College English - Volume 74, Issue 1, 2011

Empathy is a much-discussed term in the humanities these days. While some critics value it and argue that literature desirably promotes it, other critics worry that appeals to this emotion will neglect important matters of social context. In the literature classroom, the best approach is to take time to consider how texts complicate the impulse to empathize.

Rather than simply invoke citizenship as an ideal for their students to achieve, writing instructors should address the various possible meanings of the term, which represent divergent traditions of political thought.

The author examines the circumstances and rhetoric of two petitions by Japanese Hawaiians, among them her grandfather, who were interned on the U.S. mainland during World War II. In particular, she explains how these writers were arguing for political subjectivity and voice within the discourse of their oppressors.

Reviewed are The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University by Louis Menand and No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom by Cary Nelson.