It would not be alien to imagine that one's own reading practices have declined over the years; the nation as a whole shares this stationary condition with embracing the written arts. To fight this rapid movement from literature, Kean University and the department of English will be launching their participation with THE BIG READ. On Thursday, February 4, during college hour in the University Center Atrium, students will have the opportunity to listen to music, enjoy free food, and hear special remarks from Kean University President Dawood Farahi, Mayor of Elizabeth Chris Bollawage, and Director of the Elizabeth Public Library Mrs. Dorothy Key. This kick-off party is aimed to draw attention to the selected text "The Things They Carried", by Tim O'Brien, intended to bring the community, both on and off campus, back to the joy of reading. THE BIG READ is a program designed by the National Endowment for the Arts that serves as a response to the urgent, distressing 2004 report Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America; the study declared that literary reading is being abandoned by all age groups, but most critically with the youth. Dr. Mia Zamora is the director of this general education and world literature effort, but has also extended the initiative beyond Kean's community. By incorporating several themes revolving the prized Vietnam War text, Kean and the Elizabeth Public Library plan to reach a community of all ages.
The text choice itself is the backbone behind this restoration of reading. O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" is a celebrated work that has proven to ascend beyond common war themes of victory and patriotism, but instead lends the opportunity to draw so much more from this fiction. Fiction, in fact, is a line often questioned while reading the text. The detailed, and yet naked, depiction of war in the text is lined with underlying questions. These are the questions that the headers of this program are hoping will inspire the community to come together in embracing this book.
The kick-off party will be an opportunity for all students and community members to find out current-semester events set in motion. These on and off campus events include, but are not limited to: a Vietnam War film series, a Kean faculty and student veteran's panel, a theater production of "The Things They Carried", and a women's perspective discussion on the Vietnam War during March, the month of women's history. While the hosting of these events are located both on and off campus, THE BIG READ is set to end with a dynamic bang by welcoming the award winning author himself, Tim O'Brien, to have a reading and discussion right on Kean's campus. Students and faculty are encouraged to be in attendance for this celebratory kick-off literary advocacy, and more importantly, to pick up a copy of this text and prepare to participate in the great endeavor of bringing reading back to the hearts and minds of people.