Authors to Ourselves

Authors to Ourselves Kiss the book

Authors To Ourselves

2014 University of Michigan-Flint Dr. Kietzman's class: Writing and Revolution in 17th-Century England Editor-in-Chief: Rebecca Blakeney Project Consultant: Candace Lester Production Manager: Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman Cover and section art by Rachel Strickland Interior design by Rebecca Blakeney

We, the student authors of this book, would like to dedicate this endeavor to Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman, without whom none of this would have been possible. Her creativity, intelligence, and direction has motivated and encouraged us throughout the semester and, for some of us, our entire college careers at University of Michigan-Flint. She goes beyond what anyone could reasonably expect from a professor. UM-Flint is a better institution because she is there for her students.

Thank you for all that you do Mary Jo.

A special thanks goes to those who helped make this book possible:

Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman Dr. Stephen Bernstein, Chairman, English Department The University of Michigan-Flint English Department

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.�

-Neil Gaiman

Photo by Candace Lester

Saginaw Street in Flint

Table of Contents Foreword by Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman.................................xi Introduction..................................................................xvii Breaking the Bonds of Icons (Culture & Society: Beyond Images)...........................1 Mind-Forged Manacles: Slavery in the 21st Century......................................................3 The Alchemy of Advertising..................................7 Social Media #TheGardenofEden........................11 Sex in Society......................................................13 It's Not Once Upon a Time..................................17 Reading Into Education..................................................23 Fight For Our Fiction...........................................25 All the World is a Classroom...............................33 Books Are Not Dead Things.................................37 The Monarchy of Flint; University of Michigan......................................................41 Flint: "A city of Prophets, Sages & Worthies"..................................................................45 Thinking Vicariously Through Characters............47 We the People: Why We Must Seize the Power of Our Voices.................................51 Education at the Gas Station...............................55 Works Cited....................................................................59 Author Biographies........................................................61

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Photo by Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman

Old Flint house in Carriage Town

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Foreword

by Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman

Speaking with Prophets I was never comfortable in ivory towers, so when I got my Ph.D., I took it to Turkey where I taught Renaissance literature in Ankara and travelled around the country, practicing my Turkish and becoming more amateur anthropologist than English literature professor. Another American teacher, who heard that I had a vague wish to write a biography of a seventeenth-century icon, Mary Carleton—a woman who changed identities like outfits to survive independently in 1660s London, told me about a fellowship opportunity in England. I applied and got the grant which let me spend a summer tracking down traces of Mary in dirty parchment records (originals!) from 17th-century court cases. I hardly knew where or who I was, but certainly, I was some kind of traveler. What I couldn’t decide was whether I wanted to travel in space or time, in reality or in my mind. A conversation changed my life.

That summer I was homesick for Turkey, and I took a train to Birmingham to talk to a Turkish woman about another teaching stint in the city of Edirne. The interview was okay, and I was headed back to my flat in London, seated next to an old gentleman with a book on the plastic, fold-down, tray table in front of him. I asked the man what he was reading—D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. He went to the dining car and bought me tea and a cake which I unwrapped and we began to talk. As it turned out, we’d both been to Birmingham for weird reasons: I was trying to get back to a dusty Turkish city where I could be anonymous, and he was interviewing his still living friend, Wilfrid Mellers, to compose his obituary—“he wrote a book on the composer, Bach, called (in my mind) The Mind of God (who doesn’t want to know about that?)—and it started. We

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proceeded to talk about Bach and then our favorite writers in the English tradition—Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne and Herbert. I had a very disorganized mind then, and still do; but this man was comfortable wondering and wandering. The dilatory talk was like a walk in the country where the literary observations we made were natural and had the still joyful ring of surprise like when you see a yellow warbler flitting in a shrub, mistaking it for sunlight, or when you realize that the swifts are actually drinking as they skim the surface of the river: look at that, would you! wonderful! lovely!

Scintillating ideas and tantalizing titles—little did I know that this elderly man was laying out the territory of the world which I was becoming every minute more certain I wanted to explore. Turned out, he was a well-known English critic, who I’d never heard of until I returned to the U.S. and looked up the name “Boris Ford.” That conversation convinced me that I needed to stay in the West where I could continue to have such conversations.

In a recent New York Times editorial (5/2/14), David Brooks describes the chance meeting of Isaiah Berlin with the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova in Leningrad in 1945 and a conversation that changed both of their lives. Brooks described the kind of conversation they had (about which Akhmatova wrote poems and Berlin a memoir) as communication that happens between people who think that the knowledge worth attending to is not found in data but in the great works of culture, in humanity’s inherited storehouse of moral, emotional and existential wisdom. He admits to being haunted by a description of the love story experienced in a single conversation and opines, in the NYT op-ed piece, that it could only happen between individuals who had “done the reading” and who were “spiritually ambitious.” Brooks concludes by wondering “how many schools prepare students for this kind of love.” I have only had one or two friends in my life with whom such conversations were possible, but I have a job in which they happen all the time—I teach English literature at The University of Michigan Flint.

It wasn’t until I returned from teaching in Kazakhstan on a Fulbright that I understood the core of what has become my new

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way of thinking about teaching. Every class in any country must be a real dialogue. For dialogue to be real, teachers must be open to learning about the students’ culture and the concrete situations of their life struggles. In Kazakshtan, the students were my guides: they taught me everything I learned about the Soviet past, the nuclear testing, the birth defects, family poverty in a newly independent nation, and traditional Kazakh and Tatar cultural practices. As I learned from them, I realized that it is too easy to take American students for granted: am I sure that I share a culture with my students? The Fulbright made me realize that every class should have an anthropological component. Together we can learn about features of the historical worlds we study and, just as important, our own city; and I have volumes to learn about my students’ family cultures as well as their individual struggles with homelessness, joblessness, debt, drugs, discrimination. I can only motivate and enable them to educate themselves if I can connect them emotionally and imaginatively to the textures of life in earlymodern England, the struggles real people endured, as well as the ways those people found to express themselves, despite being poor, uneducated, socially powerless, and even—in Milton’s case—blind and “wanted” for regicide.

Thinking happens through speaking, and speaking must be liberated. Students are paralyzed if they think they have to sound “intelligent” or have well-formulated ideas about the reading. They must be invited to talk about their lives: the thinking individual is personally involved both in the question and in the answer.

Pinpointing their own needs helps students to approach class texts (or any course content, for that matter) with a sense of mission. If they are aware that their own lives need the wisdom and the courageous example of earlier writers, today’s students will be more likely to read more deeply and to follow the example of the writers they read and become authors themselves.

But we face a big problem: our 21st-century American students are getting more and more afraid to speak. I mean this literally. In Renaissance literature, I was teaching Thomas More’s Utopia and we were brainstorming all the ways culture can deform human life. More is an early critic of wealth disparity and the

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aristocracy, and we talked about his time but also our own. “I don’t like to talk on the phone anymore,” said one student, and, to my surprise, there was chorus of agreement, “Oh, I thought it was only me.” Students are so used to texting, that the sounds of human voices are becoming strange to them. They are so used to sitting behind screens and handling business online, that fewer make a point to visit professors during office hours. Yet, in that conversation, I heard that they were dying to talk and that they valued the face-to-face classroom experience because the wanted to be woken from their screen-bred somnambulance. From that day on, we had really wonderful and meaningful conversations in that classroom.

The class that wrote the essays in this collection was called Writing and Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England. How many Americans today know that there was a civil war in England in which the people were riled up enough to put the King on trial and execute him? The writings and events of those decades shocked Europe and inspired the rebellion in the American colonies. My students were excited to learn that the revolution was the result of ordinary people with no special education who had learned to think from independent reading (if nothing else, they had the Hebrew scriptures in English) and who were brave enough to try to write and publish proto-feminist tracts, religious and political commentaries, communist ideas, prophesies, diaries of struggles, plays, and poems—low-brow and high-brow, Harlequin and Paradise Lost … prose and poetry. It was all good. “Read promiscuously,” was John Milton’s rallying call for intellectual and press freedom; and the energized people listened. Teachers ought to walk into every class with an awareness that they are not just “delivering content” but raising up potential prophets; and I don’t mean that fortune-telling (crazy) kind of prophet of which we have plenty in Flint. I mean the prophet St. Paul describes as any person who dares to speak her own understanding, “to edify, to exhort, and to comfort.” Anna Trapnel, Katherine Evans, Sarah Cheevers, Arise Evans, and John Milton are just a handful of probably hundreds of home-bred 17thcentury English prophets. I am glad to introduce you to twelve

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prophetic voices from Flint. Moreover, I am proud to be a teacher who sees her role as training students who will transform the world through a certain kind of conversation in the workplace, in the bedroom, in the family—that is full of ideas, fresh wisdom, and the ever new excitement of discovery.

Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman Flint, Michigan May 17, 2014

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Photo by Melissa Pomerantz

Mural on Saginaw St. in Flint

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Introduction

by Candace Lester

When Did We Become So Indifferent?

What will you do with an English degree? What will you be when you graduate? Why do you read so much? Aren’t you missing out on so many other things with your nose stuck in a book?

These are questions nearly every English major hears at some point in their college careers. Well, I can tell you what it means to me; what it means to a bunch of us really. I can write in complete sentences; believe it or not some employers say that this is one of the biggest reasons they hire English majors. It is a sad day indeed when one needs a college degree to write in complete sentences.

But what else? I mean that can’t be it, right?

I’m a writer, which also means I’m a good communicator, at least with the written word. I mean think about it, once you write something down it becomes permanent. The language you put on the page is now out of your control, the reader is free to make whatever meaning they would, so you better say what you mean the first time because you may not get a chance to explain yourself. This is a major reason why rough drafts and editing are important skills which also developed as I pursued my degree. But these are just some of the technical things that I have learned. There are some other very important things I gained that cannot be quantified so technically. I am also empathetic, a dreamer, and a critical thinker. I can look at a situation and see a solution where so many others will only see a problem. I am informed, decisive, and respectful of other points of view. Respect is certainly one of the many things we could use more of in this fast paced modern world. Simply put, English and literature studies develop our human skills, necessary for a life in a democracy. A democracy requires a body of critically thinking citizens if it is to truly function for the benefit of the people. I can identify problems that need to be fixed, imagine and implement

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changes within my sphere of influence. Would a business major, or a science major; who graduated with a quantifiable skill, be as prepared as I am to change society?

When people start reading, I mean really reading critically, thinking about the words before them and how they may apply to their everyday lives, things begin to change. If people then begin writing about these thoughts more change happens because even more people are exposed to new ideas. It is like a giant snowball of ideas rolling down a hill, gathering more ideas and momentum as it rolls. This is what happened in 17th-century England. An avalanche of ideas swept the country, and culminated in a civil war due to the injustices heaped upon the people by a decadent monarchy lead by Charles I. The major complaints of the people were sent to the king

by Parliament in The Petition of Rights: Parliament had not been called in over 11 years, people were essentially being taxed to finance a war that they did not agree with, failing to produce the requisite tax led to trial by “Privy Council.” People put on trial suffered many penalties including: loss of land, imprisonment, or execution. Does any of this sound familiar? “No taxation without representation,” exactly what many of our forefathers where fighting for. War in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. So much bloodshed that our tax dollars paid for, but many of us did not agree with going to war in the first place. To bring it down to a local level, things are a mess politically here in Flint, Michigan. A classmate recently described a town hall meeting at which citizens present were only given three minutes to speak at the very end of the session. Our leaders are failing us. Our voices are being silenced. It is clear that our emergency manager couldn't care less what the people of this city want, just like King Charles I in 17th-century England, yet most of us believe we live in a democracy. Now let me ask you a question; why do we allow ourselves to be silenced? Most people in Flint don’t even know what happened at this town hall meeting.

Today, people write all the time, right? I mean there is a plethora of writing on the internet if nothing else. So, what made 17th-century England different? Why isn’t there a louder outcry today about all the social injustices people face every day?

A veritable ocean of academic study is available that tries to answer these questions, and to try to answer them fully here would cloud my message. To my mind though, the major difference was people in 17th-century England were reading largely the same things.

The popularity and availability of the Hebrew Scriptures was

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immense. The people’s desire to analyze these scriptures was so strong that a law was passed forbidding the discussion of scripture in taverns. Hundreds of pamphlets at that time were written that were in dialogue with previously published pamphlets because, at the start of the civil war, censorship laws were lifted. The excitement of writers who were speaking to people hungry to participate in politics is palpable even from the distance of almost four centuries, and it was a real conversation with critical thought and depth rather than the disorganized spatter of writings found on the internet today.

People were paying attention to, and thinking about similar things. With the advent of the internet there has been an enormous flood of information. The chance that I have read the same things on the internet as my friends is slim, unless of course we share the articles with one another. Then there is the issue of quality: yes there are well thought out and articulate pieces of writing on the internet, but there is just as much if not more garbage out there that often gets more of my attention than the more informative stuff.

The chances that I’m going to have an in depth conversation about John Milton’s Paradise Lost, or William Shakespeare’s The Tempest are even slimmer than the chance of discussing something I read on the internet. This literature has been around for centuries, it has survived for a reason but is slowly disappearing to our detriment.

Today we have so few books or ideas in common that the structure of our public discourse is disjointed, and we are missing any common ground to stand on.

There is one place that I can be guaranteed to have a conversation about these classics though, and that is in the literature classroom, well the good ones anyway. I was a fortunate returning sophomore because my reintroduction to the academic world was with an open minded literature professor, Dr. Kietzman. In her Greek and Roman literature class, for the first time, a professor asked me what I thought about Odysseus’ journey, how his journey could apply to my life. I was taken aback at first, but when I began to think about it: the story of The Odyssey took on a whole new life for me; it made me realize that no matter where I went, there literally was “no place like home,” just like Dorothy told me when I was a small child. Literature classrooms have taught me so many things that I simply could not have learned elsewhere, at least not, in the same way. In another literature class I was exposed to the idea that not all Muslim women felt oppressed because of the hijab. In yet another class I learned to respect the earth we live with rather

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than the earth we live on, which is a Native American view point.

Cooperation with the earth rather than trying to tame it would lead to the best possible results for both ourselves and the planet.

Unfortunately it’s not always the cheapest or easiest, to live green, so we continue to destroy they very spirit of the planet we should be living with. In another class I learned that sexuality wasn’t always used to define people like it is today. That’s not to say people weren’t having sex; of course they were, but being straight, homosexual, or any other orientation was not part of their identity.

It wasn’t just a sense of religious prudishness that kept people from saying they were gay or straight, they just did not think about themselves that way. This is just to scratch the surface of what I have obtained from a well-run literature class that offers ideas, life philosophies, and an open forum for student discussion.

Well, that’s great, but what about the rest of the class? I mean I’m just talking about myself here, right? I mean with our noses stuck in books all the time how do readers find time to even talk about what they are reading?

The thing is, though, that I didn’t come to all these realizations on my own. It wasn’t as if I read the words on the page, and suddenly a light bulb in my head switched on. Rather, I read what was often complicated literature and I struggled with meaning.

Often I was confused while reading at home, sometimes I had those “Aha” moments, but the great thing about the literature class is it is full of people who have those “Aha” moments, often in different places in the reading than my moments. When we gather for discussion the next day we talk about these moments. My classmates' interpretation of the reading often informs my own interpretation. A well-run literature class is a collaborative search for understanding with the common touchstone of a shared text.

Even when I disagree with a classmate’s interpretation, I glean insight into how other people think and feel about the world. Which brings me to another lesson I obtained: if you look around at society and you want to change it, if there are injustices that you want to address, then you must surround yourself with people who think differently about the subject than you do. Support gay marriage?

Talk to someone who doesn’t. Support gender equality? Talk to someone who doesn’t. Believe that Christianity is truly our salvation? Talk to someone who doesn’t. This is how to affect real change. If we only surround ourselves with people who already agree with us then how can we expect to change the mind of anyone else?

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The book you hold in your hands was born out of the idea that we should all be reading, writing, and thinking. As you read, you will see that many of the writers' ideas support or grow from one another, but you will also see some contradictory ideas. All of these ideas took root in one literature class. We read, debated, organized, offended, and supported one another. So, now it’s your turn. Let this be the beginning for you; read our ideas and think about what we are saying. If you find something interesting maybe you will pick up the piece of literature that inspired it, and read that as well. Some people today are proud that they haven’t read a book since school. Don’t be one of those people. Read, think, write, talk, and most importantly, make change! It’s up to you to defend your ideals, it’s up to you to talk to your neighbors about them, and it’s up to you to change how this society works, because those in power certainly won’t do it for you. Why would they? They are happy and comfortable in power, and many of them couldn’t care less about you. Risk talking to a victim of injustice, I bet that conversation will complicate and enrich your life. Risk reading about tragedy, drama, and romance, anything at all for you will not be the same when you are finished. Open your eyes, open your mind; it may not make you happier, but it will make you more connected, more real because today indifference is the biggest crime of all.

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Breaking the Bonds of Icons (Culture & Society: Beyond Images) "Once people said: Give me liberty or give me death. Now they say: Make me a slave, just pay me enough."

-Todd Garlington “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!�

-Bob Marley

Photo by Candace Lester

Taken at the site of the Occupy Flint Movement Page |1

Photo by Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman

Old boarding house along the Flint River

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Mind-forged Manacles: Slavery in the 21st Century

by Brekke Pichette

If someone told you that you were a slave, you probably would think that person was crazy. You might even laugh in their face. I mean, this is America – land of the free, right? We got rid of slavery a long time ago. However, the kind of slavery I’m talking about is far from the physical slavery that most people are familiar with. Today we battle a far more subtle form of slavery. It is a slavery of the mind which we have learned from our culture and it influences the way we think without us even realizing it. In the 17th century, one man recognized the danger of mental slavery and dedicated his life to helping others to escape; his name was John Milton. Milton thought that mental slavery occurs when a person is no longer able to distinguish appearance from reality as well as when that person no longer recognizes that an image is a symbol for a truth that is more abstract. By replacing substance with images, we as a society have made it virtually impossible for ourselves to distinguish what’s real and what’s not, and making us slaves to these images.

One of the images which Milton saw being most idolized and which he spent years working to destroy was the image of the monarch in England. After Charles I was executed by the people, Milton wrote a book called Eikonoklastes, which means “Image Breaker,” to refute a book that praised the king. Milton knew this was important because the image of Charles was being idolized in the peoples' memories, and this had to be counteracted if freedom were to be attained. In the 17th century, the British people were faced with a government that emphasized style over substance which is something we as Americans in the 21st century can relate to

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today. The amount of time a presidential candidate and his team puts into what color and pattern of tie he should wear would be absurd if it weren’t for the studies that show how much it matters to voting citizens. If a candidate is accused of wavering on his stance towards certain issues, wearing a consistently colored tie or similarly styled suit will cause us to perceive him as more consistent and dependable. This is one example, but the principle of style over substance is true of most politicians. It does not matter if they are acting in the best interest of the people whom they represent as long as they appear to be acting in our best interest. We need to begin to question these images. Milton believed he was writing to future generations who would be able to understand the danger of embracing images too much, but it seems we are just as much, if not more, image slaves today.

However, the problem is not only with our government; it is also with us. Perhaps social media such as Facebook and Twitter have made it more obvious, but I’m guessing the obsession with the image we portray and other people’s perception of us has been around for a while. The only difference is now we have a webpage which we use to define ourselves and compare our lives to one another’s. But it’s not just Facebook. We make choices in every area of our lives to promote the overall image we want people to see when they look at us. The group of people we want to be accepted by decides what music we listen to and what clothes we wear. And the hard thing about applying the concept of slavery to our own culture today is that it’s easy to think of other people whom this describes, but it’s never us. So think about this: yes, it probably is that girl taking a selfie, but maybe it’s me, too, when I turn on Private Session on Spotify because I don’t want people judge me for listening to Taylor Swift. The freedom to express yourself and be your own person is very important in our culture right now, but if we’re all just being different in the same way, is that just another image? I’m honestly not sure, but it’s interesting to consider what John Milton would say.

So the question is: what do we do? Well, if we listen to any popular love song or movie, we would know the answer to this question is that we need to “listen to our heart.” But what if our

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heart is full of inaccurate perceptions that we got from said love songs and movies, and these idealized dreams fall apart in the face of real life? Then it’s time for us to use our minds. Milton tells us that through reading we gain wisdom and experience; principles that we can apply to real life. When we look at images and think beyond them to what else they represent, it will lead to more clarity and understanding in our lives. In his biography of Milton entitled John Milton: A Hero For Our Time, David Hawkes writes, “The rise of the image has often been linked to a relativist, pragmatist morality that can conceive of no absolute, ultimate truth underlying rhetorical signification, and to the spread of popular materialism� (Hawkes, 8).

This quotation highlights how we as a society no longer look for meaning beyond the rhetorical signification; we have learned a materialistic way of seeing the world. This is what voluntary mental slavery is, being too comfortable to bother thinking critically and too apathetic to care.

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Photo by Rebecca Blakeney

Hamilton Dam near UM-Flint

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The Alchemy of Advertising

by Candace Lester

In the United States watching television is a pastime that many Americans spend several hours a day on. We are constantly bombarded with advertising during these hours. Many of us, myself included until recently, don’t even think about what these ads are telling us. Often we are being sold products that we are told we need to make us better, happier people. We see these things so often that they start to seem natural to us; we start to believe what we are being told. What finally opened my eyes to what was happening to me was a play from the seventeenth century, The Alchemist by Ben Jonson. It was a rather curious thing that a play from several centuries ago would make me think about this modern day problem. I, like so many of us, couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Advertising surrounds us and works on us in ways that we don’t even notice because we are too preoccupied with the things they are selling us.

The Alchemist takes place in the London of Jonson’s time, as a plague is running rampant through the city. As was often the case at the time, anyone who could afford to leave the city (mostly nobility), left. The story revolves around three people Subtle, Face, and Dol who are all con artists. Face is the housekeeper of a wealthy man named Lovewitt who has taken his leave for the duration of the plague. From this house the three main characters set up a con wherein Subtle plays an alchemist. Alchemy was a form of science used in this period, and its main goal was to turn base metal into gold. Face, as his name implies, had the job of going out and attracting customers. Dol plays various roles in their cons, often involving distracting their customers once they arrived at the manor.

The trio makes all sorts of promises to people, for payment of course.

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Two of the most vulnerable characters in the play are Dapper, and Drugger. Both are young men who are just getting their start in the world. Dapper has an education as a law clerk, and Drugger runs a tobacco store. Drugger comes to the trio for advice on what his shop sign should look like, and where it should be placed. Dapper on the other hand wants a spirit that will help him win at gambling. There is a huge amount of fear in the city at this time, but it is not really mentioned during the action of the play. It remains an ominous threat in the background. These young men seem to be looking for a quick fix in uncertain times. However, when given their backgrounds, it seems they don’t really need a fix to begin with. Advertisements can have the same effect on us today. Rather than thinking about political issues, self-awareness problems, and the myriad of things we face in modern times (both external and internal), we occupy our minds with objects and the perceptions that our neighbors will have of us because we have these objects.

One character in particular is overwhelmed by Subtle's promises; Sir Epicure Mammon who had been guaranteed the philosopher’s stone. The stone, at the time, was believed to be more valuable than gold because it could grant you anything including more gold. It was something that was never created in reality, and eventually it became associated with the gullibility of people who will believe anything. Mammon gets swept up in this fantasy, and he has become convinced that he will be the richest man in all the land. He also tries to woo Dol with the promise of marrying her so she can share in all of his riches. He tells her, “I am the lord of the philosophers’ stone,/And thou the lady” (4.1.120121). Dol plays up the scene, and is unconvinced by his words. He continues on, “…come forth/And taste the air of palaces; eat, drink/The toils of empirics, and their boasted practice…have it ask’d/What miracle she is?” (4.1.134-139). He is convinced at this point that the wealth he will gain from the philosopher’s stone will make him as rich as the nobility that live in palaces. Of course Dol, the female con artist, is not quite so swept up in this. With a wink and a nod to the audience she says, “I could well consent, sir. / But, in a monarchy, how will this be?" (4.1. 147-148). She goes on to say

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that surely the prince will notice, and take exception to a private citizen having so much wealth. Mammon is undaunted by this prospect, he tells her, We’ll therefore go with all, my girl, and live In a free state, where we will eat our mullets, Soused in high-country wines, sup pheasants’ eggs, And have our cockles boiled in silver shells…

And take us down again, and then renew Our youth and strength with drinking the elixir, And so enjoy a perpetuity Of life and lust! And thou shall have thy wardrobe Richer than nature’s, still to change thy self And vary oftener, for thy pride...4.1.155-169 After this, Face reenters the room in which this conversation was happening and says to Mammon, “Sir, you are too loud. I hear you, every word…” (4.1.170). It was at this point in my reading that the message really hit home. This man was so blinded by the promises of the trio that he loses all sense of reality. If a prince is unhappy with him then he shall go somewhere else. He is feeling truly invincible because the main characters have convinced him of the power of the philosopher’s stone even though he has never seen it.

Today so many of us are convinced that the newer car will make us happy even though the one we have is working fine. If we buy the right brand of toys for our children they will be happier or smarter, and we will be better parents. This often makes us lose sight of other very important things like teaching our children how to apologize, share, and have respect for other people. We get so caught up in the perceptions of others that we fail to take a closer look at ourselves to see where we could improve. In the end, if we did take a closer look at ourselves, it would lead to more solutions, and enable us to face those things that we are afraid of.

While outright lying as Face, Subtle, and Dol have done is not allowed in advertising today, it does not mean that reality isn’t distorted often through advertisements. Like Mammon, many of us can lose sight of what we really need or want when we are constantly being exposed to what companies would like us to believe we need. It is our right to do research into products before

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we buy them, but many of us take what we are told at ‘face’ value.

We all want to be happier or better, but we need to begin questioning if these products are really what is going to make us this way. Deeper self-exploration through other mediums such as literature can often lead us to a different version of self than what we are being sold.

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Social Media #TheGardenofEden

by Anna Luke

Social media has taken over the country. Not only are we so immersed in tweeting, texting, taking selfies and hashtagging, we are missing out on community and our true potential. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve do not socialize much with each other, instead they are off worrying about themselves and trying to become independent. Adam and Eve’s struggles are very similar to our society using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other forms of social media. We are seeking attention and gratification just like Eve did when she ate from the tree of knowledge.

When Eve is created she looks at her reflection in the water, admiring herself in vain. God tells her not to do that, kind of how a parent might discourage their kids from taking pictures in the mirror and posting them online. At first Eve does obey God and listens to his rules, until she starts needing attention from Adam.

Adam isn’t giving Eve the attention she needs to feel good about herself, because he is preoccupied with work. So Eve takes the liberty to go on her own quest for independence and attention.

In our culture there are a lot of people who seem like they don’t get enough attention so they post pictures and status updates to get feedback from others. Eve’s quest for attention takes a wrong turn when Satan comes into the garden and tempts her to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

If Eve were to have a Facebook or Twitter, she might have posted something like this at that point: “At the Tree of Knowledge right now, this weird snake is talking to me about mystical apples” #creepybutintrigued. This may sound funny to think of the first woman on earth posting a status online, but aren’t we all silly to be so obsessed with social media? Eve is the perfect example of what self-improvement can get you.

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We as a society are so immersed in ourselves that we can’t see what’s going on around us. Eve was so enthralled about what the serpent was telling her that she didn’t even understand she was being fooled into exile and punishment. The serpent told Eve how beautiful she was and how powerful she was going to be if she ate the apple. Eve selfishly ate the apple and did not consider anyone else’s feelings but her own. Eve might have tweeted something like this in the garden; “Eating the “mystical” apple, so excited for power and independence!”#apple#power#forgetAdam.

While all this tweeting and destruction was going on, Adam, on the other hand, was too busy making a flower crown for Eve instead of actually communicating with her. When Adam finally reached her, it was too late, Eve had already eaten the apple and now all of mankind was to be punished for eternity, #ohcrap.

If our society could see that there are other things that are going on in the world besides obsessing over what others are eating, and doing, where they are going, and one another’s relationship status etc., then maybe we would have more of a sense of community. Sometimes our society focuses on the wrong things, life isn’t all about you and your friends, we need to pay attention to what is actually going on in the world so we don’t miss out on the little signs life warns us about. There is nothing wrong with being social, in fact being social is healthy and beneficial. But if we continue to focus so much on social media, we are going to develop tunnel vision just like Eve did. If Adam and Eve had communicated better instead of going off on their own and seeing what they wanted to see, then maybe their choices wouldn’t have had tragic consequences.

Technology is great and can help our society in many ways but abusing it is only going to drive us more apart from each other.

At this point Adam and Eve would have deactivated their Facebook accounts and stopped posting on Instagram and Twitter, they would have realized that communicating in person is the best, #thanksA&E.

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Sex in Society

by Melissa Pomerantz

In 2012 I received a phone call from my ex-girlfriend Sara, who informed me of a tragedy that had befallen our small group of friends. Her girlfriend Michelle had been beaten severely and hospitalized. The abusers were never prosecuted; Michelle had been attacked at night walking home from Sara’s house and they had their faces covered. I’m from a small town, where “everybody knows your name” and being different or standing out from the crowd meant nearly everybody had, at the very least, heard of you.

When asked if she knew why she had been attacked, she answered simply, “because I’m a dyke.” They had spit on her, called her homophobic slurs, broken her nose, and left her in the street. Unlike other states where such an incident spreads like wild fire, her story never made the news.

Sexuality has always been a hush-hush topic, despite our claims that our society is open and accepting. Same sex marriage has only recently started being legalized. Gays and lesbians are “weird,” bisexuals are “confused,” trans are ignored, and any others are unheard of. Labels are slapped onto people as part of their identification, perhaps because, in reality, it is much harder to describe yourself. If forced to identify myself by sexual preference, I would say that I’m pansexual. But, gender expression—the gender someone identifies with instead of the sex they were born—doesn’t matter in my attraction to a person; I’m indifferent to how someone identifies their gender. It’s tough to label myself as such, because while the definition fits—I don’t have a preference towards any gender, including trans or otherwise—it’s also a cop-out. The connotation of pansexual makes me sound like a sexual deviant, as if I will be attracted to or have sex with anyone and everyone. It defines who I am and confines me to other’s perceptions and

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stereotypes of that label, which most likely differ from my views of myself.

I will be exploring the representation of different sexualities in early period literature, and how love was and is considered spiritual, beautiful, and important despite what gender the people in question are. I also explore how labels have not always existed, how we functioned without them, and how they are detrimental to progress in our society.

In reality, there have been recorded instances of bisexual or homosexual romance dating back hundreds of years. Upon reading John Milton, an author whose published works date from 1631 to his death in 1674, it’s easy to believe that he was bisexual or had homosexual tendencies. In truth, the seventeenth century had no concept of modern “homosexuality” and people “did not perceive their sexual behavior as part of their identity” (Hawkes 41). They didn’t have labels for sexual orientation or gender identification. If anything, love was more spiritual and removed from the physical world. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence to share a bed with someone you were not romantically involved with. Sodomy was a sin, and while still defined as an act of sex between men, so was non-procreative sex between men and women (Hawkes 41). Love was an experience that transcended sex. We have the same circumstances going on today; people who are not romantically involved often end up in bed with each other. Social stigmas make the topic of sex taboo in many circles, but the truth is out there— humans like to fuck.

Shakespeare wrote many sonnets depicting love, several addressed to a love interest referred to as a “fair youth.” In Sonnet 20, it is revealed rather explicitly that this fair youth is a young man.

Shakespeare describes the love interest by comparing his face and gentle heart to those of a woman, but also how the young man outshines women with “An eye more bright than theirs.” He describes the fair youth as superior to women. Lines 8 and 9 of the sonnet are “A man in hue, all hues in his controlling/Much steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth,” indicating that this fair youth is loved by both genders for his beauty. The last two lines “But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,/Mine be thy

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love and thy love's use their treasure” indicate that Shakespeare is asking for the fair youth to love him, even if the youth was “for women’s pleasure.” Now, male friendships during his time were more openly affectionate than male friendships of our time (today, “no homo” is a phrase commonly used between male friends so they don’t appear gay, usually as a joke), but it’s quite clear in this sonnet that Shakespeare is admitting his affection for this man in ways that exceed just friendship. He appears content to let the youth have sexual relationships with women because his love for the boy is more than just a physical want. His love for the “master-mistress” of his heart is spiritual, deep, sensual, and surpasses the love he may have for others.

It’s easy to assume from a modern perspective that Shakespeare was, at the very least, bisexual since he wrote sonnets to women as well, namely his “dark lady.” But why do we have to label him as such? Is it really so important what Shakespeare’s sexuality was that we have to define it before we can appreciate the beauty of his poetry and the raw way he describes his feelings for his love interests? The answer is no, it’s not that important. His writing has stuck around so long and is being taught in our schools because of his talent, not his personal life. The sonnets he wrote to both the fair youth and the dark lady are beautiful and depict his passion in such a way that we quote him when trying to woo our own love interests.

In the seventeenth century, they had no labels for bisexuality or homosexuality. It may have been a sin to perform sodomy, but if we follow the same definition they had, then most sex would be illegal. As a reminder, non-procreative sex was also sodomy, so all couples who use birth control, condoms, or any other sort of contraceptive would be sinning, as well as infertile and samesex couples. Love was more important than who you spent the night with. Since sexual behavior was not part of someone’s identity, there was less concern about who you slept with or how many times you slept with them. It wasn’t something other people cared to know about, and they certainly weren’t going to judge you for your actions because it wasn’t their place to know.

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If we applied that same concept to today, if we decided that other peoples’ sex and love lives weren’t our business, how much would society change? If we started viewing love as the highest ideal, whether it’s a man and a woman or two men or two women or just two people, how quickly could we change things for the better?

Labeling every aspect of our lives makes it just that much easier to hate specific aspects about ourselves. I want to be in love and have it not matter who I’m dating. I want to date a man and not have people automatically assume I’m straight, because it’s not something they should care about. I want to get married to the love of my life, and while that sounds plausible right now, it could very well never happen. If, in the future, I fall in love with a woman, I can’t marry her because of our current state laws banning same-sex marriage. My friends Sara and Michelle can’t marry even after all they’ve been through.

We like to pat ourselves on that back and say society has progressed since the era of Milton and Shakespeare, and that is true in many respects. We’ve made many scientific and technological advancements. We know far more about medicine now than they did then. Yet, despite all this, we frown upon people who differ from the societal norm. If you choose to express yourself differently, you’re given a label and stereotyped into a group in which you may not fit. We haven’t improved as a society; we’ve become less accepting of people and their lifestyles than we were three hundred years ago. We’ve made it taboo for people in love to express it to what we now see as the “full extent”—marriage. We label, we deny rights, we deny love. We need to change. We’re not moving forward, not when we’re still debating whether or not people in love are “allowed” to be together for their “choices.” Love is not a choice, and it is not something that should be used to label a person.

Whether you like men or women or both or neither, your life should not be defined by the label someone else insists that you need. We need to free ourselves from the labels that define and trap us.

Free love.

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It’s Not Once Upon A Time

by Kristen Machuk

As of November 2013 the marriage rate, in the United States, was 6.8 per 1000 total population and the divorce rate as of November 2013 was 3.6 per total population (United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention). This means that roughly 50 % of all marriages end in divorce. To me, this is really no surprise. I believe, being married myself, that most marriages end in divorce because of society’s perception of marriage. There is a certain perception of what marriage is, and it is because of this perception that the reality of marriage is hidden. This leads me to believe that we, as a society, need to become more educated in the truth about marriage. This truth can be found, believe it or not, within a poetic account of the creation story, written by John Milton called Paradise Lost. It is by reading this poem of creation and applying its ideas to our own lives that we can create a new more realistic perception of marriage that will allow us to find happiness.

According the Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of the ways marriage can be defined is “the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife as a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.” However, marriage is not only a defined word, marriage is much more than a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law. It is also a consensual and contractual relationship created and recognized by God. The Busy Mom’s Edition of the NIV Thinline Bible says marriage is a covenant that was created by God so that man may not be alone and so that man has a helper suitable for him (Genesis. 2.18). Therefore, God created Eve as a helper for Adam. Eve is the “bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh" (Genesis. 2.23). She was called women because she was taken from man. It is because of this that God says “…a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,

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and they will become one flesh" (Genesis. 2.24). Therefore, marriage is a physical and spiritual consensual contractual relationship recognized by law and God. I recently read the aforementioned poetic account of creation, Paradise Lost. For those of you, who do not know who th John Milton is, John Milton was a writer and political activist in 17 century England. John Milton was a man who, throughout his life, “claimed to be a prophet" (Hawkes 3). He was also a man that “believed himself to be divinely ordained to announce truths that might be ridiculed by his own era but that would be resoundingly vindicated by succeeding ages" (Hawkes 3).

John Milton had strong opinions about marriage and believed firmly that the sexuality and spirituality of the marriage bond are linked. He believed that in marriage you must have psychological compatibility, conversation, and love. Conversation was viewed as a key factor in marriage, for he states in The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce “… that in God's intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage" (Milton 131). John Milton was truly advanced in his ideas about divorce and marriage. This is why I believe Paradise Lost would be such an inspiration for those seeking to understand marriage.

I believe that we need a more realistic perception of marriage. This is because the majority of Hollywood movies and romance fiction novels like to portray a theme of “happily ever after” in marriage, because this is what sells. However, I believe that this misleading theme of “happily ever after” has evolved from an idea into an ideal of what marriage should be. As an avid romance fiction reader, I love the theme of “happily ever after.” When I read, I want to feel happy because when you engage in imagination you want to escape reality. However, in the case of marriage, the imaginary has now become the ideal for reality.

The truth is that reality is anything but “happily ever after.”

John Milton did not believe in “happily ever after.” I believe this because he portrayed the marriage relationship between Adam and Eve before the fall into sin as imperfect. I believe that John Milton understood that, at the core, men and women are very different creatures. According to a study published, in the Journal of

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Personality and Individual Differences, without any social implications there are gender differences in men and women (Vianello et al. 994). This means that at the core of humanity men and women think, act, process, and react differently from one another. It is because of this understanding that Milton was able to suggest that human nature makes marriage difficult. He shows us, through Adam and Eve, that human nature is very complex and, if not understood and expressed constructively, it will cause us to sin.

In Paradise Lost we can see how human nature can really affect a loving relationship. Adam and Eve’s human nature tested their relationship even before the fall into sin. In the poem Adam and Eve have gone to sleep in their bower unaware that Satan has entered the Garden. While Eve is sleeping, Satan, in the form of a toad, whispered in her ear. Upon awaking that morning Eve tells Adam of her experience in hopes of gaining comfort and assurance.

She tells Adam about a dream that was “But of offense and trouble, which my mind knew never till this irksome night" ( 5.34-35).

However, instead of giving her comfort and assurance Adam replies to Eve: …This uncouth dream, of evil sprung I fear; Yet evil whence? in thee can harbor none, Created pure. But know that in the Soul Are many lesser Faculties that serve Reason as Chief;…

Be not disheartn’d then, nor cloud those looks That wont to be more cheerful serene Than when fair Morning first smiles on the World, And let us to our fresh Imployments rise… 5.99-125 At this moment Eve sheds tears for what she decided to share with Adam. For instead of being kind and compassionate, he called her evil, told her to cheer up, and said let’s get to work for the day. It is here we see that human nature can ruin the perception of “happily ever after.” If Adam and Eve in the perfect Garden could hurt one another through their human nature, we certainly can hurt one another in this imperfect world. There is no “happily ever after” because of our human nature. It is because of our human nature,

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that our marriages, both the physical and the spiritual sides, will always be tested.

For me, one of the hardest parts of marriage is dealing with the two very different human natures that exist in the relationship.

We are both humans that have two very different ways of thinking, acting, processing, and reacting. There have been many discussions or arguments during my eight years of marriage that have ended with screaming, frustration, and high emotions due to a lack of understanding. It tends to always start the same way. We start by discussing the topic and, before you know it, one of us has said something the other one did not like. Soon after something like this is said, our different ways of thinking, acting, processing, and reacting start to emerge from our true selves. Then before you know it, we have to walk away from one another to be able to think clearly. I have learned, over the years, that in marriage you must learn how to communicate respectfully and humbly with one another. If you do not, both the physical and spiritual connections you share are tested and can be broken. If the physical and spiritual bonds are broken, the marriage can be forever lost. This is reality.

Some believe that marriage is good. Some believe that marriage is bad. Regardless of what you believe about marriage, it is wise to be educated about the interworkings of a marital relationship. Hollywood movies and fictional romance novels have both contributed to an unrealistic ideal of marriage. This perception has created a society in which roughly half of all marriages end in divorce. When you decide to get married, do you want this to be you? I know that I never want to divorce my husband, but I also did not realize marriage would be so hard. Therefore; please take it upon yourself to look past the perception of marriage and educate yourself about the reality of marriage. Look to Adam and Eve for comfort, assurance, knowledge, and reality. This way you can find true happiness within yourself and your marriage.

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Photo by Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman

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Reading Into Education "I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most."

-Margaret Atwood “Read any books whatever come to thy hands, for thou art sufficient both to judge aright, and to examine each matter.�

-John Milton

Photo by Rebecca Blakeney

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Photo by Rebecca Blakeney

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Fight For Our Fiction

by Rebecca Blakeney

We have a problem in Flint. It's not just here Flint, it is the entire United States, and many of us don't even realize the problem.

Our children, as well as our adults are being deprived of literature.

With the loss of morals, the drop in face-to-face social interaction, and the under appreciation of literature in the curriculum, due to ignorant people making cuts in budget, the people of Flint and of the United States need fiction now more than ever.

Things are headed in a scary direction. Politicians and schools are attempting to cut funding for the arts and humanities from an already slashed budget. Our children are losing access to many very important texts that are essential to our culture; texts that give them the edge on the learning that they deserve. Just last year The House of Representatives Appropriations committee proposed to cut 49% of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Here is what the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) had to say about it: "If enacted, this funding level would devastate an agency that has already been reduced by 19 percent since 2010. This drastic cut would end programs that provide critical support for humanities teaching, preservation, [and] public programming." Last year's proposed cuts were horrible, but the proposed cuts get worse every year. Consider the budget cut proposal representative Paul Ryan made at the beginning of April this year, according to an article on Inside Higher Ed: "The proposal seeks to end all federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities." This is a horrifying prospect to face. If this movement is allowed to come to pass it will devastate the futures of our children by robbing them of the experience of fiction and literature. The NHA says the programs that would be cut are programs that "teach essential skills and habits including reading,

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writing, critical thinking, and effective communication that are crucial for ensuring that each individual has the opportunity to learn and become a productive member of society." We as parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and older siblings need to become more active in order to help stop movements like this that cut or even stop funding for the humanities!

Students are already starting to crave what they are not getting inside their other classes; they feel a need along with their desire for literature. The University of Michigan-Flint has slowly been waking up to this realization, and has started to do something about it. Students and faculty alike are concerned with this lack of fiction on campus and in society, and have been working to counter this deficiency. UM-Flint now has a Humanities Club on campus, and what should not be so surprising, but is, is that it's made up by students with a variety of interests and majors, the majority outside of the English department. I think that this is one of the most important movements that our campus can support. Once it sparks and spreads, it should rekindle, igniting in our community and burning on through our entire society. Our culture craves fiction; it needs literature. I would like to give you a glimpse of why this is.

Humans have been passing down stories to their children since we could speak, and have been recording those stories since we could draw on cave walls. Stories are a part of every culture, new and old. We call the really great works of fiction literature. It is through literature that we connect to and learn about our world.

Not only is fiction a great way to escape from everyday life, but it can also be used as a tool in a variety of different ways to teach. We are introduced to this method of learning at a very young age, often before we can even read ourselves. Many of us have been read fables and fairytales as young children. Not only did these pieces of fiction help whisk us off to a dream land full of princesses and dragons, but they also helped to instill critical cultural values in us at a young age. One of the first such stories that comes to mind is the story of "The Three Little Pigs." This fable teaches us that putting in the extra effort and hard work is worth it because it pays off in the end. I think this is an especially important story to our culture because it helps nurture the ideas of The American Dream. There

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are also many fairy tales children learn from such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and a multitude of others. A really great story, with a particularly strong hero that greatly effects a society, often times becomes a part of the culture because that hero and story stands for more than just what meets the eye. Heroes like Robin Hood, and Sir Lancelot endure and become so engrained in the culture that they become legends.

Legends are also stories that we tell our children as they grow up to teach lessons and cultural values, but as we grow into adults we do not quite outgrow these legends. Because they are such an important part of our culture, we look to them to reinforce our own values all the way into old age. This is proof that we need fiction to use as a tool to teach the values and life lessons that our culture deems important each generation.

Children use these stories everyday in their play as they explore the concepts and meanings behind them. However, as we grow older, we tend to stop considering and imagining and playing with the ideas of these fictions. If you read a child a story about Sir. Lancelot and the other knights of the round table before bed, the next day you will likely see them riding the broom around the house with sword (paper towel roll) drawn, saving damsels in distress and fighting for the good of the kingdom. Through this kind of play, children are exploring what they learned from the story, and finding for themselves what it means to be noble or valiant or chivalrous, and what it means to be good. As they get older, their play and their considerations of these concepts deepen and evolve. But once children get past a certain age, playing pretend is no longer acceptable for "big boys" or "big girls," and sadly, that is when the imagination and considerations of such concepts stop for many of us. But this was not always so. In the 17th century, adults continued to think and imagine and experiment with ideas through writing and or reading tracts, or short pamphlets of musings, stories, and ideas written by inquiring minds. People continued to be curious and continued to explore what certain concepts meant for them. Only, they did it through writing, which was doubly good, because not only could writers explore ideas and come to new ones as they wrote, but readers could also experience these ideas and consider them for

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themselves, coming to new ideas and drawing their own conclusions. Learning and the exploration of ideas does not have to stop when we grow out of playing pretend. We can continue to imagine, share and think through stories. Stories are both our culture's history and legacy, and so they are not something that we can afford to lose touch with. These stories prove the importance of fiction in our lives and are a great example of why our generation needs to continue to fight to keep fiction and literature in our children's lives as well as our own.

Fiction offers readers an experience. It allows us to gain understanding through new perspectives. In one study reported in an article from Greater Good, a University of California website, readers of one of Anton Chekhov's stories "were taken out of their usual ways of being so that they could connect with something larger than themselves, beyond themselves." Tom Jacobs, author of another article, "Study: Reading novels makes us better thinkers," adds to this conversation by making the point that reading improves our minds. In his article he presents the findings of a study done at the University of Toronto: "'while reading, the reader can simulate the thinking style even of people he or she might personally dislike...This double release—of thinking through events ... and thinking in ways that are different than one's own—may produce effects of opening the mind.'" Literature is not only great to escape into, but to transport us into the lives of others to gain a better understanding of others and how different people see and relate to the world. After all, art imitates life...and then it comes full circle as life imitates art. It is a continuous circle that helps to connect readers to their world.

Fiction comes in many different forms, and everyone has their favorite. But, I think that one of the most important books that is forgotten when people try to discredit the importance of literature in the adult life, is The Bible. As many people know, Jesus primarily taught in parables, which are short stories of fiction that teach wisdoms and lessons. Christianbiblereference.org shows the significance of these stories: "The importance of the parables can hardly be overestimated. They comprise a substantial part of the recorded preaching of Jesus... all of the great themes of Jesus'

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preaching are struck in the parables." Jesus was on to something with using stories to teach, because fiction is a very effective tool in this way. This site goes on to say that: "[Jesus'] parables often have an unexpected twist or surprise ending that catches the reader's attention. They are also cleverly designed to draw listeners into new ways of thinking, new attitudes and new ways of acting." Even as far back as Jesus' life (arguably somewhere between 5 B.C. through 36 A.D.), stories and fiction were being used creatively to capture the attention of men, women and children to teach them important lessons and get them to think in new ways. These stories have been recorded in THE most read book in the world, The Bible, and are still used around the world today by leaders in various churches to instill in their parishioners the original messages and teachings of Jesus.

Religion aside, this shows the effectiveness and the power of story.

In considering the importance of literature, it is essential to look back at our history of literature and reading, not just to the texts themselves, but to their authors as well. Like Jesus, many authors have played an important part in the history of fiction.

Chiefly among these is John Milton. He presented the world with some of the world's greatest and most influential writings of all time.

His most famous and acclaimed work is Paradise Lost, in which Milton explores the ideas of what the creation story means for us, and what it says about what it is to be human, as well as what good and evil are. Even though Milton lived back in the 17th century, he was one of the most important writers and forward thinker to date.

Milton gives some of the most persuasive arguments for reading promiscuously and taking in as many experiences through reading as possible, in order to learn, and achieve a better understanding of things one would otherwise not have access to. He asks in his most famous tract Areopagitica, "how can we more safely and with less danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read" (1718).

He is saying the experiences that we can get out of a book are rich and valuable, while at the same time are a safe way to gain experiences and knowledge without putting one's self in physical or spiritual danger.

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In a way, Milton was facing a situation that was very similar to our own loss of fiction in society. Areopagitica was Milton's response to Parliament's movement to enforce licensing of everything that was published, as a way to control and censor what was available to the public to read. As Milton fought for the right of writers to publish, he was also fighting for the people's right to be able to read what they wanted. In Areopagitica, Milton makes many powerful and important arguments, that are relevant to today's issues of fighting to keep fiction and the humanities a part of everyday life. Here is another of these fitting persuasive arguments: "A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy" (1720-1721). Here Milton states powerfully that if someone is spoon-fed their knowledge and handed their beliefs, and are not exposed to information and experiences that they must interpret for themselves, then, whether that knowledge and those beliefs are correct or not, that person has no true knowledge or insight at all, because they have not verified and affirmed these things for themselves. One must experience things and learn themselves to be able to make their own decisions, and gain a personal understanding of things before they have the right to having any real conviction in them or a right to dispute them.

Fiction and literature allows us to explore all manner of things. It allows us to explore both sides of things without actually committing sins or crimes ourselves, when exploring the darker side.

One can read about married life or affairs without actually being married or having a lover, and learn from other's mistakes and successes without having to make the same mistakes. Until we see both sides of the coin, we are unable to gain true understanding of something or make an informed decision about it. As it was Milton's right to explore things through his writing and allow others to explore those things through reading his writing, it is our right and our children's right to have fiction and literature available to us for the same reasons. We need to ensure that we continue passing down books, stories, fables, fairy tales, and other literature at home to enrich the lives of our children and introduce them to important

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cultural values so that they can explore the values and concepts themselves. As adults, we need to continue to read literature and to explore the ideas and concepts behind fiction, no matter our age. If we acknowledge and use fiction as a tool, it can never lose its relevance and importance in our society. Our response to the loss of fiction in society should be the same as Milton's response: fight it with everything we've got in order to regain fiction! And we need to fight harder now more than ever, as steps are being taken to make significant cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities budget. Fight for your right to read fiction!

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Photo by Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman

Old Clark School in Flint

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All the World is a Classroom

by Meghan Christian

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only once.” – George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire Since we were around five years old, we have been in school receiving an education. We have been taught how to write, read, add, multiply, say our ABCs and more. Consider this, for the majority of us, we will have spent about fifteen plus years of our lives in school, but what are we learning for ourselves? We are spending so much time having facts and dates thrown at us, so much time being taught what the right answers are, but what about what we think the answers are without the outside influences of our instructors?

“Thought is free,” Stephano, a boisterous drunk butler, sings in Act 3 of Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest, a play which revolves around an exiled nobleman and his daughter trying to maintain control of the island’s inhabitants through education. This is the same idea that circulates in my mind quite often. I find myself looking at our society, our school systems, and I even look at myself and I wonder the validity of this statement. How much of our thought is actually free? How much of what we know didn’t come at some cost, whether that cost is monetary or because we need to fulfill general education requirements. We might say, “Thought is free,” but is it really?

In our contemporary society, we have been raised to believe that our education, how we have been taught to think, is the only truth, the only right way. Without a good education, we are taught that we will not amount to anything more than a burger

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flipper at McDonald’s. While our education is key, we also must value those experiences from outside of the classroom.

We are raised to think that once we obtain a degree, we will be free with a wonderful job! Now that I am actually in college I see how far from the truth this is. That piece of paper you’re given is not the guarantee that we were told it was going to be. In our society, what we know, what we have learned becomes our chains, our means of enslavement. We become bound to the system that is supposed to set us free, but instead has lied to us and buried us in thousands of dollars in debt.

But what about all of those lessons that you can’t learn inside of a classroom? What about learning how to ride a bike, how to deal with a breakup, or how to handle the loss of a grandparent?

These are all things that are essential to the human experience and we can’t fully learn them in school. So how do we learn them? The answer to that question is two-fold. We learn them by living life and, to some extent, through the literature that we are exposed to in school and of our own accord.

It is true that experience is the best teacher, but there are many instances where the literature we read can teach us a great many things as well. As a culture, we are so quick to dismiss literature as nothing more than fiction, but what we are really doing is selling short all that we have learned in school. Without exposure to literature, we are actually doing ourselves a huge disservice. We are limiting our minds to not being able to see the viewpoints of others, we are limiting our capacity for creativity, and we are limiting our capacity for empathy. Once we stop reading closely and critically, once we stop applying those lessons we have learned through our literature, we start to become less human than when we began our journey.

The 17th-century poet, John Milton wrote on why books should not be banned based on the fact that they contained “bad” things. He wrote on how this limited us. He firmly believed that we should experience things, even things that seemed dangerous, through the literature we read. Essentially, once we read about a certain situation in a book, we would be better equipped in the real world to fight it. I am a firm believer in this mentality.

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It is because of the novels that I read in school that I firmly believe I am able to be the open minded person that I am today. It is because I have picked up book after book and lived the lives of the characters within as they went on quests to destroy magical rings, fall in love, and sometimes lose their battles with disease. It is because I have searched for knowledge that I have not just blindly gone with everything that people have tried to spoon feed me over the years.

The perfect example of this happened during my freshman year of high school when a friend gave me a copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. If you haven’t read this novel, I highly suggest that you pick it up. It follows the struggles of a freshman named Charlie as he goes through high school. What made this so special, however; was that my friends and I all would underline and highlight lines that meant something to us, that way the next person who read the book would see that they were not alone in feeling a certain way or that we had all gone through similar experiences.

Everything that I learned about myself and about my friends, I could not have learned in a classroom. I couldn’t even have learned it from just talking to them. It was because of that book, because of a piece of literature, that I learned that I wasn’t alone. I learned that it is okay that I am not always happy or that sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing with my life. I couldn’t have learned that in our school system which forces young adults to pick their path at such a young age.

Even though I may never fully experience the things that the characters in my books have, I can still go along for the ride and sort of live through that. I can still feel for a character and learn more about myself in the process. Not only can I still have experiences through literature, but I also feel less alone. In what other medium can you read the musings of a character that were written hundreds of years ago who's going through some of the same things that you and I are going through in our day to day lives?

It is because it is essential to the human experience and universal in that regard.

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What it comes down to in the end is not whether or not we should value our education over our real-life experiences or vice versa. What it comes down to is the fact that we must use both of these to create a balance. We must take what we have learned in school and in literature, and apply it to our everyday life. If we do not do this, then what is the point of even receiving that education?

“Thought is free.” And it really is. Once you get that piece of paper, that degree, you are not guaranteed a job, but what you are guaranteed is the fact that no one can take that from you. No one can take away what you have learned and while you had to pay to receive that college education, the knowledge, the thought, is free. But it is up to us to apply it.

“Thought is free,” and I refuse to remain a slave. What about you? Are you with me?

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Books Are Not Dead Things

by Briana Hetherington

When I look around the city of Flint, I feel so much pride for what it was and what it could become. However, it all starts from within the individual. I have heard from so many people in this community that they think reading is stupid. There are people in this town that pride themselves on the fact that they have never finished a book in their lives, or that they haven’t read one at all since they finished school. Then there are the people who say that paper books are on their way to becoming obsolete, like the cassette, or the vinyl record, due to the introduction of the e-book. I know it may seem that way, but there are so many things we are losing because of that new technology. If these misconceptions were addressed it could make our community so much stronger and well-adjusted.

A poll I took of people who live in or around Flint gave me a lot of insight into the minds of the people around me— at least as far as reading is concerned. I had so much positive feedback from readers in the area. However, I did receive more than a few negative remarks about reading in the feedback. This was when I heard for the first time that reading was only for smart people. In fact, I heard it more than once. I wonder—how can we let people believe that awful lie? Reading is for everyone! There is reading material on any topic that anyone may find interesting. Everyone can and should read!

The advantages of reading are many and very diverse.

According to Laura Schocker of the Huffington Post, it increases your intelligence and keeps your brain sharp. The brain is a muscle; you have to exercise it to keep it in good—or even great- working condition. Remember how it felt to go back to school after summer break when you were a kid? This continues on into adulthood!

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Literally, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Reading also helps build your vocabulary. You will see different words that you may not know. It’s usually fairly easy to figure out what they mean within the sentence or you can look them up. The more you see those words, the better your brain gets at recognizing them. A heightened vocabulary leads to better writing and speaking skills, which leads to doing better in school and/or work. Your boss and/or teacher will be very impressed by your knowledge; people like articulate people!

Reading also makes people more empathetic to other people, Schocker says. When you become engrossed in a book and immerse yourself into that world, you start to see things from different points of view. Investing in another’s thoughts, emotions, and circumstances can give you a better perspective on what is going on in the lives of people around you: how they live, how they feel, and how they are, or could be affected by other people’s decisions. How they could be affected by your decisions. It would be wonderful for our city if more people stopped to think about how their actions would affect others before they did them. What a strong sense of community that kind of consideration would build here.

The title of this paper is based on a quote by a man named John Milton. I love it because it signifies how I feel about books: they are very much alive to those who choose to read them, and, even with the intrusion of the e-book, will never, ever be “absolutely dead things.” Milton wrote during a time when literacy was just spreading to the lower middle classes. The average person was able, finally, to write and publish anything he or she wanted, which led to more and more people reading whatever they wanted, and learning to think more for themselves because of it.

Milton says that reading is a good way for people to experience things without actually doing them, allowing us to be swept away by a character and live vicariously through them. He claims that this allows us to judge for ourselves what is right and wrong without actually having to make the mistakes and learn from them ourselves. This would take a lot of the guesswork out of living life! If more people read books and learned about those things at younger ages, they could better figure out what seems to be right

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and wrong. They would be able to feel it, instead of just being told; it would make a bigger impact on their minds, since they thought of it themselves. Of course, the only way to ever know for sure about anything is through personal experience, but there would probably be fewer adults out there committing crimes, that’s for sure!

However, there has been a shift in the way people read in the last few years, since the introduction of the e-book. One can find several surveys online that have been done in several areas, some indicating that people read more, or less, or the same, since the e-book came out. My own poll turned up no change in people’s reading habits; either they still read just as much or they still didn’t read. However, even if reading statistics have gone up due to the ebook, there are still so many things we are missing out on with the establishment of this new technology. Although there are a few ways that the e-book is better than a paper book, such as convenience and space, there are so many more ways that paper books are preferable to e-books—besides the sentimentality of holding a book in your hand and rifling through the pages.

Paper books don’t need electricity to be read—they don’t need to be charged, and you don’t have to worry about them dying on you while you are right in the middle of a crucial passage or sentence. They don’t give you the dry-eye feeling you may get from staring at a screen all day. You can write your thoughts in the margins, and, even a hundred years later, you can read about what someone else thought in the margins. You can own your books outright; you can share them, sell them, or give them away if you like.

However, it’s not that simple when it comes to e-books.

According to Meghan Neal, author of the article "Do You Ever Own Your E-Books?" on Motherboard.vice.com, “Ownership as we generally regard it implies some basic rights—like the right to change, destroy, lend, or resell a book you’ve bought. E-books, which come shackled with restrictions, take away most of these rights.” That really stinks for people like me, who like to swap out the good books and sell the ones that, while not necessarily bad, we can manage to live without—once they’ve been read, of course.

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We all know how frustrating technology can be. In this way, paper books are a safer bet than e-books. They won’t disappear because of some unforeseen technical malfunction or some unread company policy in the terms and conditions. Does anybody really read those? Also, with e-books, you’re not actually buying the book; you’re buying a license to display a copy of it on your device. Paper books are also more durable—have you spilled anything on a book, lately? It might make the pages get all fluffy and ruffled, but most of the time you can still read it. Even if you can’t, and it’s ruined, it’s only one book. With e-books you run the risk of ruining a few hundred books all at the same time if you happen to spill something on or otherwise ruin your device.

I am worried about the future of our books and our knowledge. If books go the way of the cassette tape, we could lose part of our history all at once. There could be some kind of computer glitch that could wipe out thousands of books all at the same time, leaving us with the bare remnants of the rich cultural history we had created. What would happen to our society then? If we come together and promote the reading of books, I know we can make out community better. Reading affects people in such positive ways! People say it’s hard or they don’t like it (usually because it is difficult for them) but practice makes perfect. The more people read the better! We also need to protect our books from becoming obsolete; our society depends on them more than we realize.

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The Monarchy of Flint; University of Michigan

by Rachel Strickland

Education should serve the people willing to search the world on their own journeys, searching for their own truths. There needs to be a new approach to education that promotes equality and community representation as a whole. Students need to take their education into their own hands and realize that self-education is just as important as the institutions we currently invest in. The purpose of education is to provide new perceptions beyond our own lenses, we need the perspectives and perceptions of our fellows, to expand our own acceptance, tolerance, and respect for others if we are to improve our communities. Recruitment of students does not include poorer students who want to come to UM-Flint. Current students need to recognize the advantages they have and take the opportunities like this to question educational institutions. Students who are not engaged in the work of education will function as passive consumers and, as a result, will graduate without the full benefit of learning.

The cost of a University of Michigan-Flint education is much too high for the average student of our city. Rather than representing the city as a whole, education is placed on a pedestal out of reach for students who are not of a certain social status.

Tuition at the University of Michigan-Flint for an in-district student costs $5,000 a semester in comparison to the more affordable, Charles S. Mott Community College which cost $1,500 to 2,000 per semester. The cost of books, transportation, supplies, and other expenses are estimated by the university at $4,963 for both fall and winter semesters. This means that two semesters cost $14,963 at UM-Flint. Getting a college degree effectively enslaves the student

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to years of paying back college loans. Furthermore, by marketing UM-Flint as a university that prepares students for specific careers, we reduce the power of education which should teach students to think analytically about our world. Education in our society is failing and standardization, which commodifies knowledge and people, is the problem. We need to revolutionize the way we view education, and shift the focus back to the individual.

Inequities in accessibility to education are not strengthening the diversity of our campus but rather are working against the purpose of education. We are not meant to understand the world only through the eyes of the “elite,” but rather through everyone’s diverse experiences that are viewed as important and deserving of respect. Everyone has a purpose and wealth should not be the ticket to an education. Teachers should join students in talking about this problem. They should be guides for students in their journeys; helping them find their own personal truths and helping them build a stronger foundation for tomorrow. Mentoring relationships seem to be fading for a number of reasons that are detrimental to the success of education.

While 82% of citizens in Flint have a high school diploma, only 11.4% have a Bachelor’s or higher (age 25+ in the years 20082010) according to the Census Bureau. The statistics alone show the gap in education accessibility in our own community in regards to higher education. If we disregard Flint, the community in which UMFlint sits, we are impoverishing education by making the access of education based on income. With at least four colleges in the city, the students should be well represented and cared about. Each university should be like a loving parent to their students, who carefully supervises their children’s educations. However, this is far from being the case. The top sixteen administrators from all the University of Michigan’s locations were paid $7.49 million in base pay in 2013, and this does not include bonuses, according to Mlive.com stats on the University’s salary figures. Sixteen people make 7 ½ billion dollars or a little under $500,000 per person. The average professor makes $78,930 at the University of Michigan-Flint according to the university’s report on employee income from 2007.

Those are some enormous figures for a struggling student who

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barely makes it day to day on my income. The Census Bureau also informs us that 39.7% of people in Flint are below the poverty level.

UM-Flint recruits students based on income and status, which obstructs the point of education.

The metaphor of officials being caring parents to their th children was first instilled in the 17 century, by Gerard Winstanley in “England’s Miserie and Remedie” as reference to England’s monarchy in relation to the citizens. King Charles ignored the people when he dismissed Parliament, the people revolted and the King was killed. Similarly, the power still remains in the people, right here in our own community. John Milton was a writer who used tracts to educate the public about events going on within government, and he reminded the people that power depended on them. The people took control and told their king that they wanted a voice, and when he ignored their request, the people began a seven year war with their king. Ultimately the people had the control, and put the king on trial. The people still have control today to confront social and educational inequalities in order to reconstruct society’s views and priorities.

Anymore, this world is all about debt. What really matters: how much you paid for your education or how much you learned from it? Maybe life experiences and self-education can teach you more than an institution can, especially one that does not value individuals as much as it values dollar signs. I am a firm supporter of education, but I still think our system in Flint is failing on all levels.

Do you want your children to go through the same inconsistent system based on standardization and status? Do you want these things to measure you as an individual? We should be striving to see changes made by coming together and addressing issues that we see in our community.

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Flint: "A City of Prophets, Sages & Worthies" “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”

-Alice Walker “We will conquer by love and patience, or else we count it no freedom.”

-Gerrard Winstanley

Photo by Rebecca Blakeney

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Photo by Dr. Mary Jo Kietzman

Flint Resident Dennis Burr

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Thinking Vicariously Through Characters

by Gina Rose

Censorship of books and movies is a hot topic that every parent faces. I have four children and have made decisions as a parent on what is appropriate for my children to read, see and hear.

In today’s society, books and movies are often blamed for people’s poor decisions, making some believe that censoring these materials will help people make better decisions. My experience as a parent of a fifteen year old, a thirteen year old, and two six year olds has shown me the importance of not censoring the content from these sources. My children have learned some important skills such as learning about what is right and wrong and how to analyze different options they may have when faced with situations that they have never experienced before. As a parent, I benefit from allowing them to explore in this way, too. I am able to have open and honest discussions with my children about controversial topics and I also get a clear understanding of where they stand in their learning progress and where I need to work harder as a parent to ensure they are ready and experienced for the crazy world we live in.

Learning about what is right and what is wrong seems like such a basic skill, yet there are so many of us that still don’t recognize the differences. When we do, it is often after we have made tragic mistakes. John Milton, author of Areopagitica (1644),

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argued that reading all kinds of books, even “bad” or heretical ones, enabled decision making. John Milton says that we can learn from the characters in these books and their mistakes. He argued that every person has the ability to use reasoning and that we have the ability to analyze ideas for ourselves, therefore what we choose to read should not be limited. I use this line of reasoning to support my decision to not censor content for my children. Instead of limiting the content, I encourage them to explore all kinds of different topics.

We only know what is right, when we know what is wrong in a situation. It is important for our children to see people do things wrong; and, personally, I prefer to have them read this in a book or see it in a movie because real life mistakes have real consequences.

I don’t believe that we need to experience real consequences to learn from them. Simply telling children or people, for that matter, not to do something because it is forbidden, will not make them follow your instructions. If you don’t believe me, just ask Eve. If Eve was exposed to more experiences, she may not have been so easily tricked by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit. By allowing my children to read and watch movies where people make poor decisions, I allow them to explore the consequences of wrong choices without having any real consequences for themselves.

Not censoring content for children requires that parents have engaged conversations about the content children are exposed to. Having open and honest discussions with my children has been key to their success in learning how to make responsible decisions.

These conversations are essential and often a confirmation for me that my children are using their reasoning skills to determine right from wrong. On the occasions where they don’t seem to be grasping the content correctly, this gives me an opportunity to work with

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them to make sure they understand the situation more thoroughly and explore all of the possible consequences in theory. There have been several occasions when my kids read different stories that involved topics such as racism, sexuality and religion. Reading about racism will not make my kids racist; instead, it encourages their respect for diversity. Exposing them to various topics and situations, gives me comfort that when they encounter different situations, they can respond to those situations using the experiences and knowledge they have learned and not be taken by surprise.

Practice makes perfect, right? I tell my kids all of the time that they must practice to improve their skills. This doesn’t just apply to playing the trumpet, soccer, gymnastics, and mathematics.

All skills need to be developed. To develop a skill, first you need to know the basic rules, and then you need to practice the skill repeatedly to gain confidence and fine tune that skill. Our decision making skills need practice too, and there is no better time to develop this skill then at a young age. Each night I read with my six year olds. Children’s books are great because most of them have some kind of problem that will result in a solution. I often ask my kids to guess what will happen next. This helps me know how well my kids grasp the concept of consequences. We often play the game of ‘what would you do if you were the character,' and we explore different outcomes to the story, based on the decisions they have their character make. Having the character make poor choices and thinking about the result of that decision versus good choices helps children fine tune these skills. Since I also have older children, we often discuss books that they are reading or things that happened on their school bus or in the halls of the school that are situations that my younger two children haven’t encountered yet.

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We often discuss these things at the dinner table as a family. I believe these conversations are just as important for my two younger children to participate in as they are for my older two children. There is no doubt that these skills will be tested in their future when my kids encounter similar situations in life. The better prepared and more confident our children are at making well thought out decisions, the fewer times they will have to experience hard, real-life consequences.

Censoring material will not help people make good choices.

In fact, it will impede that process. Reading Milton’s Areopagitica has affirmed my decision to not censor material from my children.

We all can learn from characters in books, movies and other forms of storytelling, whether the content is considered “bad” or “good.”

Denying children these opportunities will greatly reduce their reasoning and decision making skills. The key to having a successful experience with uncensored material and children is open and honest communication about the content of the material. Not having these discussions between parent and child will not give the parent the insight into how their child is processing the content. So parents, be involved and engaged and let your children think vicariously through various characters. You will be surprised at how a young mind can work. I am rewarded when I witness my children making good decisions on their own and each and every time they reference one of our many talks.

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We the People: Why We Must Seize the Power of Our Voices

by Lauren Climie

We are in the midst of a powerful time politically in our lives in this country—in terms of healthcare, in terms of marriage equality, in terms of so many hot topics. We are in a period of tremendous social change that is affecting more than our personal lives. But are we really getting all of the change that we, the people, are calling for? Do all of us truly believe that we have the power within us to make these changes more widespread across this nation? There is a sense among the people that although change is happening, it is happening at a slower pace than many would like.

There is a sense that maybe we, as a people, don’t truly have the power that we are told we have.

We the people.

It’s a strange concept in this world, especially when this country was first founded—that the power is in the hands of the people, that the people hold power over the men and women we choose to rule over us. But when will we realize, as a people, that this is a shadow, a lie, and no matter how long we beat our breasts and bloody our knuckles and scream about what we want as a people, we will not be heard. This political system that we have fallen victim to, that we are ensnared in, has caused us, as a people, to believe the power that we are endowed with as citizens of this nation is lost. We, as a people, question if we even truly have a voice.

This is not only a theme playing out in our real lives right at this moment, this has been a theme throughout literature for hundreds of years. There is a recurring theme throughout William Shakespeare’s The Tempest about different kinds of power and who

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holds that power. In The Tempest, Prospero has landed on and taken control of an island of natives with his magic. He disenfranchises the many natives of the island, including one magic being, Ariel, and rules over them. Prospero, a magician, holds all of his power from exterior sources—his book, his staff, his cloak—while his subordinate servant Ariel garners his power from within himself.

Prospero uses Ariel multiple times throughout The Tempest to carry out his demands through the use of magic. Prospero always takes credit for the magic that takes place, although Ariel is the dominant magician because of the strength of his internal power. It is clear, although Prospero never admits it, that he needs others to carry out his demands. He needs Ariel’s powers to reclaim his own power over the island. Near the end of the play, Prospero is able to leave his magic behind simply by leaving his books on the island when he returns to the mainland. Ariel, on the other hand, has his power physically within him. His magic is a part of his own body, and he is even able to change shape and become other beings. However, Ariel never seems to realize that his power is concrete and solid, while his master's is fleeting and can be taken from him. Ariel never takes the several opportunities presented to him to seize the power in this master-servant relationship. Ariel does not put up a fight; he merely submits and does the work of his master. But how can one hold this endowed power within oneself and not realize it?

From this, it can be theorized that all people have a sort of power within themselves that they do not realize. Even Shakespeare knew that normal people, even the lowest people in this world, understood this concept. Readers can see, from the relationship between Ariel and Prospero, that even servants have power within them. Readers can see that all people need others to fully realize and truly fulfill their tasks. It can be said that all people not in power—the regular people, the students, the teachers, the fast food workers, the construction workers—feel much less powerful than politicians or religious leaders because their source of power is not as obvious, but it is much closer to home—in our voice. However, we must first be confident enough in that inner power, that inner strength, to be able to take charge and make changes in our world.

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Realizing that we the people do have the power of our own will allow us to become the ones in power and take control of our lives.

Literature allows readers to see that we have more power than we may realize. There seems to be a misunderstanding among the people in terms of understanding the power that we hold.

However, it can be seen that we have much more power within ourselves than we realize. Reading literature can broaden our knowledge and allow us to understand the tools of change that we hold within us. Because we are human, we have so many tools available to us to create change. Our human strength and intellectual abilities allow us to solve problems and work together.

We are the change that we want to see in the world—all we have to do is realize the kind of world that we want to live in and work together to get there. Our voices are our power, and with our collective voices, we can bring about the change that we want to see in our nation and our world.

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Photo by Rebecca Blakeney

Flint Assembly GM Plant on Vanslyke Road in Flint

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Education at the Gas Station

by Erin Brender

Today we live in a world where conversations are dominated by popular TV shows, music artists, and whatever the newest gossip is. It is easy to spend hours talking about popular culture but not very common to talk about something you learned recently. Learning has a negative stigma in today’s society as many people cannot afford higher education and those who can are not guaranteed a career. In addition, those who enjoy learning are labeled as “nerds” or “geeks.” As a result, there is an increasing number of people today who choose to not read unless it is completely unavoidable. Those who do read don't necessarily do it to gain insight from their readings, but do it to escape reality. What many people do not realize is that beyond the plotline there are great ideas that can be gained by actively reading all types of books.

Reading gives power to the reader. Power that can be used to make changes in society as well as in minds.

Through reading things from the past we can re-think problems we face today as well as see them from a different perspective. For example, in 17th-century England writing was used to promote ideas and work through great political changes that were taking place. A great example of this was John Milton’s tract Areopogitica. In this piece Milton pleads with parliament to maintain a free press and intellectual liberty. During this time ordinary men and women were publishing their own ideas on society and actively discussing one another’s writings. This was something that was trying to be taken away from them, and Milton argued that censorship would limit their ability to seek out knowledge from other writers as well as to express ideas of their own – ideas that could potentially make huge changes in their society.

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In his discussion of reading, Milton states that one must read promiscuously; meaning that in order for a person to make informed decisions and form valid opinions, they must explore every opinion available. Milton says, “Opinion in good men is knowledge in the making,” but reading enables a person to form more complete opinions and develop ideas. So if a person was religious in Milton’s time and wanted to form an opinion on what a sin was they would have to read not only religious texts but also secular texts. That does not mean they have to actively participate in whatever the secular texts describe, though. Just because they read about a murder does not mean they have to commit the act to understand it.

This was another point Milton made in saying that reading was perhaps the safest way to explore all sorts of life situations.

Milton’s argument is still valid today, even though he made it in 1644. In fact, working at a gas station I find unexpected proof of Milton's argument in real life. Several days ago, in fact, a customer came into the station and told me a story that reflected just exactly what Milton was trying to say in his tract. As I sat behind the counter late on a second shift, a man in his late 40’s came in and noticed I was reading. He then began to tell me about how when he was growing up he made it a point not to read. “I thought it would make me cooler,” he said, talking about how he made sure not to read anything beyond what was absolutely required. Then in his twenties he got a job as a security guard at a college and found himself with an entire library at his disposal and a lot of down time.

So he read. He started with the classics, not knowing what else to begin with, and said that he began to question why he never allowed himself to do this before. He then said to me that one of the greatest things he learned about reading was that it allowed you to be in a story without actually being there. When you read something, he said, you are able to learn things and explore things without actually being present to do them, and that was something he wished he knew sooner.

If you begin to talk to people about books it can be surprising the responses you will get. This is something I have learned working with the general public. Not only did I get the amazing, yet unexpected, story from the former security guard; but

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there have been people who have come, in seen what I was reading, and asked to borrow my books when I finished. They are thirsty for knowledge! These are everyday people of all ages who normally wouldn’t say much of anything, who open up and get excited just because they see the gas station attendant reading a book. Without fail, there will be at least one person who can hardly leave the store because they are so excited about a literary topic that came up in a simple discussion. All because they saw someone reading. It is not a dead thing!

With the presence of so many different shows and things to explore on the internet, reading has become something boring and uninteresting. Peer pressure leads children to believe that reading makes you a nerd and they would be cooler for staying away from it.

Unfortunately, these kids will not all come to realize what Milton was trying to express and what the man at the gas station found for himself. In fact, many of them probably won’t even know who Milton is. There is a chance, though, to change that. As a nonreading adult there is the opportunity to explore genres and ideas to help better your own understanding of the world and form new opinions. There is also the opportunity to argue with a text. Read something you do not agree with and fight with it in your mind to help you sort through what your own opinions are and how they might be improved or solidified. Additionally, there is the opportunity to help children learn to do this for themselves. Adults are their examples; and if they can be shown the importance of getting involved in reading, maybe they can learn sooner what Milton was discussing and what the man at the gas station wished he learned before his twenties. So follow Milton’s lead and have a conversation with each book you read. Most of all: read promiscuously.

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Photo by Candace Lester

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Works Cited Damrosch, David and Kevin J. H. Dettmar, eds. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 4th Edition. Pearson, 2010.

Print.

"Flint (city) QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau." US Census Bureau. U.S. Department of Commerce, 27 Mar. 2014. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/ 2629000.html>.

Hawkes, David. Introduction. A Hero For Our Time. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2009. Print.

Jacobs, Tom. "Study: Reading Novels Makes Us Better Thinkers."

Salon. Salon Media Group, 15 June 2013. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. <http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/book_nerds_make_be tter_decisions_partner/>.

“Marriage.” Merriam-Webster. Online Edition. 2014. Web. 11 April.

2014.

Milton, John. "Areopagitica" in The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. 4th ed. Vol. 1 B. The Early Modern Period. New York: Longman, 2010. Print.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost in The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. 4th ed. Vol. 1B. The Early Modern Period. New York: Longman, 2010. Print.

Milton, John. “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.” John Milton Selected Prose. Ed. C.A. Patrides. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985. Print.

MLive. MLive Media Group, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. <http://www.mlive.com/>.

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Neal, Meghan. “Do You Ever Own Your E-books?” Motherboard. 19 Aug. 2013. Web. Accessed 10 April 2014. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/do-you-ever-own-youre-books NIV Thinline Bible, Busy Mom’s Edition. Grand Rapids: Zondervaan, 2009. Print.

Oatley, Keith. "Changing Our Minds." Greater Good The Science of a Meaningful Life. University of California, Berkeley, 1 Dec. 2008. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fgreatergood. berkeley.edu%2Farticle%2Fitem%2Fchaning_our_minds>.

"Oppose Devastating Cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities Proposed by House of Representatives!

(National Humaniti..." National Humanities Alliance.

National Humanities Alliance, 2014. Web. 02 Apr. 2014. <http://www.nhalliance.org/news/nha-news/opposedevastating-cuts-to-the-national-endowment-.shtml>.

"The Parables of Jesus." The Parables of Jesus. Christian Bible Reference Site, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. <http://www.christianbiblereference.org/jparable.htm>.

Schocker, Laura. “7 Unconventional Reasons Why You Absolutely Should Be Reading Books,” The Huffington Post. 12 Oct. 2013. Web. Accessed 10 April 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/12/healthbenefits-reading_n_4081258.html Stratford, Michael. "Higher Ed Cuts in GOP Budget." Inside Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed, 4 Apr. 2014. Web. 06 Apr. 2014. <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/02/ryanbudget-calls-cuts-pell-grant-eliminationneh#sthash.Eu48ZpHk.dpbs>.

United States. Center For Disease Control And Pervention. Marriage and Divorce. CDC, 21 November 2013. Web. 11 April. 2014.

Vianello, Michelangelo, Konrad Schnabel, N. Sriram, Brian Nosek.

“Gender Differences In Implicit and Explicit Personality Traits.” Personality and Individual Differences. 55 (2013).

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Meet The Authors

In order from left to right. Back row: Gina, Meghan, Briana, Brekke, Lauren, Rachel, Rebecca. Front row: Kristen, Melissa, Erin, Candace.

Anna Luke #selfie

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Rebecca Blakeney English major; Senior My own passion for fiction and literature drives me in my everyday life, and I would like to share that passion and drive with everyone else I can. I am also a supporter of our libraries so that everyone can have free access to books for both work and play. The more we read, the richer our lives become, because when you are done reading a book, you are never the same person as when you first picked it up. Reading, especially fiction, helps us to grow as an individual while helping us to connect to our world and those in it. I am mortified by the prospect of losing the humanities in the schools because, in turn, it means losing fiction and literature and all of the good things that come along with it. I wish to spread reading to as many lives as possible, this is why I got involved with World Book Night and became a Book Giver. It gives me the opportunity to give books to people that would not have normally picked up a book for themselves. By capturing the interest of as many people as possible with reading, especially with fiction, and rallying as many people as we can, we will ensure that fiction and literature not only remain part of our everyday lives, but become an important part of our everyday lives so that we are sure to experience life to the richest and fullest extent possible!

Erin Brender English major; Senior I chose my topic because I was intrigued by the statement Milton made in Areopogitica about reading promiscuously. He argued what I have always felt about reading, and that was that it was a resource for both expression and the acquisition of knowledge. I hoped that by applying his ideas to a real life situation, people might understand better the benefits of reading and help the next generation to do the same.

Meghan Christian English major with Writing Specialization, and minor in French; Sophomore I chose my topic because I think that we don't value our experiences outside of the classroom as teachers. I think that in order to fully understand ourselves, we need to closely examine the literature that we are exposed to because it also teaches us a lot about human nature that we cannot gain from sitting in a classroom.

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Lauren Climie English major; Junior I think one of the biggest obstacles to people today is the imagined idea that we don’t have power, even though we are told that we do. I think people truly believe that, on their own, they can’t make change. However, I believe that if we work together and gather our voices, if we have a clear vision of the kind of world we want to live in, we can create that world. We are human beings, and that alone makes us very powerful.

Briana Hetherington English major with Literature Specialization; Senior Reading is something that has always been very important to me. I grew up devouring books, and the impact they had on my life has been immeasurable. Seeing the disregard that my generation has for books makes me very sad because I want other people to experience the joy that I have.

Mary Jo Kietzman Associate Professor of English at the University of Michigan-Flint I have written a biography of Mary Carleton, a Restoration woman, as well as essays on William Shakespeare, John Milton, Daniel Defoe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Orhan Pamuk. I have worked with English-language students in Kazakhstan to stage an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and, most recently, run a class that adapted King Lear to a contemporary Flint setting. My essay, “Doing Shakespeare in a Kazakhstani College: Teacher Plays Ethnographer,” appeared in College Literature and I am finishing a piece on the recent project, “Flint Seen Feelingly: Lear Reassembled in the Rust Belt.” I am deeply interested in the Bible as well as the exegetical traditions of different faiths, I am currently working on a book that studies the ways Shakespeare popularized and disseminated the biblical concept of covenant, which originated in the need to establish clear and mutually binding relationships between God and humans, and which offered early modern culture an ethical foundation for social and political life.

Candace Lester English major; Senior I chose to write about advertising because it seemed like something that was so natural to us that we don't really look at it, or think about it critically.

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Anna Luke English major with Writing Specialization; Senior I chose this topic because it is so relevant to today. Everywhere you look and listen, people are talking about social media. Reading Paradise Lost made me think of choices that we make for ourselves on a daily basis. If two people can change the whole world by their choices, then how are millions of our choices effecting our future generations? The story of Adam and Eve choosing to eat the apple, and Eve’s obsession over finding herself reminded me of so many people I know that try to find themselves through a window of social media.

Kristen Machuk English major with Literature Specialization and minor in German; Junior I wrote about marriage because I struggle in my own and Paradise Lost helped me realize many things about marriage. I always believed that marriage would be easy because of the love you share for one another.

However, I have found out the hard way that marriage is anything but easy. I am a firm believer that literature and books teach us through reading.

Therefore, if I can reach one person through writing about my own marriage, then I have accomplished what I set out to do.

Brekke Pichette English major with Linguistics Specialization; Junior We as a society tend to have a superiority complex and see ourselves as better than other countries because we have attained freedom and independence which many countries are still striving for. Therefore, the idea that there is something inside us, intensified by our culture, that limits our ability to distinguish between appearance and reality is particularly interesting to me. I chose to write about this topic because Milton's ideas about mental slavery have been around for hundreds of years, yet very few people are familiar with them. By drawing attention to the fact that it exists, I hope each of us considers if we think and act based on our immediate perceptions or by looking further for the greater meaning that can be found by interpreting the images around us.

Melissa Pomerantz English major with Writing Specialization; Senior I chose my topic because of several personal reasons. I have had friends victimized and have even been harassed myself for my sexuality and my “choices” in lifestyle. After having been called not “feminine” enough to be

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straight, but not “butch” enough to be gay, I became fed up with labels and how they impact our society’s view of people.

Gina Rose English with minors in Mathematics and Computer Science; Senior I chose my topic because I feel that it is important that people learn the importance of the small decisions they make each and every day. Some people feel that they must make their own mistakes and that it isn’t possible to learn from other people’s mistakes, and I suppose that is true in some cases; but, with anything in our lives, practice is usually the key to success.

Living vicariously through characters in the literature that we read is a wonderful way for our minds to practice how to handle situations. Even when the character is handling the situation in all the wrong ways, we learn from this, too. I am a parent of four children, and there are very few topics that I censor. I feel it is important for them to be exposed to all kinds of difficult issues and be able to discuss different angles of the issue, so that if they are faced with a tough decision in the future, they will have some experiences to work from.

Rachel Strickland English major with minor in Sociology; Senior I chose to write about the role of the administration at UM-Flint and the rise of the cost of education which limits accessibility. I used to be a homeless student which made the cost of education prohibitive at many points. I started at a community college because it was a lot more affordable. I feel like there really needs to be a revolution in education at earlier levels as well at the university. As I see it, UM-Flint is not serving the disadvantaged in our city. Many are left behind because of race and socioeconomic segregation.

Art by Kayla Cooney

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