1/20/2020 Ross Douthat: The Academic Apocalypse and the Crisis in English Departments!

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Ross Douthat: The Academic

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Dear Commons Community, October 2018
September 2018
New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat,  this morning has a piece on the
August 2018
crisis occurring in English Departments in our colleges and universities.  I
July 2018
have posted on this blog a number of times on issues facing the
June 2018
humanities.  Entitled, The Academic Apocalypse, Douthat takes the issue
May 2018
to the general public and declares that the crisis of English Departments
April 2018
“is also a crisis of faith.”  He may be right.  He ventures into the Western
March 2018
Canon debates and concludes that:
February 2018
January 2018
“…the irony is that the very forces that have undermined strictly Western
December 2017
and white-male approaches to canon-making have also made it easier than
November 2017
ever to assemble a diverse inheritor. This should, by rights, be a moment of
October 2017
exciting curricular debates, over which global and rediscovered and post-
September 2017
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colonial works belong on the syllabus with Shakespeare, over whether it’s August 2017
possible to teach an American canon and a global canon all at once. July 2017
Instead, humanists have often trapped themselves in a false choice June 2017
between “dead white males” and “we don’t transmit value.” May 2017
April 2017
Douthat provides us with a provocative, if not poignant, commentary. March 2017
February 2017
The entire piece is below. January 2017
December 2016
Tony November 2016
October 2016
—————————————————————————————————————
September 2016
August 2016
The Academic Apocalypse
July 2016
June 2016
The crisis of English departments is also a crisis of faith.
May 2016

By Ross Douthat April 2016

March 2016
Opinion Columnist February 2016
January 2016
Jan. 11, 2020 December 2015
November 2015
This column tries to keep its cool, but last week I briefly surrendered to crisis October 2015
and existential dread, to the sense that an entire world is dissolving underneath September 2015
our feet — institutions crumbling, authorities corrupted, faith in the whole August 2015
experiment evaporating. July 2015
June 2015
How did I enter this apocalyptic mood? Not by reading about Trump’s May 2015
Washington or the Middle East, but by downloading a package of essays from April 2015
The Chronicle of Higher Education on the academic world that helped educate March 2015
me — the humanities and especially the study of literature, whose apparently- February 2015
terminal condition makes the condition of the American Republic look like ruddy January 2015
health. December 2014
November 2014
The package’s title is a single word, “Endgame,” and its opening text reads like October 2014
the crawl for a disaster movie. “The academic study of literature is no longer on September 2014
the verge of field collapse. It’s in the midst of it.” Jobs are disappearing, August 2014
subfields are evaporating, enrollment has tanked, and amid the wreckage the July 2014
custodians of humanism are “befuddled and without purpose.” June 2014
May 2014
The Chronicle essays cover administrative and political battles, the transformed April 2014
hiring process, the rebellions of graduate students, and the golfing-under-a- March 2014
volcano aspects of the Modern Language Association conference. But the February 2014
central essays are the ones that deal with the existential questions, the ways January 2014
that humanism tries — and lately fails — to justify itself. December 2013
November 2013
In the most interesting one, the University of Melbourne’s Simon During portrays
October 2013
the decline of the humanities as a new form of secularization, an echo of past
September 2013
crises of established Christian faith. Once consecrated in place of Christianity,
August 2013
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he suggests, high culture is now experiencing its own crisis of belief: Like July 2013
revelation and tradition before it, “the value of a canon … can no longer be June 2013
assumed,” leaving the humane pursuits as an option for eccentrics rather than May 2013
something essential for an educated life. April 2013
March 2013
During’s essay is very shrewd, and anyone who has considered secularization in February 2013
a religious context will recognize truths in the parallels it draws. But at the same January 2013
time they will also recognize the genre to which it belongs: a statement of December 2012
regretful unbelief that tries to preserve faith in a more attenuated form (maybe November 2012
“our canon does not bear any absolute truth and beauty,” but we don’t want to October 2012
live with an “empty heritage” or “disown and waste the pasts that have formed September 2012
us”) and to make it useful to some other cause, like the wider left-wing struggle August 2012
against neoliberalism. July 2012
June 2012
And if there’s any lesson that the decline of Christianity holds for the painful May 2012
death of the English department, it’s that if you aspire to keep your faith alive April 2012
even in a reduced, non-hegemonic form, you need more than attenuated belief March 2012
and socially-useful applications. February 2012
January 2012
A thousand different forces are killing student interest in the humanities and December 2011
cultural interest in high culture, and both preservation or recovery depend on November 2011
more than just a belief in truth and beauty, a belief that “the best that has been
October 2011
thought and said” is not an empty phrase. But they depend at least on that September 2011
belief, at least on the ideas that certain books and arts and forms are superior, August 2011
transcendent, at least on the belief that students should learn to value these
July 2011
texts and forms before attempting their critical dissection. June 2011
May 2011
This is not a dead belief in the humanities; I know many professors, most of
April 2011
them political liberals, for whom it is essential. But it is a contested belief, which
March 2011
is why the other key essays in the Chronicle package stage an argument on
February 2011
exactly this subject — with Michael Clune of Case Western insisting that the
January 2011
humanities must offer “judgment” on what is worth reading, and G. Gabrielle
December 2010
Starr and Kevin Dettmar of Pomona answering that no, humanists can only
November 2010
really “teach disciplinary procedures and habits of mind … we model a style of
October 2010
engagement, of critical thought: we don’t transmit value.”
September 2010
August 2010
The Starr-Dettmar belief was my alma mater’s philosophy when I was an
July 2010
undergraduate; back then our so-called “core” curriculum promised to teach us
June 2010
“approaches to knowledge” rather than the thing itself. It was, and remains, an
May 2010
insane view for humanists to take, a unilateral disarmament in the contest for
April 2010
student hearts and minds; no other discipline promises to teach only a style of
March 2010
thinking and not some essential substance.
February 2010
January 2010
And the irony is that the very forces that have undermined strictly Western and
December 2009
white-male approaches to canon-making have also made it easier than ever to
November 2009
assemble a diverse inheritor. This should, by rights, be a moment of exciting
curricular debates, over which global and rediscovered and post-colonial works
belong on the syllabus with Shakespeare, over whether it’s possible to teach an
American canon and a global canon all at once. Instead, humanists have often
Meta
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1/20/2020 Ross Douthat: The Academic Apocalypse and the Crisis in English Departments! | Tony's Thoughts

trapped themselves in a false choice between “dead white males” and “we Register
don’t transmit value.” Log in

Escaping that dichotomy will not restore the academic or intellectual worlds of
70 years ago. But the path to recovery begins there, with a renewed faith not
only in humanism’s methods and approaches, but in the very thing itself.

T HIS ENTRY I S L I C ENS ED U ND ER A CR EAT I V E CO MM O NS ATT R IB UT I ON -

NONCO MMERCI A L-S HAR EAL IKE 4 .0 I NT ER N AT IONA L L I C E NSE.

B OO KMA R K TH E P ERM ALI NK .

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