Common Reading 2008
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To come to college means to come into a new
relationship with books.-
As the first class that enjoyed a Common Reading prepares to
graduate, the Common Reading Program is now an established
start-of-school tradition at SMU. Students new to SMU receive
the selected book during the summer at AARO and read it before
they arrive for the start of the fall semester. Faculty, staff,
and returning students already have begun reading and discussing
the book in preparation for the small-group conversations with
new students that take place just before Rotunda Passage and
Opening Convocation—truly an afternoon of SMU new-student
traditions. Students will find that the book and the questions
it raises will be part of the curriculum of their first-year
writing courses as well.
This year’s Common Reading is The Devil’s Highway by Luis
Alberto Urrea. The goal behind this selection—and of the Common
Reading Program as a whole—is to engage the SMU community in the
kinds of discussions that will prepare the University’s newest
students for the rigors and delights of the life of the mind.
The Devil’s Highway undoubtedly will provide such an
opportunity. Urrea’s non-fiction account of a group of 26 men
who crossed the US border from Mexico is a challenging read in
all senses of the term, and the topic of illegal immigration
could not be more timely, as we already can see in the ongoing
presidential debates. Moreover, Urrea complicates his subject by
avoiding simple categories of “good” and “bad” for the cast of
figures who populate the book: the immigrants themselves, many
of whom go into debt for what they consider to be the chance of
a lifetime; the border agents, whose job it is to catch such men
in a desert that seems boundless, and the smugglers (“coyotes”)
who lead the disastrous effort.
Evoking questions of politics, geography, and simple humanity,
The Devil’s Highway is a book that should have relevance for all
readers. The many student, faculty, and staff volunteers who
support the Common Reading Program work hard to ensure a
meaningful, thought-provoking experience for incoming students,
recognizing, though, that the new students’ thought, input, and
sharing of ideas are critical to the Program’s success. We look
forward to vigorous discussions of Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway.
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Author on Campus
Author Luis Alberto Urrea will be discussing his book at Hughes
Trigg Theater on Monday Sept. 8 at 4pm. Urrea will also be
appearing with SMU’s Professor Ben Johnson on KERA’s Think with
Krys Boyd at noon that day. This interview will then be
available as a podcast from the
KERA website. Urrea recently wrote the preface to
Johnson’s book “Bordertown :The
Odyssey of an American Place”, to be published by Yale
University Press on September 30.
Film and Discussion
Crossing Arizona
(7pm - Wed. Sept 17 - McCord Auditorium –
Dallas Hall)
Examines the border crisis through the eyes of Arizona ranchers,
border patrol agents, politicians, farmers, humanitarians, and
Mexican migrants. Join Professors Ben Johnson (History) and
Harold Stanley (Political Science) to discuss this provocative
documentary.
Resources
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