Posted on 03/04/2023 7:46:27 AM PST by C19fan
The New Yorker is a magazine that I have barely noticed for decades. It is the epitome of the “New York groupthink” that I mention on my “About” page.
But the current issue has a long (10,000+ words) piece by a guy named Nathan Heller, titled “The End of the English Major,” that I thought might be worth a look. Perhaps here we might find some liberal introspection about how infesting everything you control with racialist and gender obsessions and Critical Race Theory might not be such a great idea.
Who was I trying to kid? What this article actually shows is that a fancy New Yorker writer can produce 10,000 words about the demise of the English major, and more generally about the demise of essentially all humanities departments at universities, without ever mentioning the takeover of those departments by the racialist radical left.
(Excerpt) Read more at manhattancontrarian.com ...
Oh, the Humanities!
(Sorry, couldn’t resist)
The sooner you know it, the better. Don't ever buy a lemon product.
The decline of my major, history, has been the mainstreaming of Presentism and the over use of Marxist analysis and deconstruction. There are many subsets of these applications of thought but most can be summed up in the 1619 project as an example. They are applied and touted but the woke regime of university professors with their ivory tower delusions and social justice dreams.
There are likely many other reasons or than these two but getting into them all would be 10,000+ word essay of my rants on the field. My ramblings are not worth the lost time to inflict on others unlike the woke Don Quixotes and utopians.
Oh the manatees! /sarc
In no relation do blubbery sea cows resemble much of the professors of woke institutions.
I saw a standup comedian on TV a while back who fielded a question from the audience. He was asked: “Was standup always your professional choice?” He responded no, and that he did go to college and majored in history. He went on to say: “Imagine my surprise when I graduated and found out all the history factories were closed!”
I think that the woke revolution has lot blame for demoting or forgetting classical authors, but a huge chunk of the humanities studies loss is the focus on STEM and non-western students. Many Chinese and other foreign nation students come here to train but only take enough English courses to understand the language not the literature nor the parsing of English. The foreign students don’t give a dang about Shakespeare, Yeats, Chaucer, and other new Western writers. The universities know were much of thier cash flow is coming from and English literature and writing studies are not it in 50k to 100k a year universities.
“The decline of my major, history, has been the mainstreaming of Presentism and the over use of Marxist analysis and deconstruction.”
Exactly. Timothy Snyder’s history of Ukraine course is on YouTube. It is excellent.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNewfxO7LhBoz_1Mx1MaO6sw_
Much of the first lecture is an attack on modernist history teaching and how it has left the West unprepared for understanding events like the Ukraine War.
When major events happen it is the military, economic, and geographical facts that matter. All the cultural and critical studies nonsense means nothing.
“Many Chinese and other foreign nation students come here to train but only take enough English courses to understand the language not the literature nor the parsing of English. “
The interesting other side to that is if you want to find traditional studies of the Western Cannon go to China.
The Chinese version of the SAT asks students to show the understanding of the works of Beethoven, Aristotle, Thomas Edison, and many other great white men that don’t get more than a passing mention in American high schools.
A 3 year degree program is in order. Too many worthless classes REQUIRED on too many subjects. 5-6 years to get a worthless 4 year degree. Perhaps more would complete a 3 year program when they can better see the light at the end of the tunnel. The current system serves only guess who?
Emphasize community colleges and the trades. A trimester system would allow students to complete a 2 year program earlier and go to work. No wasted summers.
Don’t confuse the issue with logic. That’s what I say.
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