Today’s working professional negotiates a myriad of complex job-related issues—from working with diverse perspectives, cooperating in a team, and exercising leadership to tackling ethical conflicts, inter-personnel tensions, and personal burnout. Effective organizations depend upon the success of their employees in handling these challenges.

     Reading & Discussion is a reading-and-discussion seminar that uses short, compelling works of literature to encourage new ways of thinking about these important workplace issues. The seminars give professionals the chance to retreat temporarily from “business as usual,” meet with their peers in a candid and supportive environment, and explore common dilemmas and everyday pressures—using short literary classics as a springboard for discussion. Lawyers, nurses, doctors, corporate and nonprofit managers, teachers, and social workers are just a few of the professional groups that the Ohio Humanities Council seeks to serve with this unique program.

            All seminars are led by a pair of experienced and personable facilitators who guide discussion of both the literary texts and the “life texts” of the participants,concentrating on workplace and professional experiences. For example, a seminar for social workers might use James Baldwin’s lyrical short story Sonny’s Blues to focus on issues of race relations and cultural differences. Managers might read Arthur Miller’s masterful play Death of a Salesman to discuss the demands of organizational life and the necessity of balancing home and career. Or a group might take one of James Thurber’s hilarious short stories for a lighthearted but piercing look at gender bias.

In the literary texts, participants encounter characters and situations both familiar and foreign. Rather than supply ready-made conclusions, Reading & Discussion operates in the true spirit of the seminar as an open forum for raising questions and encouraging reflection. Participants gain a deeper understanding of divergent views and the importance of communication.Often they return to work with a renewed sense of dedication to their professions and a broader frame-of-reference for making decisions.