Good to Think With

The topic of the Presidential Forum for 2007, "The Humanities at Work in the World," led me to reflect on a number of moments in my own career, as well as on a set of literary texts that engage?and provoke?thought on this question. Before I turn directly to the implications of my title, "Good to Think With," I will frame my argument with a personal anecdote and then with a fairy tale. It will be clear, I believe, that these two narratives are versions of the same story. When I was in college, I was seized with the idea that I needed to be doing something more important and meaningful than studying English literature. It was the sixties, after all. So I looked up the address of an agency in New York City that arranged for American students to emigrate and do work in another country. I was full of idealism, optimism, energy. I arrived for my appointment and sat across the desk from a woman who was organizing such arrangements. My idea was to get closer to the soil, perhaps, and to the people. So I burst out with my ideas about farming, building, and clearing the land. "Do you have any experience with these things?" she asked. (At this distance I can't recall whether she asked gently or pointedly?but in any case I began, dimly, to get the point.) "Have you ever worked on a farm or built a house?" No, I confessed. Not yet. But I could learn. "What do you know how to do?" she asked. "I study English literature," I said, rather haltingly. Poetry and novels and plays. But I could