Before I became an English major, I remember raucously laughing along with John Mulaney’s Netflix special “Kid Gorgeous at Radio City”. In one segment of the special, Mulaney riffs off of the sheer irony of being asked to donate money as an alumni to a college he already paid $120,000 to for a bachelor’s degree in English. For five minutes, Mulaney recounts the ridiculousness of his college experience. The jokes crescendo to the final punchline as the arc follows Mulaney from his seventeen-year-old clueless self being haggled into signing up to be an English major, to the day of his graduation: “Strolling across a stage, the sun in my eyes, my family watching as I sweat vodka and ecstasy, to receive a four-year degree in a language that I already spoke” (Mulaney and Timbers). Before I became an English major, I had no idea how relevant that joke would become to me. 

I have held that punchline in my brain and thought of it many times as I have spent the past year or so up to my ears in Old English, Middle English, and modern day English literature. I have thought of that punchline upon every instance of hearing the word “temporality” used to discuss a novel (what does that even mean?) and during every instance of having to draw out the significance of the color blue in a text. I have thought of it every time somebody asks me what I am going to school for, and I invariably rush to stave off any unwanted commentary, answering in one big breath: “IwanttobecomealibrarianbutI’mstudyingEnglishforundergradbecauseitseemedmostrelevant”.

This school question comes up particularly often while I am at work. Doing hair for a living, much of my day involves some degree of small talk, and almost every client asks how my classes are going. It is a dreadful question; sometimes I cannot even remember what the names of my classes are to begin talking about them, and other times it seems difficult to tell people what, exactly, I am even learning. (Sure, I’ve gladly performed close readings of dozens of poems to find their hidden homoerotic undertones, but how do I synthesize that into an answer?) And oftentimes, when speaking to my clients who have studied to become nurse practitioners, therapists, and public counsel attorneys, studying literature just feels . . . unimportant, and maybe even a little bit pretentious.

So recently, when a client of mine asked how classes are going, I instinctually began to mentally rifle through my stockpile of generic, shallow responses. But a corner of my brain snagged on a memory of the day before, sitting in Nature, Climate Change, and Literature and holding back tears. This irrepressible emotional response bubbled out of me while my classmates and I sat in the classroom in dark silence, watching a short film that featured footage of Standing Rock protestors being pepper sprayed by the police for demonstrating against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. For once, rather than replying halfheartedly to derail any potential judgmental comments, I decided to answer honestly.

“Actually, classes have been feeling kind of emotional lately,” I admitted. And the proverbial floodgates opened.

My client and I spoke about analyzing the way certain biology scientists have used rhetoric to promote eugenics, and how, due to increasing sea levels and extreme weather events, housing in coastal cities is becoming all but unaffordable. We spoke about the importance of land ethic and stewardship, and of having the language to be able to communicate effectively about those concepts. At one point during this conversation, my client, (herself a professor and marine biologist studying the effect of climate change on marine life) stopped me and asked, “and you’re learning all of this for an English class?” 

It struck me at that moment that, in fulfilling the requirements of my English major, not only have I studied literature, but I have also studied science, culture, and history. Each of these unexpected (but welcome) subjects have directly contributed to my well-roundedness as a person and to my ability to understand other cultures. When I took Professor Baird’s Japanese Arts and Culture class to fulfill one of my English major elective requirements, we learned as much about Japanese culture as he could pack into one semester, ranging all the way from prehistoric to modern day Japan. This class was a treasure to me for many reasons. Chief among them was the fact that, due to our lectures on the occupation of Korea by Japan and the United States in the 1940s, I was able glean insight into my Aunt Young Sook’s homeland and what her childhood there may have been like in a way that I had not previously been able to due to language barriers. Through analyzing works of poetry and literature that went as far back as the 10th century, this class exposed how much I was still unaware of when it comes to world history, and that inspired me to further my own studies on the history of the country. It also enabled me to strengthen a familial connection through my newfound desire to learn and understand more, which demonstrates the unique ability of literature to bridge gaps between people. 

Not only did I have the privilege of learning about Japan and Korea, but also, in my Caribbean literature class in junior year, about Cuba, Haiti, and even China. The professor chose beautifully done translations of novels written by Caribbean authors who chronicled family sagas that spanned generations. These stories largely chronicled the effects of intergenerational trauma resulting from transatlantic slave trade and indentured servitude. And because I was learning history through art, stories, and lived experiences in all of these classes rather than through rote memorization of dates and names hammered into my brain ad nauseam, I was able to retain what I was learning of these historical events much more effectively than at other points in my education. Rather than having a high school history teacher telling me watered down, Americanized versions of events and quizzing me on who and when, the authors of these novels were reaching out of the pages and demanding that their truths, their versions of these events, be listened to. 

Together, all of these classes illuminated the importance of storytelling and its ability to deepen one’s awareness of other cultures and to foster connectivity. Being an English major has enabled me to access the stories of people writing across centuries and from all over the globe. Thanks to the skills of translators, being an English major has also allowed me to be reached by the voices of people whose first language is not English, and to feel connected to them and their stories despite linguistic differences. Through the diverse range of studies allowed by this major, I have gained knowledge and perspectives that will enable me to better connect with and be of service to people of all cultures, mother tongues, and walks of life, which is instrumental to becoming a librarian. 

Make no mistakes- I still laugh at John Mulaney’s joke, but now with just the normal, healthy dose of self-deprecation. Because, after that conversation with my client, I realized that I had been able to hold my own, at least for a little bit, with somebody whose livelihood involves teaching and studying the effects of climate change– and me, only a silly English major! This ability has come as a result of the broad range of classes English majors are given to choose from, and the fact that literature exists not in a vacuum, but as a direct result of historical and cultural contexts which we can pry open if we read closely enough. So while I, too, have paid a pretty penny to get a degree in my own language, I have accidentally learned much more than that in the process.

References
Timbers, Alex, director. Kid Gorgeous at Radio City. Performance by John Mulaney, Netflix, 2018.