“Has it ever occurred to any of you that all of this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you’re not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests…” This commencement of Joe Moran’s introduction to his Interdisciplinary speaks to the core of the issue of why I decided to major in English.
“An English major? Asks Mark Edmundson in “The Ideal English Major.” “To me an English major is someone who has decided against all kinds of pious, prudent advice and all kinds of fears and resistances, to major, quite simply, in becoming a person.” Why major in English? Simply because I am a nonconformist. A misfit who refuses to see the World in the view of black and white numerical amounts. Instead, to me, the World is an ever evolving kaleidoscope. Hence, I believe the stigma behind the negative connotations that is often times associated with majoring in English comes from the fear of the unknown. For, we are not simply memorizing content or searching for something so concrete as the cure of some horrendous and vicious disease; rather we are searching the depths of the soul for the human connection. To be able to explain emotion, motivations–the ailments that affect each and every one of us.
Above all, after all the snide remarks, doubts, and bewildered faces I refuse to believe “the new Knowledge hierarchies that asserted the superiority of the sciences over the humanities.” For, the search for knowledge cannot be contained to one discipline, nor was it created there. Thus, the essence of knowledge is the root of the forest known as academia.