The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth

Schaberg (Airportness), a Loyola professor of literature and environmental theory, devotes this thoughtful but frustratingly inconclusive essay collection to investigating “what it means to be interested in literature and... to teach literature at the college level, in an age of post-truth.” Pursuing the question, Schaberg takes readers to various locations, allowing them to eavesdrop on his thoughts. His activities include “reading” the Mississippi by cataloging its debris; driving the philosopher Slavoj Žižek, in town for an academic conference, to a Walmart; and recalling his college years, all with ruminations on teaching literature woven in. Touchstones throughout these essays include airports (“foretold sites of vulnerability and inevitable chaos”) and writer David Foster Wallace. Schaberg soars when talking about language: for example, should Americans really want to “drain the swamp,” he asks about the Republican campaign promise, when swamps are diverse ecosystems vital to life on Earth? Like Virginia Woolf, whom he invokes, Schaberg wants to connect literature, place, and the mundane to larger social issues, but these meandering essays lack Woolf’s driving force. Schaberg’s knowledge of literature and environmental issues can’t be faulted, but his reflective writing doesn’t pull this book’s various concerns into a cohesive whole. (July)