One of my interesting tasks for this week is reading several books recommended to me by the committee for this Fall’s Common Reading. The committee, chaired by Matt Taylor and Shelah Crear and composed of students and faculty, has identified several excellent books from which I must choose carefully. The challenge is to find a book that is of sufficient general interest to warrant having every new student read it and of sufficient academic merit to be the first assigned reading for these new students. To provide the foundation for a campus wide discussion, I asked the committee to recommend books which disrupt our ways of thinking.
Reading the books this year made me reflect on last year’s selection, “The Honor Code” by Anthony Appiah. I was personally very pleased with that choice, as I thought that Appiah’s book met all of these criteria. In particular, Appiah’s thesis that honor can be used to spark moral revolution was a challenge that I believed the campus needs to consider as we think and learn about the problems of our world. I loved Appiah’s profound reflection on the histories of dishonorable behavior, asking “what were they thinking?” I hoped that all of us would be challenged to look at our world, both locally and globally, and ask what our current practices might be that future generations will look back at us and ask what were we thinking?
Of course, a book can’t disrupt our thinking if it isn’t read. Although I heard reports of excellent discussions of the book during O-week, attendance at Appiah’s lecture was disappointing and I wondered how many students had read the book fully. Was the book too academic? Too challenging? Too ponderous? Too boring? Or was it as good a selection as I had hoped?
This year, the committee has sent me several excellent options, a couple of which I have found so interesting as to be difficult to put down. I’m curious about the thoughts of others about what would make a good Common Reading text.