In anticipation of Merve Emre’s forthcoming monograph, Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, join Emre for a discussion about two curious and much-discussed phenomena. On the one hand, veritable crisis within the academy: against a backdrop of program closures, decreasing student enrollments, and budget cuts, the study of English and history at the collegiate level in America has fallen by a third over the last decade. On the other hand, flourishing outside the classroom walls: professional schools in medicine, law, and business have emerged as new sites for literary study and teaching, drawing productive links between reading literature and in-the-world practice. How did this happen? And what will happen next?

Merve Emre is Professor of Criticism at Wesleyan University and Director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism. She is the author and editor of several books, including Paraliterary, The Ferrante Letters, The Personality Brokers, and The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway, and a contributing writer at the New Yorker. She is working on two books: one on love; the other on the discipline of literary studies.

Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Emre will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.

This event requires advance registration.

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