2019 UCLA commencement faculty speaker inspires students to “read us all into better arguments and better conversations.”
Faculty speaker, Professor Matthew Fisher, renews the value of a literary education
Matthew Fisher
OK, graduates, here’s the bad news: studying literature is not something you will ever be finished doing. Reading, as you know very well, is not a single thing – this, in fact, is one of the reasons it has been so difficult to explain to your parents what, exactly, you have been doing in your classes for the last few years. It is not as if you finish reading Jane Eyre, or Moby Dick, or Invisible Man,and then set the book down, check your answers against an answer key, and never think about it again. Science graduates have it easy. What you have learned to do here is different, and it matters.
Read the entire speech here