Graduation Ceremony 15
Monday 30 November 2015 at 1630hrs – Jesuits Church Valletta
Graduand’s Speech
Christine Borg Farrugia
One must always be careful of books and what is inside them,
for words have the power to change us.
- Cassandra Clare
I am honoured to welcome you to this graduation ceremony. It is indeed a privilege for me to speak on
behalf of the graduands on this occasion which allows me to share with you a few thoughts about our
studies and the new challenges that lie ahead.
The Faculty of Arts is one of the largest faculties offering programmes at an undergraduate and
postgraduate level. One of the Faculty’s hallmarks is its distinctive combination of tradition and
innovation. In fact, nowadays, the spectrum of study has broadened to include courses such as
Mediterranean Studies, Film Studies, Humanitarian Action, Fine Arts, Contemporary Diplomacy, and
Comparative Literature. As Walter Feinberg explains:
More than a set of subjects then, the humanities indicate an approach to a variety of
subjects. They suggest an openness to the frame of reference of the work under
consideration and a willingness to try and weave that frame into one’s own. If some
works enjoy preference over others it may be only because these have captured the
imagination and extended the thinking of man. The student who takes seriously this
course of study learns to accept his own times and his own beliefs only tentatively and to
respect both the achievements and the mistakes of the past, recognizing that each is
defined in the context of an unstable present. (Feinberg 1969: 101)
Each and every one of us here today has a story to tell, a story of a dream come true. But what happens
now that we will be graduating? Do we stop dreaming simply because we have achieved our target? My
speech aims to encourage you to pursue new dreams, to live to the full your potential, to embark on a
new journey, so that one day you will motivate others to do the same. As I represent the Department of
Italian allow me to quote Italy’s most beloved author: Dante. In Canto XXVI of the Inferno, in the eight
“bolgia” of the 8th circle of hell, Dante the pilgrim meets one of the most ambiguously compelling
characters of The Divine Comedy: Ulysses. The Greek hero has not been belittled by his plight in hell’s
flames for having committed the sin of fraudulence. Dante admires Ulysses who boasts about his quests,
which include the exploration of a land forbidden by the gods. Ulysses explains that after years of
travelling, Ulysses exhorts his crew to go beyond the Columns of Hercules:
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[…] Considerate la vostra semenza:
Fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
Ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.
(Inferno, vv. 118-120)
[…] Consider how your souls were sown:
you were not made to live like brutes or beasts,
but to pursue virtue and knowledge.
(Robert Hollander’s translation: The Princeton Project)
This is the distinctive feature of the Humanities: it urges us to distinguish ourselves and follow the path
of knowledge, of truth. A course in the Humanities opens opportunities to appreciate foreign cultures,
visit historic places, admire art, develop a love for theatre, be inspired by the world’s greatest thinkers.
We learn to interconnect different areas of knowledge, we acquire the ability to weigh evidence and
consider more than one side of a plethora of issues, even the most conflictual. While learning about the
accomplishments of the past, we also gain a better insight of our world through which we acquire the
necessary tools to imagine the future.
Complete knowledge is ultimately unattainable, and yet Ulysses’ words inspire in us the desire to go
beyond any barrier. Like Dante, we are drawn towards this orator and are torn by conflicting views of
admiration and indictment. Parallels have frequently been drawn between Dante and Ulysses: both
strive to go beyond the limits imposed on man. Yet Dante’s journey through the three realms of the
dead is blessed by God’s grace, whereas Ulysses’ voyage beyond Hercules’ columns is defined as “folle”
(mad) because it is not vertical towards God but horizontal towards worldly knowledge. A highly
ambivalent figure, Ulysses the fraudulent sinner instills veneration because he is a creature of defiance,
of rebellion against limits and confines; his voice exudes with pride because he wants to emphasize an
essential characteristic of man that distinguishes him from any other creature: that of the pursuit of
knowledge.
This is the very essence of the Humanities as Knonman affirms:
The humanities give young people the opportunity and encouragement to put themselves
– their values and commitments into a critical perspective. They help students gain some
distance […] and to get some greater traction in the enterprise of living the lives they
mean to live and not just those in which they happen by accident to find themselves.
(Knonman 2007: 147)
I am sure that at times we may all be overtaken by doubts as to whether this effort is within reach. After
all, as Robert Proctor points out, the Humanities appear not “to prepare a person for a specific job or
profession” (Proctor 1998: 120). In prosaic but also truthful terms, William James states that the
Humanities “bake no bread” (James 1969: 492). In a technology-oriented world, our incessant hours of
preparation, that require so much concentration and dedication, are not always appreciated. According
to Douglas Anderson,
In the present condition, the humanities seem neither to generate authority nor to
command respect. They are often treated as the accumulation and interpretation of trivial
knowledge or as academic addenda left over from another time. (Anderson 2002: 127)
Unfortunately, 21st century students tend to parcel knowledge in separate units, thus resulting in a
fragmented view of the world. That is why our faculty is creating new interdisciplinary curricula that
stimulate the students to make connections between the most diverse of fields, between popular
culture and literary canonicity, between history, literature and the media, between cinema and the
other visual arts. As Anderson points out,
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The humanities have a twofold task in the present setting: first to reestablish that persons
appear in the world as actors or agents and not just as determinate objects, and second
to focus on their traditional task of humanizing students. (ivi: 137)
The majority of the graduands before me have just terminated their Masters degree: Master of Arts,
Master in Contemporary Diplomacy, and Master of Arts in Hospitaller Studies. But what happens now?
Do we turn back the sails and bring our quest for knowledge to an end? Or should this occasion spark
the energy to study further? I am sure that there have been times of stress, moments of panic when
facing challenges. Yet being here today proves that we have survived such moments and are being
awarded for our success while we ponder on the new opportunities that lie ahead. The quote chosen
from Dante’s masterpiece aims at transmitting optimism, indeed defiance. In today’s fast world it is easy
to be dazzled by the call of the sirens or to be hit by inertia. This happens especially when told that
studying the Humanities is a waste of time. Yet the reason why we chose the Humanities indicates that
in each and every one of us there is the urge to discover and explore.
When asked to deliver this speech, I looked back upon my experience as a university student, a long
journey that started at the age of eighteen. Like all of you here, I had difficult decisions to take, yet every
step forward was accompanied by a sense of accomplishment. I had to conquer my shyness and
participate in conferences and academic symposia; I was given the opportunity to study for a whole
semester at the Università degli Studi della Tuscia in Viterbo, long before the Erasmus programme was
launched in Malta. I am very grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Synapsis (the European
School for Comparative Studies organized by the Universities of Siena and Bologna for Ph.D. students),
to deliver papers at the Giornata dell’Italianistica here in Malta, to live the dream of delivering a speech
at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, to experience the Forum Film Festival at the Gorizia Spring
School.
Thank you to all the academic staff, our lecturers and tutors, for urging us to be inquisitive, for
transmitting the professional tools to succeed. A special thanks goes to the Rector, Professor Juanito
Camilleri, who has always been so supportive of the Humanities. I am also especially grateful to my
tutor, to our head of department, and all the lecturers for the generosity of their knowledge. In the last
five years, great advances have been made in the Dept. of Italian because it has taken on a modernized
cast which can compete with other programmes in Europe. A highly innovative MA in Film Studies has
been introduced under the auspices of the Italian Department, and at an undergraduate level new
cutting-edge units regarding Film Studies, Television Studies, Theory of Literature, and Women’s Writing
have been introduced. While building on past tradition, the Dept. of Italian has responded to the
demand of less conventional units by introducing innovative courses.
I would like to thank our parents, our spouses, our children, our friends; thank you for your patience
during our more challenging days. While being appreciative to those who stood by us, I again would like
to concentrate on the graduands before me. We are the ones who spent hours studying, we have stood
nervously in front of our examiners to defend our points of view, and we have now fulfilled our dream.
Yet many of us face this day with a hesitant attitude, not knowing where to go from here. Those who are
audacious are already pursuing their next dream. As you embark in your next quest for knowledge, may
you keep in mind the power of Ulysses’ words so they will encourage you in the toughest of times. In If
this is a Man, Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish chemist and author, confesses that these lines kept him going
during the darkest moments in Auschwitz because he believed that words have the power to change us.
Dante’s Inferno represents Levi’s descent into his own hell but at the same time it reminds him of the
culture he belongs to, as far away as it seems within the barbed wire fences of the Auschwitz
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perimeters. Ulysses’ fine example of rhetoric becomes an inspiration for Levi, in spite of the fact that
Dante condemns him; for us who study the Humanities, his exhortation spurs us to transcend barriers
and limits, to be inquisitive, to strive for the pursuit of knowledge.
If you have a dream never underestimate it even though it seems too ambitious, because if your dream
does not intimidate you, it is not big enough.
Thank you.
References:
DOUGLAS ANDERSON, Humanities Education: Can We Teach Without Apologizing?, in “The Journal of
General Education”, Vol. 51, No. 2 (2002), p. 127, www.jstor.org/stable/27797910.
WALTER FEINBERG, To Defend the Humanities, in “The Journal of Aesthetic Education”, vol. 3, no. 2, April
1969, University of Illinois, pp. 91-101, www.jstor.org/stable/3331528.
WILLIAM JAMES, The Writings of William James, edited by JOHN J. MCDERMOTT, New York, The Modern
Library, 1968.
ANTHONY T. KNONMAN, Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities have give up on the Meaning
of Life, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007.
ROBERT E. PROCTOR, Defending the Humanities, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1998.
SUE SCHALLER – JOHN WENK, A Humanities Class for the Twenty-First Century, in “The English Journal”, Vol.
86, No. 7, November 1997, pp. 75-78, www.jstor.org/stable/819867.
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