Literature Editor Felix Benson talks with Joe Dudgeon about study abroad, life as humanities student, and societies.
‘Pint of View’ is a new series where The Glasgow Guardian interviews a member of the Glaswegian or global literature scene over a beverage. Through an informal conversation, we aim to provide the reader with interesting perspectives on literature and the industry which surrounds it. Kicking off the series, I spoke with Joe Dudgeon, a fourth-year English Literature and Philosophy student at the University of Glasgow. His academic interests range from 20th-century American Literature, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Philosophy of Mind. Over Zoom, we talked about our first-year experiences in Glasgow, the future of the humanities, and Joe’s recent adventures in Austin, Texas whilst on a Study Abroad program.
I was sitting in Italy while Joe talked from his house in London. Keeping things eponymous, I had a pint of Ichnusa – a Sardinian beer of the finest quality – while Joe nestled into a bottle of Modelo – a beer he told me was fuelled by nostalgia from his time in the Mexican-influenced Austin. The first question I asked Joe was “How are you?” He told me he was fine, so we got cracking.
Being two students of humanities, naturally the topic of conversation fell on the future of our studies. In the wake of Andy Burnham endorsing vocational skills at younger levels of education, the desirability of the humanities is once again being tested. Last month, Burnham announced: “We’ve had a system built for too long around the university route.” With the humanities already suffering from severe cuts in funding, I asked Joe if – after three years of studies – he still recommends Philosophy and English Literature as a degree. “I’m really happy that I study what I study,” he said. “I don’t think I’d have made a very good scientist or bricklayer or anything besides what I’m doing at the moment really. There’s nothing more inspiring for me than reading something really good, watching a great film, or seeing a beautiful painting.”
Joe then brought the play Arcadia by Tom Stoppard to my attention, currently being performed at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London. Joe quoted from the character Bernard who is arguing with the mathematical biologist Valentine: “I can’t think of anything more trivial than the speed of light.” Justifying the humanities as a study over science is a perpetual struggle. I told Joe about a novella I had recently read by George Eliot, The Lifted Veil: an allegorical tale which questions the benefit of knowledge over poetic ambiguity. Eliot begins her story with the remarkable epigraph: “Give me no light, great Heaven, / but such as turns / To energy of human fellowship; / No powers beyond the growing heritage / That makes completer manhood.” As we enter an era ruled by Artificial Intelligence – where community is at an all-time low – the words of Eliot, of Stoppard, have never felt so poignant. “There is something about the humanities,” Joe tells me, “that can nurture and feed your inner life in a way that science can’t.” Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for a literature graduate’s income. Acknowledging the financial sacrifice to be made in studying the humanities, Joe finished off his point with “well, they [that is, the scientists] are making more money than I am, certainly.”
We then pivoted to talk about the first-year experience in the great city of Glasgow. Flâneurism, what the French symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire defined as the act of “stroll[ing] the city streets”, specifically with a detached demeanour, is my favourite way to perceive a city. I asked Joe: “Where should a flâneur of Glasgow take themselves?” “When I was in first year,” he replied, “I used to go to the daily organ recitals at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum to listen to someone play this beautiful music. I would go there a lot just to sit and calm down a bit. There was also – I guess it was all musical actually – the cajun folk recitals at the Doublet bar. Pint of Murphy’s and some Scampi Fries,” what more could you want. Joe also highlighted the Glasgow Film Theatre, which to him, is “obviously the best place in the world”. Anyone from 16–25 can sign up to their free youth membership, which makes any screening £6.90. This beautiful art deco cinema is a must-visit for anyone interested in film.
Speaking of film, Joe is part of the Screenwriting Society and the Filmmaking Society. He also attends the Life Drawing Society’s weekly sessions. “For making friends, I think societies are absolutely the best way to do it. Most of the people I am friends with I’ve met through societies. It gave me a structure to my days in first year when you can get a bit aimless. In a new place, and that being a bit scary, having somewhere to go to talk about something you are really interested in is a great thing.”
Joe is also a writer who wants to make the creative process more social. He told me about his plans to launch a weekly writing and reading workshop in Glasgow starting in September. “It will be a space where writers can share their stories and receive constructive feedback.” I also imagine it will be a good laugh. Still in the works, details about the workshop will be announced in the future.
The inspiration for the workshop came from his time writing at the University of Texas, Austin. He told me about the electric campus atmosphere: “There was more funding for societies; there were five big theatre companies, one of which performed at my house. There were three student newspapers, loads of film and art societies, and they all had a lot more money… My Study Abroad was sort of a life-changing thing. I loved it; I would recommend it to anyone. It has opened all kinds of new horizons for me.” Having spent the past year at McGill University in Montreal, I second Joe’s enthusiasm. Partaking in Glasgow’s exchange programme is a fantastic opportunity to expand your social and professional networks, and to explore another university and culture.
Finally – with our glasses almost empty – I asked Joe to conclude our conversation with some of his favourite works of literature. He recommended “James Tate, who writes funny and easy lyric poems”; Flannery O’Connor’s Everything That Rises Must Converge – a collection of stories Joe described as some of the best he has ever read; Primo Levi’s novels If This Is a Man and The Truce; Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God; William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!; and John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.
“I don’t know what makes a great work of literature, but the thing I have always enjoyed the most about reading anything is having someone else’s thoughts sounded out in your head. A book feels intensely intimate to me, reaching across time, distance, and body to connect with another person on a level you can’t arrive at usually even in direct conversation. It’s a kind of communion I think. To replay in your own mind something that you know someone else has thought out so precisely and written down is an incredibly moving thing. The more I can feel that, the happier I will be reading it, whatever it is.” Thanks, Joe.
Illustration: Ariadni Biza
