Hope for the Future

By Blythe Bouza, Summer Intern

As someone who is studying English in college, I’ve heard multiple iterations of “good luck with that” from friends to family to Uber drivers, or forewarnings of AI coming for my job and rendering me useless by the time I enter the overwhelming job market. 

So, why continue down this path?

No one is going to advocate for a book more than a human, more than a person who is connected with the text, thus feeling that the story needs to be shared and spread. A computer cannot replicate this fervor. Could it tell you that you missed a comma or put one too many c’s or s’s in the word “necessary”? Sure. But what is the overarching value of that?

My first day as an intern with UNO Press, my supervisor, Chelsey Shannon, shared with me the Press’s “Heuristic Review” document. The “Heuristic Review” illustrates the characteristics of the types of text the Press wants to publish and engage with on a larger scale. Only publishing a finite number of books a year, every title that goes under the Press’s name must be work that explores deep emotions in complex and real way, work that engages with social stratification and power, work that comes from compelling or often unrecognized voices, or all of the above. The literature should breathe new life into old tropes or ideas. 

I have kept this evaluation tool in mind as I read all of the texts I had the privilege of engaging with during my time here. Through literature and my research work as an intern, I’ve encountered new subcultures and perspectives that I would never engage with on a general daily basis. I found merit in work that was written by people quite dissimilar to me in times where I did not have a point of personal reference to the content aside from the author’s words. 

A machine doesn’t have the ability to strongly and passionately advocate for a book or decide if it needs to be shared.

Art is curated by people for the people. Commitment and the willingness to work on a book and build a relationship with its author derive from the innate humane need to tell and spread stories. Watching and helping my supervisors Chelsey and G.K. work at length with their authors to promote their work to a wealth of outlets, conferences, and contests has shown me this. 

People may think that AI is the future of the humanities, but I disagree. The humanities was built for people to connect through ideas and stories and information, and it will stay that way because no one knows what humanity needs more than itself.