Professor Justin McDaniel, the tenured chair of the religious-studies department at the University of Pennsylvania, has found a way to make his students read again. They don’t write papers or take tests; instead, he asks them to follow a strict set of behavioral constraints. They must give up their cell phones and other worldly distractions, including, in one course, sex. At a recent reading group based on his influential class Existential Despair — where students gather one evening each week for seven or eight hours to read an entire novel start to finish in total silence, then discuss it in a darkened classroom — McDaniel welcomed a dozen former students and a couple of his friends to his apartment in Philadelphia. As his guests gathered, McDaniel reminded them of the first expectation for the night. “You cannot introduce yourself by anything about you,” he said. “I don’t want to hear any majors. I don’t want to hear any jobs. I don’t want to hear any impressive things about you at all.” Features writer Lila Shapiro also attended. Read more her full report: