Teaching the World

December 11, 2011

One may leave one of Neil Kortenaar’s classes with a sense of having travelled and having learned more about the world.

Neil ten Kortenaar, Professor of English at the University of Toronto, is able to engage his students so intimately in the subject literature that one may leave his class with a sense of having travelled and having learned more about the world. In addition to acquiring a sense of another land, one also encounters, through reading, revelations of human emotion.

Neil chose to stay on the academic path because he enjoyed his studies. “I wanted to keep doing it,” he tells me. At the time he was not thinking about what he would do afterwards, but eventually, he says, he had to. He therefore remained at university, studying at a number of institutions. Now, in addition to teaching at both the St. George and the Scarborough campuses, he also serves as the Director of the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. “You must follow what you love,” he knowingly admits. “I’ve always done this, and I’ve been lucky.”

“Students were great,” he says of his time teaching at the Scarborough campus. “Often, the common story was that they discovered they loved literature and were motivated by love [of literature]. They were often the first generation in their family to attend university; they may not have that long-established plan of what they could do.”

Indeed, in a world that teaches practicality, the path of literature is a unique choice. But Neil’s enthusiasm is contagious and inspiring. He proffers wise observations about the books being discussed and puts forth intriguing questions about characters and authors’ implied intentions, outer struggles, inner conflicts, and sense of place within society and circumstance. Retrospect and objectivity show that these states are not unique, but are reflections of humanity and the human condition that one can strive to accept, collaborate with, or aspire to overcome. Classes with him are engaging, informative, and thought-provoking.

Student input is also valued — I have often been welcomed into his office to discuss literature and our respective relationship with it. Neil welcomes meaningful and relevant insight from students, often incorporating them into his own teaching plan in order to offer a greater understanding and perception of a particular novel. “[T]he student body often reflects the novel I teach, and it’s very thrilling,” says Neil. “Students may read it differently from me; more emotionally and with an attached investment, or see themselves as implicated.” He regards this as a valuably emotional experience. Research and teaching experience in various parts of the world have also enabled Neil to feel differently about a particular book, since, he explains, he can picture the landscape and the town.

I am not currently studying literature, but I have no doubt that Neil would have been a continual mentor and colleague should I have chosen this path. Indeed, it is good to know that I am still welcomed into his office as wholeheartedly as I was as a student.