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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Academia has made literature an incredibly unappealing thing to study. Take a look at the specialities of your average English Department these days. It's not something you want to spend four years immersed in. No one has done more to destroy language and literature than contemporary academia. It is incredibly stifling, boring, pedantic, hyper-political, and all around not fun. I congratulate every bright liberal arts student who has chosen to not major in English. Well done.  [/quote]

Yes. My MIL is an English professor at an Ivy and she would likely agree with everything you wrote.  She hates how hyper-political it has become.  [/quote]
Can you elaborate? Most English departments are still stuck in discussion on Yeats, Joyce, and Shakespeare. I hardly see any curriculum that isn't just the typical cannon with a few classes to appease students (British Writers anyone!)[/quote]

It sounds like you agree with the PP that English departments are polarized, stifling and “all around not fun.” It’s an incredibly unpleasant place to spend time.

And that is the problem. To attract majors a department has to be either practical or fun. A few lucky departments might be both. English is neither.  [/quote]
Well the issue is...you can't really learn about literary theory if you've never actually read the most important cornerstones of the subject. If you can't do anything but complain about the old boring, white male authors, you might just not like Literature that much. I'm more trying to combat the people call modern English "wokies," because it really isn't something you get to scrape until graduate school.[/quote]

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