Why College Kids Are Avoiding the Study of Literature The author is "the Frances Hooper Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University", and each semester he has about 500 students pack his class on Russian literature, while avoiding other literature classes like the plague. He says that whereas he has the students read the book and get into the characters, most classes just talk about devices, techniques, or social justice, and whatnot, totally sucking the joy out of reading and understanding. It's well worth reading the whole thing.