I’ve pointed out before that George Steiner has pointed out:
What we need (I have argued this elsewhere) are not ‘programs in the humanities,’ ‘schools of creative writing,’ ‘programs in creative criticism’ (mirabile dictu [a wonderful tale], these exist). What we need are places, i.e., a table with some chairs around it, in which we can learn again how to read, how to read together… We need ‘houses of and for reading….’ Servants to the text. (“ ‘Critic’/ ‘Reader’.†New Literary History. 10 (Spring 1979): 423–52 at 452 also in George Steiner: a Reader. (1987).)
The purpose of Bookbread has always followed this model. Now Alan Jacobs gets at what this same purpose is, and has been, when he talks about this thing called humanism:
Anyway, I think it’s important to distinguish between the humanities (intellectual disciplines located primarily in educational institutions) and humanism, or humane reading and learning (which have fuzzier and more flexible institutional placement).
— Alan Jacobs (@ayjay) August 8, 2018
