One might ask, what exactly is the point of a reading list?
As a recommendation set between friends ("you must read Borges and Sebald! You'll love them"), fine.
But lists give the vibe of someone desperately trying to preserve The Culture, whatever that is. And of course once such a list becomes encoded in the school board or university course curriculum, it instantly becomes calcified and a chore, even if some of the entries on the list are appealing to some of the readers. Pity the teacher who has to teach /Catcher in the Rye/ for the tenth year, and pity their students.
So the real challenge is how to communicate The Culture through reading, without killing the joy. I wish I knew the answer. Perhaps it boils down to teachers being allowed to innovate. Maybe we need more teachers with big theater kid energy. I dont know. Id be interested to know what happens in non-Western cultures too...is this problem universal?
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One might ask, what exactly is the point of a reading list?
As a recommendation set between friends ("you must read Borges and Sebald! You'll love them"), fine.
But lists give the vibe of someone desperately trying to preserve The Culture, whatever that is. And of course once such a list becomes encoded in the school board or university course curriculum, it instantly becomes calcified and a chore, even if some of the entries on the list are appealing to some of the readers. Pity the teacher who has to teach /Catcher in the Rye/ for the tenth year, and pity their students.
So the real challenge is how to communicate The Culture through reading, without killing the joy. I wish I knew the answer. Perhaps it boils down to teachers being allowed to innovate. Maybe we need more teachers with big theater kid energy. I dont know. Id be interested to know what happens in non-Western cultures too...is this problem universal?