The fashionable English department (Berry)
June 4th, 2007 | Published in Education, Quotes, Writing | 1 Comment
The cult of progress and the new, along with the pressure to originate, innovate, publish, and attract students, has made the English department as nervously susceptible to fashion as a flock of teenagers.
–Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (2000), p. 69
June 5th, 2007 at 6:51 pm (#)
In his memoirs, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, the late Walter Sullivan had some interesting things to say about the decline of his English department at Vanderbilt. He took refuge in teaching Creative Writing, where the only work of quality and common sense was still allowed. On one occasion the department eagerly accepted the employment application of a lesbian purely because she was a lesbian — it would enhance the department’s standing to have someone from a “minority”. When she declared that she would not accept unless her girlfriend was also employed, the department, rather than refuse to have any further dealings with her as normal propriety would demand, jumped at the chance to get another lesbian on their staff.