Chace's thesis that the growth of the public university system is one of the causes of decline in formal literature studies is suspect, to say the least.  It may well be the case that the relatively greater decline of English departments in public universities is a product, not a cause, of the general decline due to the myriad of other factors listed in Chace's article.  Public universities, perhaps more responsive to the demands of students, not to mention their parents, can be viewed in this context as reflecting the perceived needs of students, needs directly relevant to their current and future lives.  Private universities, on the other hand, as a perhaps overly-broad generality, are statistically more likely to have endowments which allow them to "stay the course," as it were, a little longer, reinforcing curricular moats that allow them to continue their rearguard, losing fight in the transformation of this aspect of American higher education.
Martin Zehr
Kansas City
-------------- Original message from "Kevin. Mac Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>: -------------- 


> > Finally, in order to make this appropriate to the Mark Twain Forum, 
> > Twain's work engages with the areas of cultural studies that Chace 
> > criticizes. Is it an accident that Mark Twain studies have flourished 
> > as concerns with race, class, gender, nationalism, economics, and 
> > politics have been embraced literary critics? 
> > --Larry Howe 
> > 
> 
> Twain has flourished because Twain is relevant, to use an over-used word. 
> Are English Depts relevant? How do students measure relevance? It doesn't 
> matter how we measure relevance; the students are the ones who make the 
> decision whether or not to major in the humanities. Not us. I notice that no 
> students were questioned (nor dolphins harmed) in the writing of that 
> article. For shame. 
> 
> Students (I must imagine, because nobody has asked them) may measure 
> relevance by whether the content of the studies relates to their personal 
> lives, their community, their heritage, their world, their future. More 
> particularly (again, I'm left no choice but to be imagining things), they 
> measure relevance by whether the time they invest in study will pay off in 
> the job market when they graduate. 
> 
> Twain certainly scores on the first count, but do English Depts? And unless 
> English Depts can connect the dots for students and explain --or better yet 
> demonstrate with solid data points-- how writing skills and a solid 
> foundation in literature will enrich their future (and their ability to get 
> a job) then they will not be seen as relevant. 
> 
> My own experience might be instructive (after all, I was once a student who 
> was never asked about the relevance of the courses that I took, or why I 
> took them). I earned my English degree in the early 70s, and quickly 
> realized my only job prospects were low-paying teaching positions. I have 
> nothing against teaching (my mother, wife, and daughter were/are teachers) 
> but I have a distaste for low pay. I'd also taken classical piano in college 
> (my childhood teacher was a late student of Lechetizsky, the teacher of 
> Clara Clemens, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Arthur Schnabel, et al) but I knew the 
> competition was fierce and that prodigies were a dime a dozen. So I earned a 
> masters in library science (chasing the Big Bucks I was). While working in a 
> rare book library, I figured out that antiquarian booksellers who sold us 
> books were having all the fun, traveling, handling a steady stream of 
> different and interesting books, and making money all the while. This was 
> nothing like my library job, so I went to the dark side and have never 
> looked back. And although I never cared much for math, math problems are a 
> lot more interesting when dollar signs lurk nearby. I still play piano and 
> write. 
> 
> It took me a few years to figure all this out back in the 70s, but I think 
> other students have figured it out faster than I did, like that student of 
> Larry's who put his math skills to work on derivatives. Of course, if that 
> student (and others like him) had spent more time in English Depts with 
> Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens, Flannery O'Connor, etc., perhaps he would have 
> developed better reading and writing skills, study disciplines, and critical 
> thinking, and he and his ilk might not have led our economy into a meltdown. 
> Shakespeare has a quote about where the fault lies that seems relevant 
> (there's that damn word again!) and Twain probably had something to say 
> about it too. 
> 
> Kevin 
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