“Once, in college, you might have studied Mansfield Park by looking closely at its form, references, style, and special marks of authorial genius—the way Vladimir Nabokov famously taught the novel, and an intensification of the way a reader on the subway experiences the book. Now you might write a paper about how the text enacts a tension by both constructing and subtly undermining the imperial patriarchy through its descriptions of landscape. What does this have to do with how most humans read? “
“The Death of the English Major” by Nathan Heller (you can read the entire article here) was published in The New Yorker February 27, 2023 issue. I read it and have considered Heller’s analysis–and there’s a lot of it!–for six weeks. Heller cites plenty of statistics to support his case that English departments face a death-spiral as students chose STEM majors instead of humanities majors. Right now, only 7% of college students chose to be English majors.
I graduated as an English Major (and a Political Science and Philosophy Major; Journalism and Education minors) in 1971. When I started working on my PhD. in English in 1991, I realized a lot of change had occurred in the focus of English Departments in 20 years. Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), the founder of “deconstruction,” a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but society dominated the approach to teaching…and learning. Other literary theorists like de Man, Foucault, John Searle, Willard Van Orman Quine, Peter Kreeft, and Jürgen Habermas changed the analysis of literary texts to applications of conceptual apparatus.
Here’s a sample of Derrida’s prose: “The enterprise of returning ‘strategically’, ‘ideally’, to an origin or to a priority thought to be simple, intact, normal, pure, standard, self-identical, in order then to think in terms of derivation, complication, deterioration, accident, etc. All metaphysicians, from Plato to Rousseau, Descartes to Husserl, have proceeded in this way, conceiving good to be before evil, the positive before the negative, the pure before the impure, the simple before the complex, the essential before the accidental, the imitated before the imitation, etc. And this is not just one metaphysical gesture among others, it is the metaphysical exigency, that which has been the most constant, most profound and most potent.” My eyes glaze over quickly when reading this style of writing.
Back in the 1970s, my English courses required term papers that centered on the novel or poem or essay with a large dollop of the concerns of the author mixed in. The intent was to help the students learn to write better and explore aspects of the literary work. In the 1990s, the term papers now danced with notions of gender identity, power relationships, and political/legal entanglements.
Most of the students in my Business Administration classes had one goal: learn skills and knowledge that would lead to a well paying job. I suspect most students view the contemporary English Departments with their abstract view of literature and writing to be a non-starter in their job search. Were you an English Major? Did you enjoy your English classes? GRADE: A
I almost majored in English — until I realized that doing so would involve reading a lot of rather dull books, and writing even duller papers about them.
Dan, I found some of the books in my English classes dull, but others very enjoyable! I wrote a few dull term papers, but then made better choices in English teachers who welcomed the more energetic papers I liked to write.
I was an English major in the 60s, (with history and philosophy courses mixed in) and so was just about everyone I knew in those days. Personally, I enjoyed it, and can’t see where it did any harm to my future employment life. I attempted to read Heller’s piece in The New Yorker, with an emphasis on “attempted”. I’m sure that issue is on my TNY stack, so maybe I’ll take another look.
Michael, Heller’s article is longish, but he lays his evidence out in detail. It’s a compelling article.
English major here too. Graduated in 1980 with a minor in History. Although I had always assumed I’d teach after graduation, I worked instead as a technical writer, proofreader, and copy editor for financial institutions and software companies that supported the financial industry for the better part of 20 years. After a few years as a stay-at-home mom, I finally did go to work in the public school system, where I have now worked for 20 years (first as a library aide and more recently as a classroom aide for special needs students). One of the skills my English degree gave me was the ability to summarize vast amounts of information and focus on key elements. I have mad skim-and-scan skills. A STEM career was never in the cards for me—that would have been square-peg-in-round-hole territory.
Deb, I like to think all of my English courses made me a better writer. My goal was to write like P.G. Wodehouse…but I have fallen short.
History major. A major in any of the liberal arts produces a better employee/citizen/dinner partner in my mind. They read widely, think about what they’re reading and acquire vasts amounts of knowledge of all liberal arts subjects. My son was a history major/lawyer; my daughter, an English Ph.D. I think neither regret that path.
Patti, there seems to be a push in most High Schools and Colleges to steer students to STEM majors. I’m all for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but it helps to be able to read and write competently. At my College 40% of the incoming students–based on placement exams–had to take remedial reading and writing courses.
English major here. Liberal arts gave me the skills to think clearly, to present arguments concisely, and to adapt to almost any work environment. It also came in handy during my stint as a reporter, allowing me to explain complex issues to a varied audience. What it did not do wa teach me to spell. **sigh**
Jerry, same here. I’m a terrible speller and it doesn’t help that WORDPRESS’s spell check mis-spells words that I do spell correctly!
English minor, Journalism major, long ago (1968-72) and at a politically moderate university. The English classes I took were fairly traditional, although Feminism was just beginning to enter the curriculum in a small way. I would echo my friends’ comments about the value of a liberal arts education.
Fred, I started out as a Journalism Major but drifted into English (and Political Science and Philosophy). In my College days, 1967-1971, Feminism was just emerging in the curriculum.
Yes, I loved my English classes and was undecided between History and English as a major. (Finally went with History) I took several drama courses that took a more or less chronological way of teaching, and I used to read up to 100 plays A YEAR. I went through Noel Coward and Eugene O’Neill the same year! It helped that I had the same professor for three drama classes. Also studied a lot of the British and American classics, though I still haven’t gotten through MIDDLEMARCH.
I agree on Derrida and the like. He is the perfect cure for insomnia. Five minutes and I’m nodding off.
Jeff, Diane used to read a 100 plays (or more!) a year, too! That was just one of things that attracted me to her (along with her red hair!). I took a couple drama classes, too, and enjoyed them.
Usually Jeff slips in my comments, but this was irresistible. First of all, a shout out to our forever friend Bill Crider probably the best English professor ever! now for my sad story. History was always going to be my major but I toyed with being a writer. One of the required English courses I took was Writing with Richard Ellmann, who was Joyce’s biographer and a visiting professor at Hunter (from Yale) that year. He assigned a humorous piece first and delighted in humiliating the class by reading poor examples aloud. I was selected to read my piece because he said it was the only one he liked. It was a humorous take on Great Expectations. Great start with an “A”. Unfortunately, once we got into descriptive writing and poetry I was no longer a standout. At the end of the term he gave me a “D”. Several of my male friends were in the class. They did no better than I did and got “C”. I asked Ellmann why and he said “You won’t be drafted.” That marked the end of my writiing career. He was famous but awful.
Jackie
Now I want to toss his bios of Joyce and Yeats! What a jerk!
👹
This is how I remember the jerk.
Jackie
Jackie, I learned early on in College to find out who were the really Good professors…and who were the Bad Ones. I really only had one really Bad professor and that was because he was the only one who taught the required class I needed to graduate.
Ah. One reason I dropped out of Conflict Resolution, as a result of over-inflation of the program’s student intake in a fit of excessive optimism was that one non-teaching professor was pressed into service, very much against her will, and was an atrocious lecturer and a spiteful grader. She didn’t like my speaking up in class at all…and her first exam resulted in two students getting Bs, my getting the only C, and everyone else in the class of about 15 getting Fs. Everyone else.
Our statistics professor in the program, actually a lecturer, was a PhD. candidate trying to teach we MA candidates her own worst subject (and my own worst subject in the social sciences). Students in the class were more adept at it than she was. (My Psychological Statistics professor at UH had a lecture style that was an Indecipherable Drone through a bad PA system in our lecture hall, and that wasn’t a very good experience, either.)
Todd, I tried to stay away from Bad and not so Good professors. I had some quirky professors that other students didn’t understand, but I appreciated their weirdness and obsessions.
Thelma Z. Lavine taught a 500-leve graduate cross-disciplinary course at George Mason U, where I finished up my BA (English: Writing and Editing) and began grad school per se (Conflict Resolution, since I didn’t want to go to George Mason’s law school (already deeply devoted to Chicago School Law and Politics and now the Antonin Scalia School of Law) and the U DC law school, which had been Antioch’s law school, had just lost accreditation. I was much happier paying for a semester of GMU grad school than I was contemplating paying for American or Georgetown, if I could get in. End of digression.).
Lavine, most famous for the book and PBS series FROM SOCRATES TO SARTRE, taught a course in English and Philosophy, and the structuralists and Derrida and the deconstructionists loomed large. She hated all my papers, but liked that as one of the two undergrads in her class of about 25, I was the only one who would argue with her in session, and damned near the only one who would speak up in class without much prompting or a direct question, and gave me a B. I was fine with that.
But, yes, I dig various means of interpretation, but the New Critics eschewal of Nothing But Text at mid-century was no more intelligent, in most application, than the Deconstructionists’ similar demands in their direction. Oddly enough, work doesn’t exist in vacuums. Attempts to remake critique into a science only go so far, and then up the fundament they trundle on.
As a writing student, our albatross was the notable tendency among the poetry students to Rilly Rilly FEEL Jim Morrison, the poet, Myan. And this in 1986-87, as I finished up, having started at the University of Hawaii in 1982-1983. Robert Onopa and A. A. Attanasio among my writing professors there Al as a last-minute replacement for humorist and scriptwriter Jack Douglas, who decided he wasn’t up to it. Don Gallehr of AWP among the writing profs at GMU.
Mine is an everywhere and nowhere kind of degree, but it’s a degree, and I did learn some useful skills.
Todd, anything that helps you learn is worth it. I happened to have some wonderful professors and they inspired me.
Started out as a sociology major but had to drop it when I realized I would never pass statistics. I dropped out of Michigan State and went to work at Pontiac Motors. Several years later I enrolled at Oakland University as a English major/ History minor. I did very well there for the most part. the only course I didn’t like was Philosophy. I tried to get into film school at Univ of Michigan but they wanted you to submit a storyboarded scene along with your application. I have zero drawing ability so that was a bust. If accepted I would have been in a class with Paul Schrader.
Steve, I know I passed on a couple of academic programs because they required a foreign Language. I qualified for my PhD. program when I argued that I was fluent in BASIC and COBOL–computer software languages–and the Acceptance Committee accepted that.