Lit programs that have not succumbed to postmodernism/cultural studies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at Holy Cross. A great classics dept, the only Jesuit liberal arts college, and a great track record getting students into law, medicine and PhD programs.

You mean the Holy Cross English department that offers

“ Interdisciplinary courses cross-listed with Africana Studies; Catholic Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies; and Peace and Conflict Studies”?

Jesuits have always cared about marginalized people. The focus is on inquiry and critical reading — not indoctrination. For example, the Gender studies group condemned the over-turning of Roe v Wade, while others at the school applauded it. It will be debated, but students are not taught a right answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. A lot of people are missing the point. Traditional literary scholarship does not mean "there's only one proper way of reading and that's it." It's just a rejection of faddish ideological interpretations. It's about literary quality not identity politics.

There are many fine authors from outside the US and Europe. For example Borges and Vargas Llosa in Latin America. But you don't see Identity Politics practitioners championing them because they don't have the right politics (or maybe they're dismissed as "white" rather than "POC")?

So to be clear you don’t think it’s worthwhile because it offends your political sensibilities. Has nothing to do with academic inquiry or the idea that the study of literature can evolve over the years. You probably championed the J Evan’s Pritchett method of evaluating poetry.

I don't defend academic standards because I'm a political conservative. FWIW I consider myself a social democrat and a person of the left. My political heroes are FDR and Willy Brandt.

But woke ideology comes at the expense of rigor and serious textual reading. Valorizing identity over quality.

[Anonymous]

When it looks like a nut and sounds like a nut, it is a nut.

[Anonymous]

Will all those who are criticizing postmodernism (which is not actually an analytical framework, but rather a general disposition shared by certain analytical methodologies) and cultural studies please furnish working definitions of them here? The over-jargoning of academic discourse is neither unique to cultural studies nor necessary for its practice. Bad writing is bad writing no matter its subject, content, or argumentation. But cultural studies is part of the intellectual justification for reading literature in its social and historical context.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:St. John's College (Annapolis). Hillsdale College. Grove City College. Certain colleges in Oxford and Cambridge. Princeton. Notre Dame.

Surely these schools have the proper approach!

[Anonymous]

What's Reed like nowadays? It was known to be academically traditionalist with a left-wing student body. But its student body protested against the humanities curriculum a few years ago and the administration ceded to most of their demands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The late great Harold Bloom warned how literary studies was taken over by cultural studies, i.e. not reading the great works at all or "reading" Shakespeare and Dickens through faddish ideological lenses (feminist, Marxist, por-modernist). Traditional literary scholars are in the minority.

At what colleges these days can one get a serious education in literature these days?

Not "faddish" lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see you're not a big fan of tolerance or freedom of expression.

Or they have standards..

I have a Ph.D. in psychology, which is not nearly as bad as the humanities has become, and have taught in universities. I am also a liberal. I can tell you that in academia, the type of environment the OP is concerned about is characterized by the opposite of tolerance and freedom of expression.

I have an MFA in creative writing, from a program that was very lit heavy, and ugh -- I wish I could disagree with you. But I can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at Holy Cross. A great classics dept, the only Jesuit liberal arts college, and a great track record getting students into law, medicine and PhD programs.

You mean the Holy Cross English department that offers

“ Interdisciplinary courses cross-listed with Africana Studies; Catholic Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies; and Peace and Conflict Studies”?

Jesuits have always cared about marginalized people. The focus is on inquiry and critical reading — not indoctrination. For example, the Gender studies group condemned the over-turning of Roe v Wade, while others at the school applauded it. It will be debated, but students are not taught a right answer.

Ah… so non-Catholics are indoctrinating… because you say so? Sorry, but I don’t buy it. What I see in my kid’s humanities classes at an ultra- “woke” SLAC— as reflected by papers he’s sent me to read — are closely reasoned arguments relying on primary source material, and to the extent that there are criticisms, they are comments like “provide more evidence for this” or “what about X alternative explanation.” Nothing remotely resembling indoctrination.

It seems to me that what bugs people complaining about “woke” colleges is the decline in pro-US, pro-Christian, hetero-normative, pro-white majority, pro-capitalist indoctrination.

[Anonymous]

I'm the OP and that's ridiculous.

I think there's really a two-front war in defending the integrity of the university.

On the right, you have those who want to teach sanitized history or creationism.

Then there's the woke left who want think the proper teaching of the humanities should be replaced by faddish identity politics.

I reject both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at Holy Cross. A great classics dept, the only Jesuit liberal arts college, and a great track record getting students into law, medicine and PhD programs.

You mean the Holy Cross English department that offers

“ Interdisciplinary courses cross-listed with Africana Studies; Catholic Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies; and Peace and Conflict Studies”?

Jesuits have always cared about marginalized people. The focus is on inquiry and critical reading — not indoctrination. For example, the Gender studies group condemned the over-turning of Roe v Wade, while others at the school applauded it. It will be debated, but students are not taught a right answer.

Ah… so non-Catholics are indoctrinating… because you say so? Sorry, but I don’t buy it. What I see in my kid’s humanities classes at an ultra- “woke” SLAC— as reflected by papers he’s sent me to read — are closely reasoned arguments relying on primary source material, and to the extent that there are criticisms, they are comments like “provide more evidence for this” or “what about X alternative explanation.” Nothing remotely resembling indoctrination.

It seems to me that what bugs people complaining about “woke” colleges is the decline in pro-US, pro-Christian, hetero-normative, pro-white majority, pro-capitalist indoctrination.

The PP just told you what they don’t like about woke colleges: students are taught the “right” answers and there is no tolerance for debate.

And why are you reading your college kids papers? Weird. Get a life and cut the apron strings.

Or more likely by your writing style and logical fallacies you are in college or high school yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So a serious “literature” education only values English langauge writers who have been dead for at least 150 years. Nothing else is of value. That’s not studying literature

This response is a huge part of the problem. We live in the USA. Our culture, politics, customs, etc. are products of the Western World. There are undoubtedly fantastic works of literature in China and India (for example) that have been hugely influential in Asia. But regardless of your feelings, they’re not relevant here.

Furthermore, stating that authors like Shakespeare and Dickens “have value” does not mean they are the ONLY authors who have value. What are you even talking about?

What century are you writing from? How did you figure out time travel?

The US is a western society.

And a Christian nation.

LOL no.

You can laugh but I agree with the PP (and with atheist Richard Dawkins) that countries like the UK and US *are* nations with heavy socially Christian traditions.
Obviously it isn’t the officially religion, but even with fewer churchgoers and professed “believers” than there were 30 years ago, it is still a nation based on Christian norms.

Also the PP who dismissed concerns as “mad just because the emphasis is no longer on western, capitalist view as a positive”—or something like that…yes, I’d say that’s a pretty huge problem when American society is built on the free market and the liberal free-thinking philosophy of seeking truth and exploring and debating ideas in search of it as pretty much the basis of our shared American values and what we all want to promote in higher education.
So yes—when we see that our American institutions of “higher learning” have been ideologically captured by individuals who are pushing an anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-western dogma onto students and passing it off as enlightenment, it is very concerning.

Incidentally, this is not exactly surprising given that ex-KGB agents literally spelled out this exact plan when being interviewed by Phil Donahue in the late 1970s. But I think many boomers and GenXers dismissed that as laughable—and just didn’t buy that they could pull that off HERE on our own soil. It sounded like a crazy conspiracist plot, honestly.

Until suddenly it isn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like Columbia has succumbed

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/02/columbias-crumbling-core

Totally unbiased source: The Institute on Religion and Public Life, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization (EIN: 52-1628303) and the publisher of First Things, was founded in 1989 by Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor who later became a Catholic priest. The Institute’s mission is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.

I'm not religious or a political conservative, but a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the OP and that's ridiculous.

I think there's really a two-front war in defending the integrity of the university.

On the right, you have those who want to teach sanitized history or creationism.

Then there's the woke left who want think the proper teaching of the humanities should be replaced by faddish identity politics.

I reject both.

Suppose you found a school that taught lit the old fashioned way. Yay? But so what? You going to send your kid there? Even “properly taught” non-woke lit is not worth paying $80k/year for. Better to study it offline for free if that’s what interests your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the OP and that's ridiculous.

I think there's really a two-front war in defending the integrity of the university.

On the right, you have those who want to teach sanitized history or creationism.

Then there's the woke left who want think the proper teaching of the humanities should be replaced by faddish identity politics.

I reject both.

Suppose you found a school that taught lit the old fashioned way. Yay? But so what? You going to send your kid there? Even “properly taught” non-woke lit is not worth paying $80k/year for. Better to study it offline for free if that’s what interests your kid.

OP may want to stick with STEM.