Faculty spotlight: Professor Saul Rosenberg

“The Image of Business in American Literature” is a complex name for a class.

But no title, however long, could capture the inspiration and academic discovery occuring within that course’s walls.

Taught by Professor Saul Rosenberg each Fall semester, this freshman seminar has been a favorite of many Freshmen. Professor Rosenberg is well-known for his conversational and captivating teaching style.

With all the positive feedback from his class, we interviewed Professor Rosenberg to understand more about his class, his perspectives, and himself, as an individual.

Professor Saul Rosenberg teaches freshman seminar, ‘The Image of Business in American Literature’

How long have you been teaching at NYU? What motivated you to become a professor?

I’ve been teaching at NYU in the Freshman Honors Seminar program since 2010. I was trained as a professor, even though I work for a large market research firm.

What do you find most enjoyable or extraordinary when teaching your class?

I get the greatest satisfaction from seeing new college students learn to make sophisticated arguments about what they read.

It’s clear you’re very passionate about literature. What do you love about literature and what do you think it contributes to society?

Obviously, reading is itself a source of tremendous pleasure. As for its contribution to society, Eudora Welty said that we read stories in order to learn how to feel. I want my students to love literature, for that is a route to the development of a richer, more empathetic personality. In addition, the serious study of literature provides students with a tremendous opportunity to sharpen their critical thinking skills, the improvement of which is or should be the primary objective of a college education.

Business and Economics are often subjects studied from an objective perspective, but with Literature we often see a clash of different opinions. Why do you feel it is important to assess Business through Literature? What can students take away from connecting Business to Literature?

Most thoughtful writers about business recognize the way in which the Declaration of Independence’s “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” can so easily devolve into the pursuit of wealth. We see most obviously in the case of Jay Gatsby that the successful pursuit of great wealth brings nothing as regards the fulfillment of his American Dream. 

It’s very important — of paramount importance — that college students learn that before they are stuffed into law school or business school or medical school or whatever. Having said that, I am intrigued that great American writing is not a particularly rich source for the contention that capitalism is the most reliable guarantor of life and liberty, the other stools of Jefferson’s triangle.

Understanding that remains a work in progress for me, because it is quite clear to me that capitalism, as a system of society, is the greatest contributor to human happiness in world history. That’s not, I imagine, a popular view in the American university these days, but I am hard pressed to identify a non-capitalist society that has done a good job of providing its citizens with basic human rights in any way comparable to what capitalism has achieved.

I understand you have written a number of book reviews for the Wall Street Journal. One of my favorites is About an Author, Much Ado which reviewed Contested Will by James Shapiro. I liked that you didn’t simply summarize the book but also questioned Shapiro’s argument towards the end. For you, what are the characteristics of a “good book” and do you have any book recommendations for the NYU community?

Well, since you mention James Shapiro, whose book is non-fiction, I’ll start by saying I believe a non-fiction work that makes any kind of argument needs to anticipate and to respond to the objections a thoughtful, skeptical but essentially sympathetic reader might make to its argument. Otherwise it’s not worth very much — certainly, it’s not worth the time of a busy undergraduate. 

As regards fiction: for me, the absolute master of fiction in English is Henry James, whom Graham Greene said was “as solitary in the history of the novel as Shakespeare in the history of poetry”. There is no more attentive and subtle delineator of emotion than James, and no author who more richly rewards the reader. The Portrait of a Lady strikes me as the most successful depiction of a woman in fiction. The Turn of the Screw is the greatest ghost story ever written, and the greatest horror story, too. And his last three complete novels are, for me, the greatest novels in the English language. 

As NYU students, we are not only pursuing academic success but we are also learning about New York City and how to become a true New Yorker. What, do you think, makes New York City different from all the other cities around the world and do you see yourself as a true New Yorker?

I’m not a true New Yorker. I grew up in London, and came to New York in my twenties. I am a latecomer to what Conrad, had he lived a century later, would have called the greatest city on earth. New York is great partly because there, as Saul Bellow once wrote, one sees “all human types reproduced”. It’s the most ambitious experiment in the melding of cultures we have ever seen. I hope it works.

This is a little bit different from the previous questions but just as important: with the holiday season approaching, what are you looking most forward to?

Well, you know, New York is the greatest city on earth — but a little sun would be nice. My wife’s family lives in Miami, and I hope we will get down there at the end of the month.