An author taught students and faculty about what some may consider an unfamiliar connect: literature and the meaning of life.
Robert Hellenga presented his lecture “Big Stories, Little Stories: Literature and the Meaning of Life” on Wednesday in Arts and Hour 175.
As people found their seats, they were handed pieces of literary works from Helen Keller, James Thompson and Robert Fitzgerald which Hellenga incorporated into his lecture.
“I like how he used literary works that we would know and that we could connect with,” said Maggie Levendowsky, a freshman biology major.
Hellenga has degrees from Princeton University and the University of Michigan. He is also the author of several books including The Sixteen Pleasures and Philosophy Made Simple.
Hellenga joked about the title of his presentation as he began his lecture.
“I don’t believe that the meaning of life is something that can be spelled out like a formula or proposition, so do get your hopes up if that’s what you were looking for,” he said.
The lecture itself was broken up into sections in which he spoke of various models of literary experience such as interpretation and the psycho analytical.
“We naturally want to understand what we are reading and what we have read, but its not the whole story,” he said.
He expresses to the audience that the reason we reread books and stories is to have the experience not because people forgot the meaning.
“Literature enables us to put our experiences into words,” he said. “Poets and storytellers give us the words to see the world through the eyes of others” he said.
“I thought his take on the literary viewpoint on life was very interesting and different,” said James Bullard, a freshman telecommunications major.
In the last part of the lecture, Hellenga discussed big stories and little stories. Each small story gives meaning to a large story.
One example that he uses is the story of Odysseus and Calypso from The Odyssey. He used the famous Greek story to pose a question to the audience. He gives them two options: live on an island with a beautiful sex partner and be immortal or go home to an aging spouse, grow old and die.
Many raised their hand to option one however there were also quite a few who chose the second option which surprised Hellenga. This activity led to discussion about reality and fantasy. He asked this question to get students thinking outside the box.
“When I ask that question to one of my classes, I try to persuade the students to change their votes from A to B, to chose reality over fantasy,” Hellenga said. “It shakes up the student, gives them something to think about.”
Amari Crosby, a freshman pre-medicine major, said she enjoyed how Hellenga had a lot of examples to back up his points, and he was very elaborate.
“He even made me want to read Helen Keller,” she said.
