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,
• the call for including pop culture and non-print media in the major,
• and the need to "reintroduce and reattract students" to the major.

These acknowledgements are a big step forward, it seems, for the discipline. There is a sense of a field thinking about reintroducing itself to the world that is exciting.

On the other hand, there is a bit of a circling-of-wagons tone and some tension between embracing new modes and clinging to the past. Consider this passage from the report:

While we advocate incorporating into the major the study of a variety of texts, we insist that the most beneficial among these are literary works, which offer their readers a rich and challenging—and therefore rewarding—object of study. Our cybernetic world has brought us speed and ease of information retrieval; even where the screen has replaced paper, however, language still remains the main mode of communication. Those who learn to read slowly and carefully and to write clearly and precisely will also acquire the nimbleness and visual perceptions associated with working in an electronic environment.

The belief that working with the alphabetic text will translate into nimble visual perceptions feels a bit like a reach; instead of learning about layering, cropping, and arrangement in a visual space, we might play with words and develop the same perceptions. This seems like a pretty clear hiccup in the report, especially given the clear emphasis on outcomes and skills later.

Also lurking beneath the surface here is the composition question. The report plugs closer integration between literary studies and language and composition, but never really picks up the freighted discussion about the role of composition in the future of English studies. Some might suggest that composition has already been keeping the discipline afloat in terms of relevance. Possible futures include split disciplines in which composition moves away from the English major, continued marriages (with varying degrees of happiness) between the two, or perhaps some more productive alliances.

This seems important because much of the discussion of the major/discipline can be filtered through conversations roughly along the theme of what's in a name. It almost feels like the best future for the field would be to reintroduce itself around a name something like the study of reading and writing. And this would require casting reading and writing beyond literary and alphabetic texts. This may not be the direction in which the field will go, but big questions like what's in a name, what do we study, and what do we make will ultimately need to be pushed around much more extensively.

For now it's worth pointing to the movement that can be recognized in the report and using that for a starting point for conversation.