On Humanity and Individuality: Lessons Drawn from Ha Jin‟s “A Lecture”

Gultom, Christian Florencius and Sitohang, Susanne Andrea Humisar (2017) On Humanity and Individuality: Lessons Drawn from Ha Jin‟s “A Lecture”. In: PROCEEDINGS LITERARY STUDIES CONFERENCE 2017. Department of English Letters Universitas Sanata Dharma Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, pp. 91-97. ISBN 978 602 60295 9 1

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Abstract

Research projects have shown the values of introducing and teaching literature in the classroom, including the use of short stories in the classroom to encourage students to draw their own lessons of humanity and individuality in order to better prepare them to face the current world of multiculturalism, to guide them to the understanding that while the world consists of different beliefs, ideals, political views, and religions, at the center of all things, humans share common needs, desires and feelings. This kind of understanding, in the end, may lead to the existence of world peace and understanding. The research will show how this goal is reached, that through education, through literature, students may understand and embrace and accept differences facing them and exercising their own individuality. Literature may help prevent the frightening phenomenon of radicalism and fundamentalism from growing. Works of literature offer readers different situations, different human dramas in different parts of the world, leading them to the conclusions that although people are different, at the core of it all, all individuals share commonalities despite their differences in ideals, beliefs, political views and religions. Jin‘s ―A Lecture,‖ leads readers to understand that the values of humanity and individuality may be found in different parts of the world. Even though Jin‘s characters are characters living in Communist China, they portray men displaying the commonality of human beings, with their needs, desires and feelings resembling those of common individuals. Abstract text should have 1 cm indentation from left and right and be written in one-column format in one paragraph. Text must not exceed 250 words.

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