Confusing Present. Teaching (French) Literature in Silicon Valley

Abstract

What many of my students seem to be looking for – and indeed find – in literary texts is a sphere of concreteness that they can hold on to within their universe of randomness. I also have the impression that these students, in their reflections triggered by literary texts, often arrive at a situation of individual and collective contemplation. This word describes much more appropriately what we are doing when we work through literary texts than the concept of “research” that is so tainted (and even haunted) by a problematic analogy with the sciences.