Common Reading

Summer Common Reading - A Letter from Provost Schneider

Welcome to Knox! An exciting new stage of your college journey is about to begin. Every year, we select a Common Reading for all incoming students. This year, the book is Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Please view this book as an invitation to conversations. The reading touches on many themes in U.S. society and invites you to engage your classmates, friends, family, and others in the Knox community in conversation around its themes. The book is a gift to you. (For those with international addresses, see the instructions below. We will hold a paper copy to present to you upon arrival to campus.) Please take some time this summer and read it so that you can discuss it with fellow students, faculty, and staff.

Little Fires Everywhere is a fictional story but it aims to capture the real-world experiences of many individuals in U.S. society. The story is set in the 1990’s. The events and the historical cultural reference points relate to a time before most of you were born. I encourage you to look up unfamiliar names, objects, and events from that era. (Cell phones were a novelty and smartphones were futuristic fantasy.) “The Nineties” were a time of relative prosperity, stability, and confidence in the U.S. Prosperity and stability did not define every person’s experience, however. Nonetheless, the novel tackles issues in American society that continue to shape it today: income inequality and class, race and ethnicity, and family and identity in a multicultural society. Other issues—such as how each generation seeks to navigate the assumptions and prejudices of earlier generations—are timeless.

The events of the novel occur in a real place: the suburb of Shaker Heights on the edge of the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Shaker Heights is unique in many respects, but it also mirrors cities and neighborhoods across the nation. In a microcosm, it exemplifies the diversity of American experiences. Families of distinctive backgrounds intersect in ways that expose social structures and life choices to stark and even explosive pressures. As you read the novel, you will likely find characters with whom you can identify and might feel a connection. You should also accept the challenge to understand the lives and experiences of people unlike you and whose perspectives might be hard to appreciate at first. In both cases, you will confront the painful choices individuals make when confronting the social norms, cultural prejudices, and economic pressures of their society.

For first-year students, the Summer Common Reading will be part of your first course: First-Year Preceptorial. In preparation, your Preceptorial instructor would like you to reflect on Little Fires Everywhere prior to arriving for New Student Orientation. FP is all about engaging new ideas and material. Writing is a key way that we engage and think. To help you begin to process the book, we are asking you to engage in a reflection. We will do more of this in class — this is just your first chance to reflect on what you have read and to start to articulate what you think about it.

Read about the FP Common Reading Writing Assignment here. Due August 30, 2024 at noon US Central time

By the end of your first term, you will have had a chance to read a lot, to write a lot, and engage with your peers around many issues. At Knox and in the Summer Common Reading, we challenge ourselves to reflect on how we think about the world; we may attempt to persuade others and, in turn, allow ourselves to be persuaded by new ways of seeing things. We may develop firm new beliefs rooted in well-crafted arguments but we will also not always know all the answers. Throughout your Knox education, our aim is to help you to become a critical thinker and a life-long learner. Your journey starts here.

A Note on Paper Copies of Little Fires Everywhere: For students with a domestic U.S. address, we have mailed a paper copy of the book to you. If you have an international address, your paper copy of the book awaits your arrival to Knox. In the meantime, you can check out an e-version of the book from the Knox Library. Instructions are here. [MyKnox login required.]

I look forward to welcoming you to campus soon.

Sincerely,

Michael A. Schneider

Provost and Dean of the College
Professor of History