Speaking to the Columbia University Class of 1968, professor Richard Hofstadter called college “a community devoted to inquiry.” GW and its students must recenter the classics of the humanities to live up to that.
More than any time in recent memory, history and English are in trouble right now. In the past decade, there has been a worldwide decline in humanities studies, the majors and classes that often teach classical texts like the Federalist Papers, Plato’s “Republic” or even Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” As technology and artificial intelligence flourishes, the study of art, history and literature now demands only a quick Google search or a summary by ChatGPT, making in-depth examinations feel obsolete.
President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans are staging an all-out war on half of the world’s great literature. Like Hofstadter said, the university is supposed to be the one place in the world where one can have a free discussion of all ideas. And many of the most foundational takes on those ideas come from the classics. GW isn’t a copy-paste university from Columbia — at times, the University is closer to a political trade school than one that necessarily promotes intellectualism. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less vital for students here to get and take the chance to read the classics.
Amid all the change and turbulence we expect to see in higher education in 2025, the University needs to meet the moment by ushering in more course offerings and opportunities that expose students to core texts. We hope our professors will show our peers the value of such readings by revealing the fingerprints of great thinkers and writers on today’s news and culture, and we hope our classmates will dive in to such literary exploration with enthusiasm. Whether it is a deeper understanding of differing ideologies and crucial historical context or introducing the effects or starting points of a genre or literary movement — studying, analyzing and writing about the classics only strengthens reading comprehension and writing skills.
A few years back, GW decided to invest more into STEM disciplines, cutting and redistributing funding in part because of STEM’s increasing dominance in the research and job markets and the discipline’s traditionally higher incomes. The move harmed humanities students and faculty in ways that have persisted in the present day with understaffed humanities departments, like the libraries and the Department of Religion — which heavily focuses on classical religious texts.
But it is not just an institutional matter. Professors and students need to seek out these pivotal texts. A student interested in political science probably has a basic familiarity with the top news story of the moment, and breaking that down in class can only add so much. What’s less likely is that the student has had the Federalist Papers or the works of William Faulkner taught to them by a scholar steeped in those words — an experience that can only come in college and that GW students need to take advantage of.
If professors don’t put core texts in terms that students can and will want to engage with, then even the most genius literature will seem outdated and irrelevant today. But illuminating a text’s eternal salience — through modern-day references, shoutouts and interpretations in film, music, politics and pop culture — will prove the gravity of such readings. We encourage faculty to position a text as the centerpiece of a class to promote sweeping discussion that analyzes not just a select few passages, but the myriad of literary corroborations and counterpoints that surround such texts.
We as students don’t do enough to understand the value of the classics and the way they intersect with multiple disciplines, like the way that J.R.R. Tolkien birthed modern fantasy novels or philosopher John Locke’s ideas influenced the Declaration of Independence. There’s no such thing as an original idea — including that phrase, taken from a Mark Twain quote. Any idea has probably been thought before, and it’s easier to understand the world and marketplace of thought around us if we expose ourselves to those past pivotal writings.
Many of us in our generation strive to be genuine and well-informed, sometimes even revering the past with collections of vinyl records and thrifted books, clothing and furniture. We should match that energy at school by reading the book that catalyzed the science fiction genre or the texts that served as the building blocks of modern politics.
The decline of the humanities — and with it, its core classical texts — has been happening for over a decade, despite the resilience of the literature in question. In 2025, GW must not fall victim to this trend, but such a feat will demand the effort of everyone in the University community.
The editorial board consists of Hatchet staff members and operates separately from the newsroom. This week’s staff editorial was written by Opinions Editor Andrea Mendoza-Melchor, based on discussions with Contributing Culture Editor Caitlin Kitson, research assistant Carly Cavanaugh and Culture Editor Nick Perkins.