Dickens, Steinbeck, and Shakespeare Need Your Help

It's time to rescue the English departments

We place labels on things and then, for the purpose of time and convenience, stop thinking about them.

That’s all very human. We’re busy. We have things to do. Checking to see if the old labels remain accurate is seldom on our list.

But it’s important to realize that some people are counting on our inattention.

There are areas in modern society where, although the general impression that business is proceeding as usual, a significant change has taken place.

The news media is a noticeable example. Many an older consumer of television and newspaper news can recall when, for the most part, “reporters” – such a quaint term – just reported the news. They didn’t tell us how to interpret it.

Many a highly debatable issue is now reported as if all questions have been settled and there is only one possible conclusion: The one provided by the media. Journalism schools have changed their focus from preparing news reporters to unleashing cultural influencers.

And the fact that journalism’s status has stumbled into the basement tells you how the public feels.

But at least the public has noticed. Consider a less visible area: English departments. They are certainly not as controversial as the news media. To those of us who are no longer in school, they are faint memories.

And, in most cases, those memories are pleasant.

My English teachers in high school and college were amiable types who had a quiet reverence for Dickens, Orwell, Dickinson, Gide, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Hardy, and a host of others. Most of the writers that we studied were from England because that nation has the richest literary tradition, not because of any pro-British bias. If Bolivia had produced an equivalent academy of excellent writers, they would not have been neglected.

But then came a change; a new version of “The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers.” It didn’t involve invaders from outer space. This change was home-grown.

William Deresiewicz, former Yale English professor and author of The End of Solitude and Excellent Sheep, wrote in 2021 about the problem he encountered in the quest for tenure:

“Loving books is not why people are supposed to become English professors, and it hasn’t been for a long time. Loving books is scoffed at (or would be, if anyone ever copped to it). The whole concept of literature – still more, of art – has been discredited. Novels, poems, stories, plays: these are ‘texts,’ no different in kind from other texts. The purpose of studying them is not to appreciate or understand them; it is to ‘interrogate’ them for their ideological investments (in patriarchy, in white supremacy, in Western imperialism and ethnocentrism), and then to unmask and debunk them, to drain them of their poisonous persuasive power. The passions that are meant to draw people to the profession of literary study, these last many years, are not aesthetic; they are political.”

Deresiewicz said that in the first class of his first week in graduate school, the professor announced that “The most important thing for a first-year graduate student to do is to figure out where they stand ideologically.”

Deresiewicz loved teaching and guiding students, but he found that those tasks were increasingly becoming a territory for adjunct professors and instructors. Professors who gained tenure had to do so via research and published works. That time-consuming avenue was largely reserved for those who jumped on the ideological bandwagon.

Despite any touting of viewpoint diversity, some ideologies are more equal than others on the modern American campus. Quietly, very quietly, the ideologues have transformed English departments around the country. Sympathy cards should be sent to the graduate students and professors who once thought that a passion for Moby-Dick and Macbeth would be more important than one for Marx.

Michael W. Clune, an English professor at Case Western Reserve University, wrote a candid and brave essay in the November 29, 2024, issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. He notes:

“In reading articles and book manuscripts for peer review, or in reviewing files when conducting faculty job searches, I found that nearly every scholar now justifies their work in political terms. This interpretation of a novel or poem, that historical intervention, is valuable because it will contribute to the achievement of progressive political goals. Nor was this change limited to the humanities. Venerable scientific journals – such as Nature – now explicitly endorse political candidates; computer-science and math departments now present their work as advancing social justice. Claims in academic arguments are routinely judged in terms of their likely political effects.”

He wrote that essay in an issue of The Chronicle that is focused on what Donald Trump’s second term will mean for higher education. There should be no surprise that knees are shaking in academia.

It is sad that a natural response to Clune’s views is to wonder if he will suffer any retaliation for his candor. If his peers are wise, they will use his admonitions as a device to free English departments from an oppressive political monopoly. This is a chance for serious scholars to return to the uplifting and civilized atmosphere of genuine English departments.

Those who hesitate to do so should also note the title of Clune’s essay:

“We Asked for It.”