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The Shakespeare buzz, contd.
From the Huntington News:
The 60-page report by the nonprofit American Council of Trustees and Alumni says that only three schools in the Big Ten require a Shakespeare course, with the University of Wisconsin-Madison one of them. UW-Madison has always had a strong English department, so I'm not surprised. In Milwaukee, Marquette University also requires English majors to study the Bard.
I majored in English at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb (Class of 1961) and a one-semester course in Shakespeare was required. Also required was a course in English grammar. I wonder how many English majors are required to take a grammar course these days?
The J-S reporter, Mark Johnson, goes to the heart of the matter much as I did when I reviewed Elizabeth Kantor's "The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature" (Regnery) last winter:
"The debate over Shakespeare goes to the heart of a much larger struggle for identity and mission at colleges and universities," Johnson says in his excellent story (maybe he was an English major!).
"On one side are those who believe that institutions have so fully embraced pop culture, diversity and social/political issues of every flavor that they are watering down what's truly important and failing to stress the classics. On the other side stand those who believe universities must broaden their offerings to remain relevant, and that such efforts pose no threat to the Big Three: Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton."
I'm happy to report that Marshall University requires English majors to take a course Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer in our language....
"Our university English departments are no longer acting as trustees of our cultural heritage," says Kantor. "Culture is not genetic; it's learned. There was a time not very long ago when Americans didn't consider themselves educated if they didn't know Shakespeare's plays. If our colleges quit teaching Shakespeare, are they still turning our educated Americans and citizens of the West?
...
"That's why I wrote The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature--so people who wanted help learning the great literature in English could start teaching themselves.
"I've heard really good things from several students in the Catholic U. English department in Washington, D.C. There's Hillsdale College, [Hillsdale, Mich.] of course.
"And certainly, anyone who wants to study English in college would be well advised to take a look at university English department course descriptions--they're mostly available online now.
"The problem, though, is that most students can't afford to pick the college they go to strictly on the basis of whether it has an English department in which the chief subject of study is the great literature itself, rather than a mish-mash of various kinds of 'literary theory'--ranging from radical feminism to Marx and back around to 'studies' and 'queer theory'--or else not-so-great works, including even comic books and The Da Vinci Code. Students have to consider location, price, and where they can get a degree that might help make them employable.
"English literature used to be something students, whatever subject they were majoring in, were getting at least a decent dose of in college. You could trust that almost anywhere you studied as an undergraduate, you'd stand a chance of being introduced to Chaucer or Shakespeare or Milton. Now, you can trust that pretty much wherever you study as an undergraduate, you'll be introduced to the various strains of postmodernism: through 'postcolonial' literature, or feminist readings of Shakespeare, or Marxist literary theory. And while Shakespeare's poetry is the kind of thing all college students can benefit from, I don't think the same is true of the content of the typical 'English' education going on at American college campuses today.'
Read The Vanishing Shakespeare here.
Posted by acta online on May 03, 2007 at May 3, 2007 03:45 PM
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