By Linda Wang
The UC Santa Barbara community has been stuck inside for quite some time since the COVID-19 outbreak and many are feeling the need to turn away from their screens and immerse themselves in the pages of books.
Inspired to pass some of this time by entering a slower world and reading together, UCSB English lecturer Brian Donnelly and assistant professor Melody Jue have founded a virtual book discussion space. Together, they launched an online Pandemic Book Club (PBC) in August that is now hosted by UCSB’s English Department on the virtual platform Nectir.
UC Santa Barbara faculty talk about books they are currently reading. Brian Donnelly, top, Melody Jue, bottom left, Heather Blurton, bottom center, and Rachael King. Photo courtesy of Pandemic Book Club;
Each Friday, a faculty member posts a video sharing a short talk about either what they are currently reading or a book important to them. These videos are typically around 10 minutes and end with questions to open up discussion to the chat.
In hopes of creating a space where a remote community can grow around a love of reading, this club invites anyone to join using their UCSB ID. Everyone is welcome to weigh-in with their thoughts and opinions on the shared books or presentations via the online forum. So far, there are 160 members and many more are welcome.
“[This club] is like Goodreads, but just for UCSB students,” said UCSB English professor Ken Hiltner
Though it is called a Pandemic Book Club, this virtual community is not limited in genre or focus. The club has covered material ranging from dystopian to medieval literature, and from memoir to graphic novel and film adaptations.
UC Santa Barbara English professor Ken Hiltner talks from a mini cabin he built in his backyard, about a book he is has just read, Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 “Walden.” Photo by Hiltner.
Book choice and discussions are open-ended, but some readings have inevitably taken on a pandemic theme, given the current health crisis. Donnelly introduced the 2014 novel Station Eleven which begins with a pandemic flu that causes a global catastrophe. In other discussions, UCSB assistant professor Rachael King reminded participants of the value of reconnecting to our immediate natural surroundings in an 18th century read, The Natural History of Selborne.
The club seeks to enhance a sense of community on campus by fostering intellectual and personal connection between faculty and students across UCSB departments — from Communications to Environmental Studies. The shared discussions have proved varied and entertaining with contributors selecting their favorite books for a virtual library that has been compiled on video and will be updated from time to time. Some members are also sharing photos of pets and comics.
“I personally have gained a great deal from this project,” Donnelly said. “In a way it has reminded me of the things we have lost while not being together on campus. I miss being in the classroom, I miss talking in a more casual way with students and colleagues about what we read and why we love reading, and I think to some extent the PBC manages to compensate for that.”
Even when individuals have never read the proposed book they feel welcome to post their engagements and reactions, adding to provocative discussion threads that often extend beyond the readings to probe the ways books and movies make us rethink what we thought we knew.
The library at Holland House in London, damaged in 1940 by a fire bomb, during World War II air raids. Photo by Central Press, Hulton Archive, and Getty Images.
“We might think of reading as something [done] in isolation, and indeed it is very much an activity that we undertake by ourselves, but for me, [it] has always been at heart a communal activity,” Donnelly said.
Sharing reading reminds us that we are not alone but can be very much together during this strange time in our lives. “Just because we are physically distanced, we do not need to be intellectually isolated,” Donnelly said.
Linda Wang is a third year Communication major at UC Santa Barbara. She wrote this article for her Writing Program class Journalism for Web and Social Media.