John Lessard

I have been teaching film, literature, and writing for over ten years now-ten years in which I have grown intellectually and personally along with my students.

For me, art and literature provide a kind of necessary mirror that helps us better understand not only our world, but ourselves. The more our world is driven by images, words, and information, the more important it becomes to respond with a sharply honed critical eye. It is my mission to help students closely attend to the world around them, to see the world itself as a very complicated work of art.

The interpretive and argumentative skills that we develop through our encounter with art and literature are essential to valuable citizens of the world, not to mention vibrant, creative individuals with rich internal lives.

My job is to provide students with the intellectual tools and critical frameworks that will empower them and give them earned confidence in their own intellects and imagination. The fact that we get to read the best that has been written and thought is merely one of the perks.