鈥淗ow do we experience being alive?鈥�
That鈥檚 the question听Igor Webb, PhD, professor in 天美传媒鈥檚 Department of English, explores in his latest book,听.
鈥淚n everyday life, we don鈥檛 experience being alive in the same way,鈥� said Dr. Webb. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not reflective. It鈥檚 not ordered. It doesn鈥檛 give us a window. Great literature shapes the world. We know these people we read about better than we know anybody else, because we never get into anybody鈥檚 mind鈥攚e might not even get into our own. If an unexamined life is not worth living, how do you examine it? How do we see our experience?鈥�
A collection of essays
Dr. Webb鈥檚 book, a collection of essays published in April by听, is arranged in three sections, beginning with observations about what it meant to become an American boy鈥擠r. Webb lived in Slovakia until age 11, when he moved to New York City鈥攁nd Horatio Hornblower, the Bront毛 sisters and James Bond.
鈥淚t鈥檚 about reading, and books that make readers readers,鈥� Dr. Webb said. 鈥淗ornblower taught me to be a boy, and along the way made me a reader.鈥�
The second section is essays about his friends: the author Philip Roth, the poet Robert Hass and the poet Louise Gl眉ck.
Writing about the pandemic
The third section incorporates the series听This Old Writer: A Journal of a Plague Year. These are reflections on the pandemic through the filter of several literary works and the idea of living with the aid of literature, which Dr. Webb called 鈥渁 curious feature of human life,鈥� as opposed to writing about literature through an academic specialty lens.
The pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have brought a new perspective to our collective consciousness, he said.
鈥淓verybody knows we鈥檙e going to die. But the pandemic and the Ukraine war suddenly make it possible, actually possible, and therefore we recast our experience and our sense of our experience to look at what鈥檚 more fundamental than what we are accustomed to. We don鈥檛 want to have a pandemic, obviously, or war. Nevertheless, this is one of their functions.鈥�
Previous work
Dr. Webb鈥檚 previous work includes articles about war literature and two books on the 19th-century English novel. At Adelphi he teaches literature and translation, which he loves, he said.
鈥淭he classroom is one of the few places where our culture sanctions an exchange of ideas, where everybody is trying to think about them in a serious and disciplined way,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat can be fabulous. You鈥檙e very lucky if you can land a job at the university.鈥�