern Language Association
“To read this book is to experience just the kind of course Edmundson admires, one that provokes thought and self-examination. A heartfelt, beautifully written, profound, and often hilarious appeal to rage against the machinery of modern education.” —Booklist, starred review
Edmundson (English/Univ. of Virginia; The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll, 2010, etc.) dispels any ambiguity about his position on his subject with the subtitle--"In Defense of a Real Education"--of this deeply felt collection of explorations and reflections on an education in the liberal arts. The author examines the slow transformation of universities and colleges from being driven by intellectual and cultural betterment to institutions modeled on business, with a complex, and not always successful, emphasis on attracting students and making a profit. Success, Edmundson writes, isn't as clear-cut as the bottom line or the percentage increase in applications or even in the rigor of the education being offered. Our culture rewards the system in which the professors tend to their academic business, the students check off the various boxes, and the school support staff build newer, better amenities to ensure that the students feel they are getting the best of the best. Edmundson argues that students have an immeasurably priceless opportunity to take the beliefs that have been instilled in them throughout childhood and put them under a microscope. They have the chance to ensure that they aren't going to simply fit in, as a square peg, to the first matching hole that comes along. "Education is about finding out what form of work for you is close to being play," writes the author--not that it should be simple and without challenge but that doing what you love (and discovering what that might be) is more important than "advancing in the direction of someone else's dreams" and pursuing education as a means to buying your way into what you're acculturated to think equals happiness and success. Edmundson may have strong words about culture, education and the common reader's quest to be entertained above all else, but he provides a bracing tonic against the decline of higher education.
