After graduating from Brown and leaving the College Hill bubble, how do students define their lives in the so-called "real world?" In their young twenties, are they adults? According to the New York Times article "What Is It About 20-Somethings?" this post-college period is becoming its own life stage, dubbed "emerging adulthood" by psychology professor Jeffrey Jensen Arnett in the article.
Recently, three Brown alums and one of their friends started a blog called Bachelors of the Arts: Eligible Criticism. The blog attempts to ask and potentially answer the question of what it means to be an emerging adult, said one of the blog's founders and editors, Will Litton '09. According to Litton, he and his friend David Brent, an alum of University of Chicago, came up with the idea after talking about the article.
Litton and Brent wanted to be a part of a community that would allow them to think critically about everyday things the way they could during their college days, Litton said. Half-jokingly, they decided they should start a blog called Bachelors of the Arts. When they checked to see if the URL was available and realized that it was, they bought the domain and became serious about starting the blog, Litton said.
The pair recruited fellow classmates Will Guzzardi '09 and Albert Huber '09 to be fellow editors. "It took two or three months to start writing pieces and decide what it was we actually wanted to publish … we wanted a stockpile of material to launch the blog with," Litton said.
The blog has experienced a growing readership since its launch in late October, Litton said. When the editors post entries on the blog, the site receives about 550 hits a day. While only editors have posted so far, Litton said he and his fellow editors have friends who are currently working on articles. The editors also want to open the blog up to guest contributors, Litton added.
An ‘emerging adult'?
"The literature says people are taking ... longer to ‘grow up,' and ‘grow up' means career, marriage, family," Litton said. "But, at the same time, I think there's so much more than just that. The point of the blog is to ask what it means to be an ‘emerging adult,' " he added.
Litton said the blog helps him keep the interests he developed at Brown alive. "A lot of this is about maintaining a dialogue with people I went to college with. It's really easy to let that go once you get a job, live in city. The people we advertise to are basically all our friends from college," he said.
Huber agreed that the blog is a home for academic and critical discussion. He said what he missed most about Brown was the community and the people.
"You're around a lot of people who think about issues critically and that is really inspiring," Huber said. The blog allows the editors to continue to think and speak critically "about all the issues we care about," he added.
The Brown years
At Brown, all three editors were heavily involved in both academic and extracurricular life. Guzzardi started the improv comedy group Starla and Sons, which Litton also joined. Huber was heavily involved in theater and wrote and performed a solo show his senior year. Academically, all three focused on the humanities and social sciences during their time at Brown –– Guzzardi concentrated in comparative literature, Litton in literary arts and Huber in political science. Like Huber, Brent majored in political science at the University of Chicago.
"We all bring in perspectives from a multitude of backgrounds," Huber said.
Both Litton and Guzzardi cited Elizabeth Taylor, senior lecturer in English and co-director of the department's nonfiction writing program, as playing a large role in their writing.
"Both Wills brought their comedy into their writing, but they were also meticulous writers and very serious in what they were doing," Taylor said.
She said the blog has a "sense of humor," but is also "very well-attuned to what the audience would be interested in."
As undergraduates, it was clear that both Litton and Guzzardi would be writers in some way, she said, adding that "they bring their personality to the blog and I think that was clear in their writing as undergrads."
Another class that influenced the blog creators was ENGL 1140B: "The Public Intellectual," taught by Catherine Imbriglio, senior lecturer in English. Guzzardi said the content of the class closely matches up to the blog because "Professor Imbriglio gave us a sense of how to understand the world around us in an essay."
"I found it really exciting that they were doing some of the things that we were thinking about in ‘The Public Intellectual,' which is how to use academic things we were studying and convert that into the public arena," Imbriglio said. "Most of my students aren't going on into the academic life, but how to do academic work in the public arena is a fascinating project," she added.
Litton said he sees the blog expanding in the future to include a greater variety of topics, articles and perspectives from more writers. "Bachelorism as a theoretical state is about not being married to any one idea. The blog is about exploring different schools of thought," he said.
