I think my favourite genre of Substack post is academics in humanities talking about how much they love other academics in humanities. It feels a little saccharine to say but I do truly believe that the way forward must have at least something to do with sitting around and talking about books.
I’m an undergraduate literature student, and a very introverted one at that. I often find myself frustrated with and isolated from other students in my cohort because it can feel like they don’t see the value in their degree or the books they’re reading and I wonder how it’s possible that these people can be spending SO much money to be here but if you ask them why they’ll just shrug. It’s pretty easy to slip into pessimism when everybody around you is constantly stressing about whether they’re getting their money’s worth.
However, there are also moments when I feel so, so proud of the students and academics that I get to work with. I was sat in a workshop yesterday listening to people talk about their dissertation topics and the room was suddenly brimming with enthusiasm, it was genuinely as though the sun had come out and you could see it on everybody’s faces. And I have been attending this Divine Comedy reading group throughout my degree; it’s taught by a wonderful retired professor in her living room and we all huddle around her on mismatched furniture and take it in turns to read the poem in Dante’s Italian (even though one in ten of us speaks a word of the language) and then she translates it live and explicates every reference for us and answers all our questions. The reading group is so popular that she now runs three simultaneous sessions a week. She doesn’t have to do that, nobody’s paying her, but she does it anyway. She’s my absolute hero, and when I read about other people like her, like you, pushing for ‘academic sociality’, it makes me feel a whole lot better about the future.
Sorry to hear about your London troubles, that place scares the bejeezus out of me, and sorry also for this very long rant!
Maybe what I’m finding out from my experience and all the comments is that it’s hard to access this sort of community regularly as an undergraduate, but it can be found and built later. I hope you get to some more of it!
I continue to love London and living in London tbh - I’ve lived here since 2019, and worked here longer than that, and this is the first time Something Bad has happened. Which isn’t great but I still feel like the city has been good to me overall
Lovely! I couldn’t agree more on the importance of the community. We older people gather in book groups, but it would be nice if they were more age-mixed. At 64, I’m the youngest person save 1 in all of my book groups.
I also had my phone stolen once, but the nice thing was that the thief’s ineptitude allowed me to catch him (although I had to buy a new phone first, so this was not an economic benefit). Turns out he had accidentally taken a photo of his feet with my phone, which showed up with geolocation information in my cloud photo account, which I looked through with the new phone. This allowed the police to go after the thief, who returned the phone. May your luck be as good as that!
Anyway, I’d be grateful for eyes on my Substack, as I’m just beginning. It’s called The Duck-Billed Reader.
I’m so sorry about your phone getting stolen - but pleased it got stolen by someone so useless!
You’re absolutely right about book groups - they’re such an important part of community and I’ve loved the small handful I’ve been a part of, though they’ve always sputtered out a bit after a short while. I’d love to be in one that could commit and go the distance. I think a lot more young people would like it than they realise.
Loved this! Currently reading this in my school library. I’m a senior in high school heading off to college soon and it was so great to read this. Thanks for reminding me to cherish all the little things we think we will probably forget but never will! 😊
That’s so wonderful for me to read! I hope you have a wonderfully romantic (and also practical) time at college and you love it in all the ways I did, but slightly better
reading this directly after a very long conversation with an upperclassmen (about books we’re reading and chinese history and everything else happening in our lives) was so lovely :)
I’m glad that the places everyone I know went to university in the US (including me) don’t divide the accommodations or anything else up by colleges. You go to classes and room with students from all majors or none. There are often specialized dorms where everyone is in the same program, but you have to be declared for that major, and the freshmen don’t get to join those, you have the other 3 years for that. It widens your horizons when your classmates and roommate have different interests.
My husband is still friends with the guys he shared a room in a fraternity with.
I’m not sure if there’s anywhere in the uk that divides colleges up by subject - at Oxford where I was colleges had all or almost all the subjects mixed up together. My college had no one else doing my programme in it until the final year when there was a new girl younger than me. My partner who I’m still with did history and the two friends from my college I see most did law and biomedical science, so the college system jumbles people up together a lot.
But dorms aren’t as… isolating and inward-looking as colleges like Oxford and Cambridge. Everyone in my school ate meals in one spot, for instance, and there was one spot for drinking. The dorm is where you sleep and study, although we did have activities per dorm or per floor, and regular meetings. Sometimes our floor would close the locked doors at either end and we’d have the booze or treats just for us. Like when my roommate came back from a trip to Hawaii and we shared out pineapple wine and tasty treats. Or the last night before move-out for the summer when everyone brought out the last of the booze and my mother had given us several bottles of extremely cheap champagne. We had to drink it all, of course. When my mom came to pick me up, she said “This is the quietest I’ve seen you!” and indeed, we admitted to slight hangovers. My floor won the “decorate your doors for Xmas” because we had a theme and executed it well. It earned us a special steak and shrimp dinner, so time well spent.
(No tall lockers — your books got carried around or you had to run back to your dorm.)
I think my favourite genre of Substack post is academics in humanities talking about how much they love other academics in humanities. It feels a little saccharine to say but I do truly believe that the way forward must have at least something to do with sitting around and talking about books.
I’m an undergraduate literature student, and a very introverted one at that. I often find myself frustrated with and isolated from other students in my cohort because it can feel like they don’t see the value in their degree or the books they’re reading and I wonder how it’s possible that these people can be spending SO much money to be here but if you ask them why they’ll just shrug. It’s pretty easy to slip into pessimism when everybody around you is constantly stressing about whether they’re getting their money’s worth.
However, there are also moments when I feel so, so proud of the students and academics that I get to work with. I was sat in a workshop yesterday listening to people talk about their dissertation topics and the room was suddenly brimming with enthusiasm, it was genuinely as though the sun had come out and you could see it on everybody’s faces. And I have been attending this Divine Comedy reading group throughout my degree; it’s taught by a wonderful retired professor in her living room and we all huddle around her on mismatched furniture and take it in turns to read the poem in Dante’s Italian (even though one in ten of us speaks a word of the language) and then she translates it live and explicates every reference for us and answers all our questions. The reading group is so popular that she now runs three simultaneous sessions a week. She doesn’t have to do that, nobody’s paying her, but she does it anyway. She’s my absolute hero, and when I read about other people like her, like you, pushing for ‘academic sociality’, it makes me feel a whole lot better about the future.
Sorry to hear about your London troubles, that place scares the bejeezus out of me, and sorry also for this very long rant!
Maybe what I’m finding out from my experience and all the comments is that it’s hard to access this sort of community regularly as an undergraduate, but it can be found and built later. I hope you get to some more of it!
I continue to love London and living in London tbh - I’ve lived here since 2019, and worked here longer than that, and this is the first time Something Bad has happened. Which isn’t great but I still feel like the city has been good to me overall
Lovely! I couldn’t agree more on the importance of the community. We older people gather in book groups, but it would be nice if they were more age-mixed. At 64, I’m the youngest person save 1 in all of my book groups.
I also had my phone stolen once, but the nice thing was that the thief’s ineptitude allowed me to catch him (although I had to buy a new phone first, so this was not an economic benefit). Turns out he had accidentally taken a photo of his feet with my phone, which showed up with geolocation information in my cloud photo account, which I looked through with the new phone. This allowed the police to go after the thief, who returned the phone. May your luck be as good as that!
Anyway, I’d be grateful for eyes on my Substack, as I’m just beginning. It’s called The Duck-Billed Reader.
I’m so sorry about your phone getting stolen - but pleased it got stolen by someone so useless!
You’re absolutely right about book groups - they’re such an important part of community and I’ve loved the small handful I’ve been a part of, though they’ve always sputtered out a bit after a short while. I’d love to be in one that could commit and go the distance. I think a lot more young people would like it than they realise.
I’ll be sure to check your substack out!!
Thank you - would appreciate your reactions and feedback.
Loved this! Currently reading this in my school library. I’m a senior in high school heading off to college soon and it was so great to read this. Thanks for reminding me to cherish all the little things we think we will probably forget but never will! 😊
That’s so wonderful for me to read! I hope you have a wonderfully romantic (and also practical) time at college and you love it in all the ways I did, but slightly better
reading this directly after a very long conversation with an upperclassmen (about books we’re reading and chinese history and everything else happening in our lives) was so lovely :)
I’m so glad you liked it and I love these conversations for both of us 💚💚💚
I’m glad that the places everyone I know went to university in the US (including me) don’t divide the accommodations or anything else up by colleges. You go to classes and room with students from all majors or none. There are often specialized dorms where everyone is in the same program, but you have to be declared for that major, and the freshmen don’t get to join those, you have the other 3 years for that. It widens your horizons when your classmates and roommate have different interests.
My husband is still friends with the guys he shared a room in a fraternity with.
I’m not sure if there’s anywhere in the uk that divides colleges up by subject - at Oxford where I was colleges had all or almost all the subjects mixed up together. My college had no one else doing my programme in it until the final year when there was a new girl younger than me. My partner who I’m still with did history and the two friends from my college I see most did law and biomedical science, so the college system jumbles people up together a lot.
But dorms aren’t as… isolating and inward-looking as colleges like Oxford and Cambridge. Everyone in my school ate meals in one spot, for instance, and there was one spot for drinking. The dorm is where you sleep and study, although we did have activities per dorm or per floor, and regular meetings. Sometimes our floor would close the locked doors at either end and we’d have the booze or treats just for us. Like when my roommate came back from a trip to Hawaii and we shared out pineapple wine and tasty treats. Or the last night before move-out for the summer when everyone brought out the last of the booze and my mother had given us several bottles of extremely cheap champagne. We had to drink it all, of course. When my mom came to pick me up, she said “This is the quietest I’ve seen you!” and indeed, we admitted to slight hangovers. My floor won the “decorate your doors for Xmas” because we had a theme and executed it well. It earned us a special steak and shrimp dinner, so time well spent.
(No tall lockers — your books got carried around or you had to run back to your dorm.)
Thank you! 💚💚💚