Spring 2013
Message from the Dean
Celebrating Lit Hum, Enriching Its Future
During the summer before students’ first year, the College hosts events around the country and the world where alumni hand copies of The Iliad to incoming students. This gift symbolizes students’ entrance into the Columbia College Core Curriculum — more specifically, into Literature Humanities — and to the community of Columbians, past and present, who have delved into this text.
Photo: Eileen BarrosoLiterature Humanities, which this year celebrates its 75th anniversary, connects generations of College students. Each one of you has read at least four books in common — The Iliad, Oresteia, Oedipus the King and Inferno. These texts have remained on the Lit Hum syllabus since it was initiated in 1937. Others books — ranging from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Boccaccio’s The Decameron to Augustine’s Confessions and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse — have rotated on and off through the years. All of these texts have served the same purpose: to develop students’ understanding of the literary and philosophical developments that have shaped western thought, to empower students to be critical readers of the most significant literature and to transform the way students observe, learn about, write about and think about the world.
The Lit Hum syllabus is nearly the same for every first-year student. They read the same texts at the same time and take the same midterms and finals. They meet around tables in groups of no more than 22 to raise questions about the texts and to debate the answers. They talk about identity, family, power, justice — about the challenges of humanity. And they learn about themselves in the process.
Share Your Lit Hum Memories
What do you remember about Literature Humanities? Do you recall a favorite professor or text? How has the Core course impacted your life? Please share your favorite Lit Hum memories with us at ccalumni@columbia.edu.
When I speak with alumni about their years at the College, they invariably mention the Core as a defining and transformative experience. When I ask current students what their favorite course is, they consistently say Lit Hum, CC or another Core course. Students come to Columbia College because it has this great and unrivaled Core Curriculum, and when they leave it is the great common intellectual experience they all share. The Core is what makes all of you members of an enduring and trans-generational intellectual community that connects every College student to every other student and to all College alumni. That experience begins with Lit Hum.
The Core is so important to us at the College that we want to provide every resource possible to support it, to propel it and to enhance it. This is why, for the past year, we have been making plans to start an endowment for the Core — a foundation upon which we can perpetuate everything you have valued about the Core and with which we can ensure that it will be valued by every future College student. How we build this legacy will evolve through the several years of the endowment campaign. However, the first emphasis in that campaign, which is beginning right now, will be to provide the resources to enhance and enrich the experience of faculty and students in Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization.
The Core — and Literature Humanities in particular — is central to students’ intellectual development at Columbia. It is what makes Columbia College unique and what makes our graduates unique. It is the one great common formative experience that most specifically shapes our graduates’ subsequent lives. I hope that you will take a moment to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Literature Humanities — to think about what you learned in Lit Hum and how the course, and your other Core courses, had an impact on your life. Moreover, I hope you will enjoy reading in the following pages about the course, its faculty and students, and the role it plays in our community.