By Jonathan Westerfield
Whether hardcover, paperback or electronic, a book is a book. Despite the flash and hoopla surrounding new media writing in this world of tweets, posts and microblogs, the classics remain the classics. And book clubs are still filling the needs of faculty, staff and students to read and discuss traditional, long-format writing, as is the case with one particular club on campus.
In conjunction with the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas, the Jefferson Book Club serves as a resource for faculty, undergraduate and graduate students to engage in dialogue about classic literature, essays and films in an informal intellectual setting every few weeks. The Thomas Jefferson Center’s mission is “to realize Jefferson’s vision of educating citizens and leaders to understand the meaning of liberty and to exercise it wisely.”
Illustration by Bianca Krause
The term “book club” is loosely used to describe the function of the Jefferson Book Club, which was founded at the beginning of 2009. Indubitably, they read books, but they also absorb and dissect classic essays and movies. Like all UT organizations, the club has an adviser and officers, but moderation of book club sessions is taken over by a changing roster of professors, graduate students and post-doctoral students. Interdepartmental relationships and dialogue remain a pivotal aspect of their meetings.
“Definitely the way they put it together by having the lounge area next to the offices helps out a lot so the professors come and talk to the students,” said Matthew Levinton, a soft-spoken history undergraduate senior who serves as the club’s current president. “A lot of times we’ll provide copies if we are discussing an article, and we put it in the professor’s office so people can come in and interact with the faculty.”
The club has studied a diverse swath of authors from Lincoln, Shakespeare, Vonnegut, Nietzsche and Adam Smith. While many of the sessions are led by scholars in the classics or government departments, the club attempts to bring in academics from all departments on campus.
When the club chose to read Adam Smith’s writings, McCombs School of Business professor Eli Cox moderated the group. His discussion went beyond the economic theories typically attributed to Smith and explored the theories of how people make decisions based on moral inclinations, Levinton said. This cooperation between different academic departments harkens to an earlier era of intellectual discourse when University disciplines were less rigidly structured.
Levinton said he has been making a special effort to advertise to departments that are underrepresented in the Jefferson Book Club, such as natural sciences.
“Part of the mission of the center is to counteract the specialization that has occurred recently,” he said. “Every subject is enriched by the other. It’s kind of a shame that you could focus entirely on one thing in academia.”
Most of the book discussions are held in a small room on the fourth floor of historic Waggener Hall, which adjoins the faculty philosophy offices and the picturesque library of the Thomas Jefferson Center. This cozy environment sets a tone of approachability and seems to allow academic structure and hierarchy to fade into the background, as both faculty and students approach the same topic with intellectual curiosity and jointly involve themselves in the process of self-discovery.
The Jefferson Book Club will convene meetings again in the fall semester, and the Jefferson Center will host events for faculty and students who will be on campus during the summer. For more information about the book club and upcoming events, visit their website at utexas.edu/cola/centers/coretexts.