Anyone who has taught a college literature course has likely heard a student say, “Can’t I just enjoy the book?” This frustration with literary theory is common. Many undergraduates feel that theory ...

W hen I was an undergraduate at Amherst College, it was a rite of passage for all English majors to discover that they had entirely misunderstood Robert Frost’s most famous poem “The Road Not Taken” ( ...

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. What’s going on? This debate over ...

Ten years ago, Columbia added its first text by a Black author to the Literature Humanities curriculum: “Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison. The curriculum has undergone multiple revisions, most ...