Manifesto: Making the English Major Relevant
So, my postcolonialism professor and I were discussing major requirements, and how the UCLA department is far too canonical, and how students should be allowed more latitute in making their own decisions as to what they'll study. This email came out of my subsequent agitation:
Professor Sharpe,
I’ve been thinking about our conversation regarding major requirements,
and I’ve realized that one of my fundamental assumptions about how this
department views undergraduates is incorrect. That assumption is that
this department seriously takes into account what is important to
undergraduate students. Rather, I believe that undergraduate students are
viewed as passive receptacles for information whose opinions, experiences
and interests are impediments which must be overcome in order for the
dogma of the English Literary Discipline to be passed on intact and
unchanged. I think that this kind of single-minded pedagogy is a
detriment to the learning process, because when faculty believe that
undergraduates are innately disinterested in what they’re teaching, and
when there is no value placed on whatever it is that interests
undergraduate students, then, of course, the assumption that
undergraduates are disinterested in older texts becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
My solution would be for faculty to open up the discussion to
undergraduate students, ask them what interests them, and to make a
serious effort to work alongside, rather than against, students’
interests. Also, I believe that the only requirements should be three
well-taught surveys, which not only deal with historical characteristics,
but also with thematics. Personally, I believe that periodization itself
is a detriment to a broad education in English literature, in that the
very characteristics which define these periods privilege older,
predominantly British, white, male texts and all other texts are
necessarily marginalized because they don’t cleanly fit into those categories.
Finally, I think it’s an insult to undergraduates to say that we choose
classes because they are “easier.” As English majors, we understand that
any text, no matter when it was written, is difficult. Rather, we tend to
be more interested in contemporary literature because
1. there is often little effort to imbue older texts with relevance
outside of a purely literary history. This may be interesting to people
in the field, but as students our experiences are based on the outside
world, and we don’t want to believe that all that is important is this
constructed notion of literary “tradition” and that our own experiences
are null, and should be quickly forgotten, in order that we can better
integrate ourselves into English Literary Scholarship.
2. Contemporary literature speaks to our personal experiences in a more
explicit way. This does not make it easier, as often this literature
subverts our expectations and experiences. Rather, contemporary
literature engages with the world with which we are familiar, and I think
that that’s what most young people studying English truly want-relevance.
We’re too young to settle on the idea that English is in a bubble, and
that its primary discourse is with other people in the field as this is
necessarily disenchanting. Rather, I believe that we want to feel that
our material is relevant, because, as young people, we want to engage
with contemporary society, and, probably, to make it better. If older
texts demonstrate that they have a meaningful place in today’s society,
and I believe that they do, then students will be interested in them.
I’m sorry that this email is so long, but in the course of writing it I
have realized why there is so much apathy in English literature students.
Most of us want to do something meaningful, and meaningful to us (with
all of our young adult, idealistic zeal) means actively engaging with the
outside world. And I do not believe that this impulse should be stifled.
In fact, I believe that this impulse would be beneficial for English as a
discipline, as many more promising young minds would not become
disenchanted with the English literary scholarship, and to the outside
world, English would become something vital to society, rather than mere
intellectual indulgence.
I know that this is the general attitude towards English, as people ask
what I will do after graduation, and how is my field relevant to the
“real world”. I mean, in the musical Avenue Q, there’s a song called
“What can you do with a B.A. in English?” which satirizes the English
major, and how useless it is outside of academia. And academics can
scoff, saying that the opinion of mainstream society is irrelevant, but I
believe that this indicates an important issue in the study of English,
especially at UCLA. There is so much focus on canon and literary
tradition that we lose sight of the outside world, and when you can’t
prove your relevance to that outside world, your discipline becomes
phased-out because of disinterest. Academia and the outside world are not
separate spheres, and I think that undergraduates are acutely aware of
this, and that this insight would be beneficial to the discipline as a whole.
My point is that undergraduates fundamentally want the English major to
be relevant to outside world, and this impulse should be fostered, rather
than repudiated, by the department.
What I ask, then, is what I can do to have undergraduate interests better
represented? The rest, I suppose, is up to me.
Thank you very much, if only for reading this entire email.
Sincerely,
April Ledbetter
Professor Sharpe,
I’ve been thinking about our conversation regarding major requirements,
and I’ve realized that one of my fundamental assumptions about how this
department views undergraduates is incorrect. That assumption is that
this department seriously takes into account what is important to
undergraduate students. Rather, I believe that undergraduate students are
viewed as passive receptacles for information whose opinions, experiences
and interests are impediments which must be overcome in order for the
dogma of the English Literary Discipline to be passed on intact and
unchanged. I think that this kind of single-minded pedagogy is a
detriment to the learning process, because when faculty believe that
undergraduates are innately disinterested in what they’re teaching, and
when there is no value placed on whatever it is that interests
undergraduate students, then, of course, the assumption that
undergraduates are disinterested in older texts becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
My solution would be for faculty to open up the discussion to
undergraduate students, ask them what interests them, and to make a
serious effort to work alongside, rather than against, students’
interests. Also, I believe that the only requirements should be three
well-taught surveys, which not only deal with historical characteristics,
but also with thematics. Personally, I believe that periodization itself
is a detriment to a broad education in English literature, in that the
very characteristics which define these periods privilege older,
predominantly British, white, male texts and all other texts are
necessarily marginalized because they don’t cleanly fit into those categories.
Finally, I think it’s an insult to undergraduates to say that we choose
classes because they are “easier.” As English majors, we understand that
any text, no matter when it was written, is difficult. Rather, we tend to
be more interested in contemporary literature because
1. there is often little effort to imbue older texts with relevance
outside of a purely literary history. This may be interesting to people
in the field, but as students our experiences are based on the outside
world, and we don’t want to believe that all that is important is this
constructed notion of literary “tradition” and that our own experiences
are null, and should be quickly forgotten, in order that we can better
integrate ourselves into English Literary Scholarship.
2. Contemporary literature speaks to our personal experiences in a more
explicit way. This does not make it easier, as often this literature
subverts our expectations and experiences. Rather, contemporary
literature engages with the world with which we are familiar, and I think
that that’s what most young people studying English truly want-relevance.
We’re too young to settle on the idea that English is in a bubble, and
that its primary discourse is with other people in the field as this is
necessarily disenchanting. Rather, I believe that we want to feel that
our material is relevant, because, as young people, we want to engage
with contemporary society, and, probably, to make it better. If older
texts demonstrate that they have a meaningful place in today’s society,
and I believe that they do, then students will be interested in them.
I’m sorry that this email is so long, but in the course of writing it I
have realized why there is so much apathy in English literature students.
Most of us want to do something meaningful, and meaningful to us (with
all of our young adult, idealistic zeal) means actively engaging with the
outside world. And I do not believe that this impulse should be stifled.
In fact, I believe that this impulse would be beneficial for English as a
discipline, as many more promising young minds would not become
disenchanted with the English literary scholarship, and to the outside
world, English would become something vital to society, rather than mere
intellectual indulgence.
I know that this is the general attitude towards English, as people ask
what I will do after graduation, and how is my field relevant to the
“real world”. I mean, in the musical Avenue Q, there’s a song called
“What can you do with a B.A. in English?” which satirizes the English
major, and how useless it is outside of academia. And academics can
scoff, saying that the opinion of mainstream society is irrelevant, but I
believe that this indicates an important issue in the study of English,
especially at UCLA. There is so much focus on canon and literary
tradition that we lose sight of the outside world, and when you can’t
prove your relevance to that outside world, your discipline becomes
phased-out because of disinterest. Academia and the outside world are not
separate spheres, and I think that undergraduates are acutely aware of
this, and that this insight would be beneficial to the discipline as a whole.
My point is that undergraduates fundamentally want the English major to
be relevant to outside world, and this impulse should be fostered, rather
than repudiated, by the department.
What I ask, then, is what I can do to have undergraduate interests better
represented? The rest, I suppose, is up to me.
Thank you very much, if only for reading this entire email.
Sincerely,
April Ledbetter