Bauerlein, Mark. Some Recent Posts on Literature and the Profession. BRAINSTORM BLOG, CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

1. "Literary Experience and Literary Studies": This week’s Chronicle Review has three strong essays on literature and higher education, and each one is a mix of lament and devotion. Rita Felski, Steven Kellman, and Bruce Fleming signal a decline and offer an explanation, and their complaints overlap at several points. . . .(http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bauerlein/literary-experience-and-literary-studies)
2. "Literature at the Centre 1": Two weeks ago the Modern Language Association and Teagle Foundation issued a white paper that lays out a set of guidelines and principles for literature and language curricula. It’s a remarkable document, and everyone involved in curricular projects in secondary and higher education should read it. (Go here and scroll to the bottom for the pdf.) . . .(http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bauerlein/literature-at-the-center-1)
3. "Literature at the Centre 2": The previous post on literature and the curriculum hailed the MLA/Teagle white paper as an exemplary statement of literary education. (Go here and scroll to bottom to get the pdf.) Against the old pressures to embed literature in a full range of cultural productions and the new pressures to embed literature in a full range of media genres, the report insists that literature has a special value for advanced literacy instruction. It assumes, too, I think, that if language and literature professors don’t speak out and design curricula explicitly on that special value, literary study will decline as a meaningful part of higher education. (See the Appendix and the phrase citing the “increasingly marginal status [of literary studies] in the massive expansion of population receiving bachelor’s degrees over the past forty years.”) . . . (http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bauerlein/literature-at-the-center-2)
4. "Literature at the Centre 3": In a previous post on the white paper by the MLA/Teagle committee, I cited a phrase that indicates a powerful impetus for the project. On page 13, the paper examines “the history of bachelor’s degree awards in the fields of modern languages,” and infers “their increasingly marginal status.” . . .(http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bauerlein/language-and-literature-3)
5. "Interdisciplinarity, Cultural Studies, Media Literacy: the Turf Effect": In marketplace terms, English now occupies a more populous and competitive environment. Forty years ago, we might say, English was the flagship department of the liberal arts. No college could claim excellence without an excellent English department to shore it up. Today, English departments have only one serious college-wide standing: freshman composition. Now, when we look at the most prominent declarations about English departments over the years, the terms that stand out are not the old groundings of “literary history” and “literary criticism” and “literary language.” Instead, they are “theory and interpretation,” various “studies” (cultural, gender, postcolonial, ethnic, sexual, etc.), and, most recently, “media literacy.” These trends and turns have been cast as important breakthroughs and innovations, an intellectual advance. But think for a moment about what those endeavors entail in the campus marketplace in which resources are more or less scarce, departments must compete for personnel and funds, and student interest has declined (see the MLA/Teagle document). What might a dean say when an English department chairman meets to discuss next year’s needs? . . . (http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/bauerlein/interdisciplinarity-cultural-studies-media-literacy-the-turf-effect)