"Advice To College Students: Don't Major in English"

From seemingly out of nowhere comes this attack on English departments across the nation. Now it's nothing to get too worked up about on the surface--seems to me that Schlafly is going for shock value here and little more, but it is hard to let a comment like this pass without notice: " That's why it was no surprise that Cho Seung-Hui, the murderer of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech, was an English major." What a ridiculous assertion--one that the author doesn't even attempt to support in her column. This kind of discourse--where the barbed attack, the killer soundbite becomes the whole story--makes me genuinely sad. And it comes from both sides of the political spectrum.

Beyond that, though, she is simply wrong. When I heard that Cho Seung-Hui was an English major, I was more surprised than anything else. Yes, maybe that says something about how proud I am of my discipline, but I stand by that assertion. Let me take this point a bit further: to imply that English courses made this kid a murderer is so crazy and anti-intellectual that the author should be ashamed. In addition, as we look back on this tragic event and wonder what could have been done to prevent it, please note that it was his English teachers who made the most attempts to help him--to do something to stop him. See here and here for articles discussing their attempts. An English class, where students are free to discuss their ideas and their interpretations of texts and writings, is one of the few spaces where this kind of realization can happen. Yes, in this case, their efforts didn't work, but not for lack of trying.

And here's where I get really idealistic, I suppose: Schlafly implies that an English major that asks students to read newer additions to the curriculum (including, horror of horrors--works by women and minorities!) is a waste of time and money. She couldn't be more wrong. An English major that continues to embrace both the classics (however you want to define them) but also pays attention to shifting critical and cultural debates--that isn't afraid to adjust as attitudes change--is precisely the kind of degree that can change the world. Those who know me well know that I am far from a left-wing radical--about as far away as you can be and still be in a humanities branch of academia. But you cannot tell me that classes I've taught with titles like "Creepy Literature" and "Shocking and Scandalous Nineteenth-Century Literature" aren't worth teaching--that they don't teach students about what makes a text worth reading and how we can use literature to understand ourselves, our history, our world, and the people around us. To me, there's nothing inherently political about that--nothing left-wing or liberal about it.

Furthermore, it's equally ridiculous to act as if the traditional canon isn't also full of violence, alienation, and questions about race, sex, sexuality, and class. Ever really read Shakespeare, Phyllis? Chaucer's "Wife of Bath"? Isn't she a model of good family values! How about Whitman? Or Thoreau? And how about those ancient Greeks?

Okay--I could go on and on, but I'll stop for now. In a little while, I have to go teach my English 204 class. On the agenda for today, Henry Louis Gates' Colored People, a fascinating memoir about growing up black in West Virginia in the 1950s, written by one of the leading academics in the world today. Wonder how Schlafly would feel about that...