I interviewed Matthew Taylor, an English professor at UNC, about what he considers to be the most important aspects of English studies. Below is a transcript of Professor Taylor’s responses to my questions:

1.)What do you think English majors should study and why?

In examining how a class should tackle on the subject of English, I would have to say there are no limits. The boundaries are endless, and thats what I learned in this class. Its important to consider all options. We do not have to stick with just traditional literature and texts. However, its important that we still preserve traditional methods of learning.

In revisiting Scholes’ chapter (‘A Fortunate Fall’) from The Rise and Fall of English, we’ve adopted some of his prescriptions in order to achieve some goals we laid out for the ideal English Curriculum at UNC-Chapel Hill. These are predominantly: to learn about ourselves and our own personal moral consciousness, to develop an understanding of other cultures across time and space, to learn to analyze the content and rhetoric of the texts, and to explore ways in which an English Major can use these skills and benefits to contribute to society and function in today’s professional environment.

In evaluating what to study and how to go about forming a curriculum, we focused on the concept of combining a new thoughtful method of reading with both standard and modern texts in order to achieve a relevant understanding of English. Some of Schole’s tenants on this issue are the following:

Scholes' abc's of consumption (reading):
a. the process of reading should take precedence over the coverage of texts (166)
b. the reading of modern and recent texts can play a major part in whetting the appetite of students for earlier literature (168)
c. students should learn to read a wide range of texts, from various times and places, in various genres and media, in “high" and "low” forms of textuality (168)

The abc's are important because they emphasize: process over coverage, modern texts whetting the appetite for older ones, and versatility.

(A) Some of the highlights from Schole’s work regarding the precedence of the method or process of Literary theory over the mere coverage of texts:
“Replace the canon of texts with a canon of methods” (145).

“a discipline of textuality […] under four distinct overlapping headings: theory, history, production, consumption” […] “they can never be isolated one from the other” (147).

These previous two points go together – We’re arguing that the current canon of texts should not be the integral focus of the curriculum to the exclusion of forming a more inclusive canon of “methods.” The canon of methods, with which Scholes proposes to replace the canon of texts, is constituted by those four distinct headings that can never be isolated from each other: theory, history, production, consumption.

"Theory as constituting the disciplinary core […] a canon of methods to be used in studying the other three aspects of textuality: how to situate a text (history), how to compose one (production), and how to read one (consumption)" (147).

So instead of taking one course on "Literary Theory," this becomes the common thread that ties together all courses that may place a varying degree of importance on history, production, and consumption.

(B) The next of the “ABC’s” assists us in making English studies relevant to the “outside world” by grounding the curriculum in the present.
“The question posed by every curriculum is: 'What knowledge is the most crucial for students to have at this point in their education and how much of that knowledge can they really acquire in the time and format available?' [...] The historical knowledge that students of the discipline of English need the most is an understanding of the cultural changes that have taken place during the past two centuries, the centuries in which the modern media arose and came to dominate the cultures of the world. Such a knowledge, I am convinced, would enable students to discover that developments of great importance had preceded these two centuries, and would give them both motivation and direction in seeking out courses that would answer to their desire to understand the modern world more fully. Let me be as clear as I can about this point. I think that the historical goal of English as a discipline should begin and end with where we[...]are now" (158).

This passage was the main influence we had for reversing the order of UNC’s current order of introductory courses. Below, we are suggesting that incoming freshment start in the present moment and moving backwards as we understand the historical moments that have influenced our arrival at this point. In part, this is for recruitment purposes; a decided incoming English Major may decide to specifically go in ‘chronological order.’ However, assuming most students take them in the prescribed order: After working backwards through the introductory courses, in taking courses 4-9 a student could choose to continue to work backward a little more, and then, when they please, begin to move forward back to the present moment. And then they would complete courses 10 and 11 in contemporary issues and practical applications. Moral: Begin And End the curriculum with where we are now:
Courses
1-intro (NOW back to Eliot) - basically this is like the most recent 50 years; studies in modern and emerging media, modern literary texts
2-intro (Eliot back to WW) - from around 1965, this could take us back to the late 18th century
3-intro (Pope back to Chaucer) - this could take us from 14th century up to about mid-18th century
4-Focus on 1/2
5-Focus on 2/3 (experiential classes)
6-Shakespeare, 1600’s stuff, and U
7-American Lit
8-free
9-free
10-Contemporary Issues (multiple classes for different issues) (current issues, old and new works)
11-Practical Applications (specific classes, computers, hypertext, new media, tv, movies)

(C) The final pillar we adapt from Scholes’ “ABC’s” places an emphasis on avoiding the estrangement of the English Department courses from other areas of students’ graduation requirements.

"To get serious about history means insisting that students concentrating in English take a responsible set of courses in the related historical disciplines: political history, intellectual history, art history, music history, history of science and technology, taught by faculty in those disciplines. [...] This, in itself, would be a healthy counterstroke to the inclination of students to multiply their majors. [...] An English major with serious external requirements would make a genuine contribution to the reversal of the trend toward a “shopping mall curriculum” (156).

“Getting serious” about history and external requirements can go a long way to solidify an English major's sense of the narrative of English Literature and to help them focus their studies and build on a practical body of knowledge, rather than just satisfying coverage requirements. At the same time, right now many students feel that is important to double-major in terms of making themselves more marketable in the job market. This may be part of the early resistance or discomfort that Scholes described with respect to re-vamping a curriculum, but I believe that in the end his version would be more rewarding and effective.

Our curriculum functions in the belief that we should study both modern and earlier literature in order to introduce students to a wider range of literary works and topics about which to analyze. We utilize reading over coverage by reducing the emphasis on chronology (a). Instead of starting centuries ago, and working forward, we turn this around in order to potentially attract more english students because we think that many students today are more interested in modern issues and works (b). However, we also believe that earlier works are still very important and thus will use the classes to not only discuss modern texts and issues, but tie those works to earlier ones, thereby creating more interest in earlier works (c). Ultimately, we largely agree with Scholes' beliefs and think that our curriculum is set up to emphasize these beliefs.

In examining how to save English studies, we focused on the question "what should we learn?". One of the problems we ran into was trying to distinguish that question of what should be studied, as in specific works, or what skills needed to be learned.

To determine how to save English studies, we hoped to define a new end goal and the best vehicle to achieve that aim.

So what can an English major offer? What is that we can do uniquely? Are there things that in literature that go along with English major that are exclusive to that major?

Reading the Teagle report, I was struck by the statement that studying in a foreign language is essential for an English student’s success. At UNC, as well as at many other academic institutions, an advanced foreign language requirement is what divides the English department from the Comparative Literature department, providing students with the option of choosing to study literature in another language or focusing on texts in English.

The MLA has issued a report on the undergraduate major in language and literature (downloadable at http://www.mla.org/teaglereport_page).

It seems as if there is a noticeable current of acknowledgment of the challenges facing the English major running through the report. This shows up in a few ways:

• the placing of the major squarely within a liberal arts tradition,
• the emphasis on skills and outcomes related to the major,
• a focus on literacies, including technological and information literacies,
  

Inside Higher Education had this brief overview of curricular changes at Harvard. What's of interest in terms of saving English studies is perhaps the focus on pedagogy. Looking at English from the perspective of undergraduate education makes good sense, as do the adjustments coming at Harvard: smaller class sizes, more thematic emphases, less lockstep chronology, and a set of courses in some ways geared around process more than content bodes well

The debate we're having ("What is English?"; "Why English?"; "What's the future of English?") is found in medieval studies, especially Anglo-Saxon studies, all the time. (Sometimes it feels that medievalists like to talk more about the state of the field than the field itself.) A particularly interesting recent conversation about this topic occured among Anglo-Saxon bloggers, and was subsequently compiled at the online journal The Heroic Age. It is worth checking out.

I think we should ask the "conversion narrative" question of all groups (faculty, grads, undergrads), because I imagine that the faculty member who wants to study Medieval iterations of sacred texts, for instance, might have a very different answer from the undergrad writing a thesis on comic books. In any case, we could frame the question in terms of a tipping point: no matter how much you "loved literature" or loved to read, what made you decide to pursue it as a major/advanced degree/career?

Just wanted to post this link to the latest ADE report on trends in undergraduate majors. The report shows that, despite reversal of negative trends for other arts and sciences disciplines, the number of majors in English continues to shrink. The report can be had at http://www.ade.org/ADE_143_3-7.pdf

You can also also look at an a more detailed ADE report from 2003.