We have been discussing the erosion of free speech and academic standards at our universities and colleges. What is alarming is not only the pace of such demands but the support of some faculty to stripping away core courses and historical references. The latest such example can be found at Yale University with undergraduate students have demanded that the English department abolish the prerequisite course requirement to study such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton. Students claim that it is “unacceptable that a Yale student considering studying English literature might read only white male authors.” Of course, this is not the only course for students but simply one course designed to introduce students to “major English poets.” However, the students find it oppressive and some faculty support their cause like English Professor Jill Richards who insisted that “it is unacceptable that the two-semester requirement for all majors routinely covers the work of eight white, male poets.” The students have demanded that “It’s time for the English major to decolonize — not diversify — its course offerings.”
Yale requires that English majors spend two semesters studying a selection of “major English poets”: “Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Donne in the fall; John Milton, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, and TS Eliot or another modern poet in the spring.” The course is meant to “provide all students with a generous introduction to the abiding formal and thematic concerns of the English literary tradition.”
Yet, the students have denounced the course as oppressive and dehumanizing: “A year spent around a seminar table where the literary contributions of women, people of color, and queer folk are absent actively harms all students, regardless of their identity . . . The Major English Poets sequences creates a culture that is especially hostile to students of color. When students are made to feel so alienated that they get up and leave the room, or get up and leave the major, something is wrong.”
Adriana Miele, Assistant to Director of Communications at Yale University Library, insists that “it is possible to graduate with a degree in English language and literature by exclusively reading the works of (mostly wealthy) white men. Many students do not read a single female author in the two foundational courses for the major. This department actively contributes to the erasure of history.” Of course, nothing prevents students from taking the many courses featuring women or minority writers.
The concern with such petition is that universities and colleges seem willing to abandon core curriculum and core standards to appease protesters claiming racism or sexism or the ill-defined notion of “micro aggressions.” As someone who took the core curriculum at the University of Chicago (one of the most influential common core programs), I have long benefitted from the foundation given to me as an undergraduate. We also read an array of non-Western works. The irony is that, after struggling to gain admission to Yale, students are seeking to dismantle a world-class educational tradition.
It is possible to read classics while placing them into a greater historical and literary context. That is very essence of education and the understanding that comes from it. At the risk of quoting a white male writer, Shakespeare did caution in As You Like It that “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
Just think one of these morons will be running for president in the near future.
You’re a… Dork! You’re a Dork!
You’re a Dork all the way.
From your spoon up your ass..
Til your last dying day!
Yale is your sitcom. Yale is your dorm.
Your mom’s name was Carol your dads name was Norm.
It’s you get out there … to real world exploits.
Like a cathouse in Finland and shit house in York.
Feminist English teachers have ignored Shakespeare, Hemingway, for decades. This is old news. We need to take back the Education Industry by any means necessary.
Very good comments so far. Are these western civilization authors objectionable because of their work or because of their gender and/or color of their skin? Critical thinking today seems to be a marathon that many today don’t have the stamina for.
During my studies in English Literature I took courses on women authors, sat quietly in a classroom with one other guy. I took courses centered around the effects of Pre-Socratic fragments on Western Literature. I took courses centered around the classics and their effects on Western Literature. I took courses centered around the bible and its effects on Western Literature. And, I also took courses centered around Chaucer and his contemporaries, Dante, Moliere, etc. English Literature is not a product exclusively of the above mentioned artists. There was and continues to be a tremendous cross fertilization regarding time and place. Shakespeare’s works are more often that not derived from current and earlier works by artists in other countries. Just as most Classical Music began with peasant tunes and flute music of shepherds, most, if not all great literature began with stories transferred between the common people. It’s kinda why they are so popular. Phillip Glass may be a genius but he doesn’t carry a tune and not to many whistle his.
There is a certain chauvinism in beginning the study of English Literature with the above mentioned artists. A proper grounding in English Literature would start with the history of Western Literature including the Pre-Socratics, the Greek Classics, Arabian, etc. This should be a discussion based on the historical timeline showing the influence of artists on artists on peoples dating back a few thousand years. English Literature is but a major branch of a larger tree. Unfortunately, the students missed the tree altogether as their analysis of the subject matter journeys back but a few years, months, perhaps weeks. The university should focus on its shortcomings pertaining to its presentation of English Literature; that is a foregone conclusion. This is a uniquely American chauvinist condition. However, the history of Western/English Literature has little if anything to do with: women, gays, blacks, or any of the other poorly represented groups in our societies.
The study of English Literature should be relegated as a subset of the greater beginning.
issac – I agree with you 100%. I took 2 semesters of Western Literature and through other courses covered a lot of other writers.
The best of us are not perfect. Why do expect these historical figures to be perfect? Anything great is hardly clear of imperfection. To deny these highwater marks of civilization is surely the path to decline. I have no patience for those who choose to find insult where none was intended. Learn, but recognize what was lacking, and learn from that as well.
I would also add to reject learning anything on basis of incorrectness is the lazy person’s path.
I guess old white men who have been inoculated by other old white men see no value in any others. That’s too bad, they lose so much and just don’t have a clue. But, then, neither do they care.
What’s the point in including the name or description of a person who came up with an idea? It is the idea that is important, not whoever’s brain it happened to emerge from. People should stop attributing ideas to any individual and attribute them only to mankind collectively.
“core curriculum and core standards”
Just because they seemed “core” at one time doesn’t necessarily mean they are particularly relevant to humanity at a later time.
“The job of humans is to continuously replace old explanations with better ones.”–David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity
The real problem is that today’s students of literature are not taught to question and challenge what is proclaimed by establishment literati to be “brilliant.” I’ve always wondered how many poets over the centuries, who might have had some great things to say, have been buried into oblivion, thanks to the establishment. Question and challenge should be the MO of any staunch individual, not open wide and swallow. Of course, questioning and challenging might just get you ostracized into oblivion. But rather the truth than climbing up the dubious literary ladder and receiving dubious accolades. And that does not mean open wide and swallow the likes of Maya Angelou because she is black skinned. She is an integral part of the affirmative-action literary establishment today…
Ever wonder what Yale might replace required core courses with?
Looks like Yale Professor Jill Richards has an agenda. Jill Richards “State of the Field; Feminist and Queer Theory”
http://lgbts.yale.edu/event/conference-new-matters-and-queer-life
First-world problems are adorable.
Stripping history from education is folly. Those dead white men had some amazing ideas but the new world order doesn’t care. They don’t care that their ability to protest and agitate springs from the ideas that were the products of the minds of those dead white men. I didn’t say perfect dead white men or holy dead white men but rather thinking dead white men. But, of course, thinking has little to do with the new trend that the slate must be wiped clean.
The deep and bitter desire to wipe the slate clean isn’t a good thing; in fact, it’s destructive. It’s not about balance, or inclusion. It’s not about diversity or depth. It’s a bitter and blinding rage and that bitter rage brooks no dissent. It is exactly the kind of thing that the dead white men were fighting against and thought they could establish a place where freedom of speech would be revered and protected. But, of course, that is so quaint, so old school.
I think Tin has simultaneously called it right and disseminated useful new ideas. BDS as part of its “anti-Zionist” agenda should finally get around to purging the OT of Hebrews. Maybe something simple like add “and the Palestinians” every time it says “Hebrews”.
Easier would be to misuse the truth. If one pulls out English language (i.e., British) scholarly commentary to the Haftorah prior to WWII you often find the words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” used to denoted Jewish inhabitants of what is now Israel. Well there you go! Just reprint all this stuff written in 1901 & 1937 so as to give it the 21st Century meaning.
Of course the dopes at Yale want to eliminate the very foundations of English Literature from the curriculum. Yale needs to serve as a role model for the continued deterioration of civilization, so debasing its educational programs is an excellent way to do this.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” — A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2, 110–115
“Adriana Miele ’16, another recent graduate who majored in English, cited her experience in the major as evidence of the need for change in the department. … “In my four years as an English major, I primarily was lectured by old, white men about rape, about violence, about death, about colonialism, about genocide, and I was repeatedly told by many of my professors that these evils were necessary or even related to spiritual enrichment. This was horrifying.””
This is a quote by the assistant director of communications at Yale that appeared in the Yale News and cited in this article. Her list of subjects covered in the major would seem to undercut the claim the major is overly specialized.
I would also like to see some actual quotes from professors that ‘these evils were necessary or … spiritually enriching’ Maybe someone actually said words to that effect – but still, I can’t help but wonder if she is speaking with emotional hyperbole of the moment.
Has anyone else noticed the irony of removing English writers from the study of English literature? It’s akin to removing Jews from Old Testament studies or removing Russians from a course on Communism because Jews and Russians are white men.
If Yale wants to kow tow to the barbarians, it won’t matter. Other colleges have first rate English departments and the top students will attend those schools. And if any top economics departments (Chicago and Berkeley) want to follow suit and stop studying white male economists, the same thing will happen. Their departments will quickly lose status and the best students will go elsewhere.
“The Major English Poets sequences creates a culture that is especially hostile to students of color.”
Is anyone else suffering crisis fatigue at this point, or is it just me?
We build on the knowledge gained from the past. That means that before you study contemporary poetry, you gain a deep understanding of all the forms that came before, including Shakespeare and Chaucer. If people are flouncing out of the classroom offended because they were assigned Shakespeare, perhaps they were having difficulty connecting to the subject matter. I didn’t like Shakespeare until I took a class where a teacher spent an entire hour on a max of 2 pages, covering history, veiled references, and all the backstory of the times. We’d be moved to tears by passages that were impenetrable before.
If they remove all white, male authors (which is both racist and sexist), then you will educate a generation of writers who will not understand iambic pentameter or puns as applied by the Bard. They make know performance art but they won’t know the classics. It will be like the sacking of the library at Alexandria all over again – the loss of all that knowledge.
Sometimes a university just has to say, “no” when the students demand to control the teachers.
Give me a break. This is Yale. Every student there is privelaged, and the vast majority are white – they have never encountered a legitimate challenge as long as they have lived. Every one of them was born with a silver spoon up their behind, and they can kiss mine. Such staggering ignorance.
PS – you are allowed to read books outside of your course requirements, geniuses, and the rest of the world could give a crap about your ‘hurt feelings’.
As yet there is no lesbian poet as great as Shakespeare or Milton. Actually, trying to get rid of the greats is racist at its core.
When are they going to protest and remove the hebrew lettering on the Yale seal as “offensive”?? DMD