Knowledge of this kind of ignorance leads to humility, and also to the awareness that what may seem useless, because it is not rewarded and recognized, might one day be of the greatest usefulness. Although this kind of seemingly useless work happens in the sciences, the burden of uselessness falls with greater weight on the arts and humanities in a world that increasingly values usefulness. When I became an English and ethnic studies double-major as an undergraduate twenty-seven years ago, I took a risk in studying things that a good number of people might think are useless. Perhaps my own
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