Commentary on ‘A Role for the Compulsory Study of Literature in Accounting Education’

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Notes

Ambrose Bierce (1985/1911) writing under the pen name ‘Jupiter Muke’.

I do use a wide variety of ‘readings’ in my courses, not just textbooks, and not all of this is accounting-based. For example, in exploring the distinction between law and ethics I make use of Plato's dialogue Euthyphro.

Indeed, it is worth noting that he also assumes that our graduates have no prior exposure to the classics, so what is happening in our secondary schools?

If context is not important, why do universities persist in offering alternatives to the Bachelor of Arts?

For space reasons I've not touched on the multicultural and prophetic qualities of literature discussed by Lister (2010). The former can be addressed by considering the development and implementation of international financial reporting standards—a tale rich in political jostling and cross-cultural conflict. I am less convinced about the prophetic role of literature as the examples provided are all ex post facto. Perhaps an example in accounting is the writing of Chambers who advocated an exit price based fair value accounting system—we have had to wait nearly 50 years to see this (partially) adopted by accounting standards setters.