Globalization is such a large concept that it forces us all into the position of the blind men examining an elephant—able to articulate the part we touch but not able to grasp the whole. So it is with the provocative papers in this issue by Mark Poster, Bruce Robbins, and Thomas Keenan, along with Emily Apter's introduction. Each makes excellent points but also mounts a different argument. As a group they present a more comprehensive view of globalization than they do when read separately, and I want to explore the shape that emerges from their interactions. I see my task less as weaving them into a seamless tapestry than as highlighting the ways in which they challenge and complement one another. By pointing out the incompleteness as well as the accomplishment of each, I want to show that together they suggest new interactions between the local and the global and, through these interactions, new possibilities for political awareness and action.

If the value of the study of literature were self-evident, there would be no need to pose this question. That such is not the case is clear from the virulence of the debates about higher education in the humanities that have roiled the profession and areas beyond. Professors of literature have had a lot to say to one another about this question but not, perhaps, as much to say to their students. Yet faculty members implicitly answer this question all the time, in the courses they teach, especially in introductory, or “gateway,” courses. I will address the question, then, as concretely as possible, by way of the introductory course for the English major my colleagues and I have designed together and discussed repeatedly over the past two decades at Wesleyan University. In so doing, I will argue that the value of studying literature is precisely that it poses value as a question, not an answer.

Sometimes a question has been answered in so many creative ways that we overlook the assumptions underlying such responses. When students ask, “What can I do with a degree in literature?” the answers suggest that instructors hear a second, unasked part of the question: “-besides a career in teaching.” That PMLA has reserved space to address a related question-“Why major in literature-what do we tell our students?”-suggests a professional interest not merely in the careers available to literature majors but more broadly in testing what MLA members say about our profession. One answer is that literature majors, like other majors in the liberal arts and humanities, have a wide selection of career choices. The knowledge students gain from modern and classical languages, history, social and political sciences, philosophy, and literature serves graduates by giving them a breadth of experiences and ideas, by developing creative thinking, and by providing skills in communication that make BAs and MAs attractive to employers in business, technology, industry, government, and research, to name a few. But these options omit the one career, sometimes considered a clichéd choice, often left unsaid: literature majors make-or ought to make-excellent teachers.

Recently, a gifted undergraduate came to me with some urgent questions: Should he major in literature? And if he did, what practical benefits might he realize? I asked one question: “Are you in love?” By this I meant, “Are you in love with literature?” Then I inquired, “Does your heart skip a beat when you encounter your love? Do you ache when the two of you are separated? Do you resent anything that intrudes on you and your love?”

Not being an evangelist, i wasn't sure how to respond to the question “Why major in literature-what do we tell our students?” In over twenty years of teaching and advising, I have never sought to persuade students to major in any field. Occasionally, when a woman advisee who came to Brown to major in physics or engineering has decided to shift to literature, I have tried to talk about the difficulties women face in the sciences, the science classroom's chilly climate, and gender competition to persuade her to stick it out and become the engineer or physicist she wanted to be. But proselytize? Never.