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Sunday, May 22, 2005
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INCONTINENCE UD - to paraphrase Oscar Wilde's Algernon on the subject of his relatives - loves hearing English departments abused. She is in fact very happy in her own particular English department at her own university, but she loves hearing English departments in general abused, for the field of literary studies is ridiculous at the moment, and has indeed been ridiculous for some time. Today’s New York Times book section contains an attractive example of English department abuse, by Christopher Hitchens, who, sniffing the most recent turgid bladder from the theory people (a book of almost one thousand pages whose $80.00 price will be borne by penniless graduate students forced to read it by their professors), singles out an entry in it titled “On the Abolition of the English Department” and writes ‘Like the other contributors to this shabby volume, [the author of this essay] ought to be more careful of what he endorses. The prospect of such an abolition, at least in the United States, becomes more appetizing by the minute.’ UD thinks it’s important for people who care about these things to be part of the reconstruction of serious literary studies, before what’s left of English departments has been so thoroughly pissed upon as to be worthless. For details, read this blog at your leisure. |