Intellectual Life at EMU

This page is brought to you by the Intellectual Life Commitee of the provost's office. Read about our Common Read, browse descriptions of other expressions of our intellectual life on campus, and see the calendar of upcoming Arts & Lecture events.

Read together - EMU's Common Read

Each year, we choose a book to read together as a campus. EMU’s Common Read helps us to enter into discussions about issues and ideas through a grounding text and in classroom discussions, convocations, and intellectual life activities. Books and topics are chosen to help us shape the conversation around EMU's core values. 

How is the Common Read selected? 

Eastern Mennonite University selects a common text that builds community by providing our students, staff and faculty a shared experience to inspire conversation and meaningful debate. The Common Read also helps to increase our overall sense of unity, encourages creativity, and improves campus awareness of the biggest challenges that face our world.  Such engagement provides us with an opportunity to engage with ideas to explore throughout the academic year. The Intellectual Life Committee endeavors to select texts that reflect our overall mission and values. Furthermore, we are committed to preparing our students to lead and serve in a global context. Each year the Intellectual Life Committee solicits recommendations from the campus community for the next Common Read.

What is the 2024-2025 Text?

 When the English Fall by David Williams- learn more here.

As a faculty or staff member, can I get a copy?

 Yes, come to the Hartzler Library and ask for a copy.  The library is open Monday - Friday 8 am - 4 pm.

How is When the English Fall connected to the University Theme of Faith and Meaning?

The Intellectual Life Committee chose this book for its connections to one expression of Anabaptism to commemorate the 500th Anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement in 2025.

The protagonist (Jacob) grapples with how to stay true to his faith and pacifism in the midst of a catastrophe that brings the "English" into his world as they seek ways to survive the disaster. Jacob and his community willingly help the "English" but at what cost to the community as violence is the answer to this generosity.  Will Jacob and the community stay and work with the "English" which could corrupt their faith or leave to stay true to what they believe? This fictional text calls the reader to be mindful of distractions, even good distractions that help others, and how they may lead one down an unexpected path. While the protagonist grapples with “leaving” as a solution to staying true to one’s faith in the midst of all the distractions of the world, us as readers are also grappling with parallel distractions.

What do some of our students say about the book? 

Airplane crashes, communal shunning, and prophetic child aside, *When the English Fall* is about old-order Mennonites [Amish ]  during the apocalypse. If you like preparedness and apocalyptic fiction but don't like guns, or if you're interested in how nonviolence holds up in extreme but eminently possible scenarios, this is the book for you. The only bad thing I can say about it is that there are no zombies.  – R. Copeland ‘26 computer science major 

I enjoyed reading When the English Fall because it was an apocalyptic story that didn't feel far off from life as we know it.  - G. Nyce business ‘25 analytics & economics major 

Expressions of Intellectual Life on campus

Calendar of upcoming Arts & lectures events