Wiktoria Parysek | Going back to the basics

New Student Orientation is one of the most exhilarating and exciting experiences at Penn. In fact, it's the only time it's okay to friend hundreds of complete strangers on Facebook you claim you met at a party. However, in between getting to know your hallmates, Philadelphia and the University, there's one activity that give you a peek of what lies ahead: the Penn Reading Project.

For nearly two decades, the PRP has sought to structure and focus the transition of Penn's newest matriculates by introducing them to college-level analysis and discussions. Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, for example, focused the Class of 2011's attention on their eating habits and encouraged them to be more scrupulous with their food choices. Current seniors looked at privacy, creativity and technology in Free Culture, written by Penn alumnus Lawrence Lessig. While not every reader enjoyed or even finished the assigned text, it is fair to say that they at least had a relationship with it - the power of any book is that it demands a certain amount of time and concentration before we can give our opinion. Unfortunately with this year's choice of Thomas Eakins' painting "The Gross Clinic" over a written text, this relationship is diminished.

While some see the analysis of a painting as a step forward - a statement few would outright disagree with - and many freshman were no doubt a little relieved to have a picture to study instead of the traditional paperback to read, the choice's message is mixed. On one hand, it's light and interesting and introduces a whole new skill set. College freshman Mike Kramer says "the overall impression [of the PRP] is good mainly because it allows students … to actually branch out and analyze something completely different." On the other hand, the painting is supplemented by written analyses of the painting, making the skill sets required not all that new or different.

According to the PRP Web site, "this is the first Penn Reading Project to use a visual text, and "The Gross Clinic" will introduce students to the critical skill of interpreting visual material." While the argument can be made that interpreting a graph or a chart is a necessary life skill, it is less believable that a Penn student - unless he or she intends to go into the visual arts - will directly benefit from such close study of a 19th-century painting. Art analysis involves much technical jargon, which seems to undo the project's intentions. The very term "visual text" implies that art can't be described without literature - so why is the PRP so keen on taking out the most basic and engaging mode of communication?

On a larger level - and I recognize this seems extreme - the concept of pictures over books eerily mirrors Ray Bradbury's thought-provoking Fahrenheit 451. In the book, firemen burn books instead of putting out fires, because books are deemed dangerous and, fittingly, inflammatory. Even though today's firemen will no doubt keep up their current line of work and nobody is advocating censorship of the printed word, simplified visual media is already overtaking the printed word as an agent of information exchange.

Deborah Burnham, the associate undergraduate chairwoman of the English Department, believes that the move to the Eakins painting is "worth a try," but that in the present movement toward a non-print media, "we need to simultaneously consider new and non-print media and at the same time take a stand for the value of sitting alone, reading a book printed on paper, thinking about nothing else except that book." Once again, the time spent together between a reader and his book is a relationship which cannot be found in any other media.

It appears that the PRP is simply moving with the times; revitalizing what some viewed as stiff and traditional. However, Penn should be leading the resistance and putting all of its efforts into saving what deserves to be saved.

Wiktoria Parysek is a College junior from Berlin. Her e-mail address is parysek@dailypennsylvanian.com. She is studying in London this semester.

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