Merve Emre

(Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin/Oxford University)

The Leader as Reader

The figure of the virtuous, charismatic leader as reader, and as a reader of narrative fiction in particular, has exerted a curious and unexplored pull on contemporary literary culture. He confronts us at every level of the American educational system, from Scholastic’s “Reader Leader” elementary school curriculum to Harvard Business School’s most popular elective offering “The Moral Leader,” and across every domain of mass culture, from Barack Obama’s annual “Reader in Chief” reading list to the bestselling non-fiction genre of the leadership memoir. Where and when did the leader-as-reader originate? What specialized techniques of intellectual labor distinguish him? What kinds of skills or relationships does he believe literature may help him and others to cultivate? By examining recent entanglements between institutions of literary education and managerial pedagogy, this talk reveals how the leader-as-reader mediates between the dueling ideologies of humanism and professionalism that literature departments, and humanities divisions more broadly, have used to ground the study of literature. The increasing visibility and desirability of the leader-as-reader reveals how these ideologies, integral to what Pierre Bourdieu describes as “the culture of the school,” have evolved as the nation-state has shifted from its liberal to its neoliberal configuration over the last half-century.

The lecture was held in English.

You can find the video recording of this event here. 

In cooperation with the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.