Thalia Field: Brown Alum & Literary Arts Professor

For many Brown students and Literary Arts concentrators, the Literary Arts concentrators, it seems like the department has always been there. However, the Literary Arts department has only been around for 40 years. On their website, the department is described as a “creative and intellectual center for the US literary avant-garde. Along with a handful of other writing programs nationwide, Brown provides a home for innovative writers of fiction, poetry, digital language arts, and mixed media.” Yet, Literary Arts actually used to be part of the English department and then eventually became its own concentration after many years of students concentrating in it through an independent concentration.

Thalia Field is both an alumni of Brown and a current professor at the university. A CRC staffer spoke with her in Spring of 2017 to learn a bit more about her experience at Brown and her work now in the Literary Arts department.

Professor Thalia Field states that she believed she was “always a very classic Brown student.” An undergraduate transfer student, she created and concentration in her own independent concentration and she states “basically that concentration led to most of the work I’ve done as a writer.” Field, in speaking to a CRC staffer, says “I think it was a very free and rigorous opportunity to be at Brown and to study and be with the faculty to make sense of my own knowledge production. Thirteen years later, I returned to Brown as a masters student, did my MFA.” And, six years after that, she began teaching at the university.

Even during her time at Brown, Field can acknowledge the influence of the Open Curriculum during her time at Brown, “I do feel my interdisciplinary interests have always been fed well by the Brown Curriculum. I think I’m a quintessential representative of what Brown can do in terms of intellectual adventure. I feel like my work is really a product of what my education has been, and I’m committed to doing the same for Brown students.”

When asked what Field expanding students’ exploration of the Open Curriculum as a professor, Field replies, “Even in capped classes I always leave room in my classes for students from other departments, even RISD. I think it’s really important for students as they develop their own sense of expertise, that they never forget what it’s like to be new at something.”

It may be surprising for most people, even Brown students, to know that the Literary Arts concentration hasn’t always been around, “It was a subset of the English department when I was at Brown.” Field also took a stance that she thinks it’s wrong that students have to be concentrating in Literary Arts (or independent concentration of sort) to write a creative honors thesis “I think anyone that is talented enough in the arts should be allowed to apply and that the change goes against the Open Curriculum.”

When asked how she thinks the Literary Arts department fits into Brown, Field says, “I think we fit well with the other arts departments as well as with quite a number of humanities departments because we have students who engage in translation or study the literature of other cultures. We have a natural affinity in both the arts and humanity. That said, I’m a big believer that the arts at Brown should be less department divided. I think the most exciting programs in the countries are where the arts are less divided themselves. That doesn’t mean you can’t study something in a larger framework but in an Open Curriculum the more engagement students have across the arts and other fields, the more innovative and wide-ranging their education will be. I think we have a fine place in the world but I could also see where we improve.”

Field’s advice for students and for departments is to encourage a more encouraging and influential relationship between the two: “I don’t think students shape concentrations enough. I think there should be more, not less, student initiative in creating their curriculum. Especially as Brown has become more diverse, I think it’s more important than ever for faculty and departments to be very responsive to new energy in their fields and students. The ability to do an independent concentration has become severely restricted. The ability to do an independent concentration has become severely restricted. It was not so prohibitive in my day. I supervised a number of them and I am shocked at the barriers put up now. We fill the Brown mold of not overburdening students with requirements so they can pursue other interests, which as a writer, is crucial. You have to have passions and obsessions and interests that go beyond writing, writing is the means of that. It is crucial that you not shut down avenues of inquiry as a writer.”