Is There a Place for Service Learning in Literary Studies?

Although literary specialists have yet to embrace service learning in any systematic way, Ellen Cushman and several others are urging us to move in that direction. Cushman suggests that literary specialists link the love of art and human decency with the larger community (Public In tellectual 335). She argues that literature and textual interpretation can be powerfully instructive when it comes time to understand the conflicts taking place in students' and community residents' daily lives. Most sig nificant, she proposes that literary specialists engage in community lit eracy work in order to gain necessary currency to thrive, even survive, in their discipline (Service Learning 210).1 In the last several years, I have embarked on projects bringing together service learning, women's literature, and multicultural literature. Many of my experiences with service learning in classes in multicultural literature confirm the positive possibilities in this pairing, especially in relation to advancing multicultural issues and complicating students' understandings of difference. In many ways, my students developed more-complex multi cultural understandings through reading literature while also working in an inner-city public school, an after-school program for disadvantaged chil dren, or a domestic abuse shelter. But problems and challenges remain in the effort to integrate service learning with literature. I am especially con cerned that service learning in literary studies may undermine literary stud ies rather than imbue it with the cultural significance Cushman envisions.