The’Big Read’: An antidote to the rise of AI

It’s a warm, breezy Thursday at 12:00 p.m., and Dr. Brian Treanor has already been reading for seven hours. With the help of the BCLA Dean’s Advisory Board, the President’s Professor in Philosophy, and the Classics and Archaeology department, he has gathered students and set up copies of the Odyssey and chairs.

The small group on St. Rob’s lawn attracted many on-lookers up and down Alumni Mall, unsure what to make of the group of students and faculty. Some students focused on the books in thier hands following along as Dr. Treanor read aloud, while others looked out, far away listening intently.

This is the Big Read, aptly named, where Dr. Treanor, along with some of his students, has decided to read the Odyssey aloud from 7 a.m. to 9 p. m. straight through.

This is not the first reading event Dr. Treanor has hosted. Previously, he held a 14-hour reading of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. “I started a couple of years ago,” Dr. Treanor remarked. He explains how the rise of AI prompted him to take action. “I kind of did it almost like a Senate filibuster,” he said.

Dr. Christopher L. Gipson, a professor of Classics and Archaeology, was also in attendance, describing the event as “very exciting.” He continued, “This semester, I am teaching three epic poetry classes where we read the Iliad, Odyssey, and Jason and Argonauts, among other epic poems,” he remarked. Dr. Gipson expressed his gratitude for the event: “It was pretty nice to see students engaged”. Additionally, Dr. Gipson explained the historical context of epic poetry: before it was transcribed, it was shared through oral compositions. “So for students and faculty, like to hear the poem, to hear the rhythm of how it goes along and to essentially share it and engage with it as an ancient audience would have, I think it’s a great way of understanding its enduring legacy.”

Dr. Gipson said multiple students stayed for five to six hours of the reading, “so that was very heartwarming to see,” he explained. One such student was Sylvia Gamble,

“I went, and I was just gonna read like my one little portion. But it was just so much fun, and it was so peaceful and like, I don’t know, it’s, it’s like going to the movies with a group of people you like, like you’re all experiencing the story together. And it makes it so much more fun,” she explained.

Dr. Treanor explains his reasoning and passion for hosting events like the Big Read, “We are in a really serious crisis of becoming a post-literate society, and there are profound actual dangers for democracy having to do with that.” The troubling decline of literacy in the United States has been the subject of much conversation in academia. A variety of solutions have been proposed, from computer-free classrooms to phone boxes; teachers and academics have tried to prioritize digital-media and tech-free learning environments. However, despite that, AI has dominated the education landscape.

Dr. Treanor describes various troubling interactions with both professors and students. “I talk to young students, and this has been true for 15 years. You know, you have people fill out cards on the first day of class, and I ask them, what are the last five or six books you’ve read that weren’t assigned to you? A lot of students can’t get to five.”

Luckily, students like Gamble and others have shown an interest in reading and community events that support literacy. Gamble explained that she feels events like this are super important: “I have a fear that in America or just in the world, our literacy is at an all-time low, and people just aren’t reading anymore. And I think that giving people those opportunities to share reading together and to make it something fun and social is very important.”

Dr. Treanor’s goal is to host another Big Read every semester until he retires. The next book will most likely be written by a woman author. One tentative choice is Ann Giller’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.