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Gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche
Richard Nokes, a professor of medieval literature at Alabama's Troy University, expresses appreciation for the work ACTA is doing to expose how English departments are abandoning their commitment to older literature. "I just finished a column-style article on the state of Anglo-Saxon studies," he writes;
Part of my argument revolves around the lack of Old English in typical undergraduate curricula (and, indeed, grad school curricula), and lo, here comes an article on Shakespeare to make my argument newsworthy. The Gainsville Sun, in an article entitled "Abandoning the Bard" finds that "of the [University of Florida's English] department's 2006 graduates, about 70 percent had taken courses in pre-1800 literature, and most of those had taken a course in Shakespeare." From the medieval perspective, then that means that at least 30% of graduates from the UF English Department have no medieval literature at all. I'd be willing to bet a bottle of mead that most of the remaining 70% have nothing but Shakespeare.
The article quotes R. Allen Shoaf (a well-respected Chaucerian for those not familiar with academic culture) as saying: "Students regularly come to my office lamenting the fact that they cannot take courses in poetry and early literature." From the Old English perspective, I'd also like to point out that the only two medievalists I noticed on the UF department webpage were Shoaf and James Paxon, making the department far more focused on Middle English. Of course, if they aren't even really offering the classes in Middle English either, I suppose it is irrelevant what sort of resources they have for classes they aren't going to teach anyway.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has been one of the groups keeping the Shakespeare issue in the spotlight, and I can only hope that their recognition that the problem only starts with Shakespeare will lead them to shine the light on medieval studies as well. It would be nice if some groups on the Left took up the cause, too.
Interestingly, the first comment on the ACTA blog seems to be trying to defend the situation, but unintentionally makes the point that UF not only offers an abundance of classes in non-medieval fields, but has entire programs within the Department dedicated to these other subfields.
In any case, I'd be willing to bet that the situation for medieval literature at University of Florida is common; it certainly mirrors the situation at every school with which I've associated.
As Professor Nokes notes, the problem is not just that Shakespeare is disappearing from the English curriculum. The problem is that the disappearance of Shakespeare requirements signals a much broader, more sweeping disappearance of older literatures, languages, and the specialists who teach them. To mix a metaphor, the vanishing Shakespeare is just the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by acta online at June 15, 2007 10:25 AM
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Comments
His profile on his blogspot lists "torturing students" as one of his three pleasures. Not a good start with me! Even if sympathetic to the cause. (Of medieval English, that is.)
Posted by: Mike at June 17, 2007 03:01 PM
Scherzo, "Mike"! Probably a joke! Such as when we used to refer affectionately to our courses in "Old Anguish" (almost invariably taught at 8 AM, four or five days weekly). Middle English (which I later also taught) was a breeze in comparison. But I hadn´t yet studied German before learning Old English.
The earlier literatures and languages of English are those which should have primacy of place in university English departments, not those of the last half-century or so (let alone the pop "culture" rubbish pimped in many English departments--see my June 2 blog on this colossal waste of time). For the latter is readily accessible to students without much specialist instruction, while the former require much more instruction and analysis for students to comprehend and appreciate.
Posted by: Jacques Albert at June 23, 2007 06:14 AM
It's probably OK for those in on the joke. I've probably -- undoubtedly -- tortured a good many in the course of my career. To outsiders, it's probably a flag. At the state university where I work, I wouldn't dare post anything like in my bio. And I don't think that's unreasonable.
Posted by: Mike at June 24, 2007 01:28 PM
Profs and university people in general are often cowed by campus pc naggin' nannies, feminist hyenas, Marxist jackals, career ˝victims of racism˝ et alii into a kind of Soviet-era pusillanimity that is truly risible. Students too these days, when many colleges and even universities are dragging the river for paying customers, are notoriously thin-skinned and resent irony and sarcasm from faculty, which in Aristotle is the genteel person's weapon.
Posted by: Jacques Albert at June 25, 2007 09:20 AM
Well, the bio in question is on a private web page--it isn't as if its his official, formal, departmental bio. Although that would make quite the c.v. line.
Regardless, while I suppose one might argue that the word "torture" does not normally evoke humor, it is rather obvious that in this context it is a joke and nothing more.
Posted by: Steven Taylor at June 28, 2007 09:34 AM