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The Shakespeare buzz, contd.
Prompted by ACTA's recent study, The Vanishing Shakespeare, Florida's Gainesville Sun reports on the state of the English major at the University of Florida. The result is an intriguing case study of a department that is gradually but decisively abandoning its commitment to teaching older literature.
UF has an "open curriculum," and does not require majors to take Shakespeare. Majors choose a "model" concentration and follow its recommendations and requirements. None of the models requires Shakespeare, though the drama model "expects" that students will take Shakespeare and the medieval/early modern and British literature models allow Shakespeare to count toward their distribution requirements.
An informal survey recently revealed that about 70% of UF English majors had taken a course in literature written before 1800, and that most of those had taken a Shakespeare course. But trouble is brewing. By UF's own accounting, about a third of English majors not only do not take Shakespeare, but do not take any courses in older literature. And the era of healthy Shakespeare enrollments may also be drawing to a close. Currently, UF has six faculty members who teach Shakespeare. But two are retiring, and the department does not know if it has the resources to fill their places. Shakespeare offerings may well be cut as a result.
The shrinking of the pool of faculty able to teach Shakespeare points, in turn, to a broader problem at UF:
R. Allen Shoaf, who specializes in the medieval period but also teaches Shakespeare at UF, says he definitely believes there's a dearth of courses for students who want to learn about early writers like Shakespeare.
"Students regularly come to my office lamenting the fact that they cannot take courses in poetry and early literature," said Shoaf, 59. "I'll stand by that because it's a fact."
Of the 159 upper division courses offered in the English department in the 2006-2007 academic year, UF offered nine courses that named Shakespeare in their titles.
Shoaf describes faculty who teach "early" literature--from Old English to, say, 1775--as an increasingly rare species in UF's English department. Faculty teaching early literature are "outnumbered four to one" by those in film and American literature, and the plurality of faculty in the department garners the greatest influence when the department decides which areas to grow through hiring, he said.
[...]
According to Gilbert, the department's chair, English faculty agree that a hire needs to be made in early modern literature, which would encompass the Renaissance period and Shakespeare. But that ranks third on the list of expected hires, and the department only has assurances that one hire will be made next year, she said.
Critics charge that in an effort to chase what's hip in the English field--the study of comic books, for instance--the department has neglected core areas of literature, including Shakespeare. The departmen''s most recent hires have been in composition, African-American studies, children's literature and early American literature, which is a major growth area at UF.
"The danger of valuing only what's new is it gets old very quickly," said Peter Rudnytsky, an English professor who teaches Shakespeare.
The department has hired "what's new" with such fervor, Rudnytsky added, that it will be difficult to get back on track and form a solid base of faculty qualified to teach early writers like Shakespeare.
"I think we may have passed the tipping point," said Rudnytsky, 55.
In this article, UF's own English faculty members paint a self-portrait that mirrors ACTA's broad characterization of English departments nationwide. Students may still flock to Shakespeare courses, but the department itself is devaluing older literature in favor of more contemporary trends; hiring patterns centered on fashionable new niches are reflected in course offerings disproportionately devoted to those niches; retirement patterns correlate strongly with the narrowing of course offerings in earlier literature; the major "models" lean heavily toward contemporary literature and cultural theory. And students eager for a more balanced and comprehensive literary education are caught in the breach.
Shakespeare may be the one early author who has weathered UF's curricular revisions fairly well. But it looks as though lack of departmental commitment--evidenced in major requirements and hiring patterns--may soon affect students' ability to study his work.
Posted by acta online at June 11, 2007 01:58 PM
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Comments
It is disturbing that literatures before 1800 -- and poetry in general -- are getting the short end of the stick. At the same time, I'm not sure the journalist did a good job looking into the faculty spread. It's difficult to pigeonhole many of their professors in one field, but at the bottom, you'll find an informal categorization.
There's a big contradiction here: "Critics charge that in an effort to chase what's hip in the English field--the study of comic books, for instance--the department has neglected core areas of literature, including Shakespeare. The departmen''s most recent hires have been in composition, African-American studies, children's literature and early American literature, which is a major growth area at UF." Composition, African-American Lit, children's lit, and early American lit are where the hires go, not to "hip" areas like comic book studies.
Also, let's remember that the English Department at UF is home to a Creative Writing Program, a Film and Media Studies Program, the Center for Children's Literature and Culture, and the Institute for Psychological Study of the Arts. So you have many film and creative writing professors, but there are in separate programs within the English department. Once you account for that, the distribution of faculty seems fairly decent.
Faculty at UF......
Medieval: 2
Early Modern: 6
Early American: 3
18th century Lit: 2
19th century British and American (no specialization): 5
Romanticists: 2
Victorianists: 2
Twentieth Century Lit: 3
Americanists (no specialization): 4
African and African Diaspora: 4
Chicano/a Lit: 1
Postcolonial Lit: 2
Film and Media: 7
Theory: 1
Rhet/Comp: 4
Children's Lit: 2
Creative Writing: 8
Comp Lit: 1
Linguistics: 1
Folklore: 1
Posted by: Linval Thompson at June 11, 2007 03:25 PM
"fairly decent" to LT, a lay commentator who´s never taught at college or university. As a veteran English professor who´s taught the a variety of English and Comp Lit courses (including Middle English Chaucer and Shakespeare), I find the imbalance in LT´s list appalling, even if one considers flick studies, rhet (unless taught by quasi-classicists), etudes ethniques, "creative" writing, etc. legimimate English specialties that require specialists to teach them (I don´t). Only two medievalists, one linguist and no specialists at all in bibliography and research methods. A disgrace, tout court. . . .
Posted by: Jacques Albert at June 22, 2007 06:47 AM
Please excuse the typos, zal mi je--I´ve yet to manage increasing font size on this Slovenian computer. . . .
Posted by: Jacques Albert at June 23, 2007 05:06 AM