1. What would the "political orientation" of people employed on Wall Street (and lesser "Wall Streets" around the country) be? Close to the mirror image of that of academe?

2. What are the raw percentages of faculty declaring themselves "far left" and "far right"? If it's, say, six percent "far left" and a half-percent "far right" is that 12:1 ratio really significant?

3. Yes, Spelman College, Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Fisk and other "renowned" HBCUs probably do provide an students with an "inferior" education...compared to that provided by, say, the University of Michigan, the big UC campuses, the University of Texas at Austin, etc. But "inferior" is such a loaded word (and Prof. Bauerlein knows this; he's a bigtime English professor), expecially in a racial context. The reason for the "inferiority" of Spelman, Atlanta, and the others has less to do with their lack of diversity than it does with the less competitive nature of admissions. The applied:accepted ratio at Spelman or Atlanta is probably a lot lower than it is at Michigan or Berkeley or even Tallahassee or Athens (Georgia, that is). But for some students who could get into Michigan or Berkeley or Tallahassee or Athens, the feel of the "fit" at Spelman or Atlanta might prompt them to choose Spelman or Atlanta.

4. Re "inferior": Is the undergraduate education at, say, Texas Tech "inferior" to that at Harvard or Princeton? If the answer is "yes," is that a slur against Texas Tech? (My alma mater, for which I retain great affection and to which I give what money I can, also offers an undergraduate education "inferior" to that of Harvard or Princeton. So what?)

5. Re "inferior": If Prof. Bauerlein had to leave Emory and teach elsewhere, would he rather, for the same salary and workload, rather teach at Vanderbilt or Fisk? If the answer is Vanderbilt (be honest, Prof. Bauerlein), is that because Fisk is "inferior"?

6. Why does a college's perceived "responsibility to work with their surrounding communities to address local issues" constitute "indoctrination"? Should Columbia and USC, to name two wealthy private universities in racially and economically mixed urban situations, NOT work with their surrounding communities on, say, bars that serve students, student partying, eminent domain used in the college's expansion, crime, and general town-gown issues? (Does Emory's context of Druid Hills exempt it from having to work with its "surrounding communities to address local issues"? How fortunate.)

7. Why is the fact that a little over half the respondents thought that an "appreciation of multiculturalism" was "of high or highest priority" an "extraordinary admission"? a) Doesn't "high or highest" (notice the "or" in there) simply mean not middle or low priority? b) Don't we try to "appreciate" the other fellow's point of view without necessarily subscribing to it? c) Isn't "multiculturalism"--with East Asians, South Asians, Subcontinent Asians, Middle Easterners, Western Europeans, Central Europeans, Africans, et al. all over the campus--rather a fact of life that one would be better off "appreciating" than ignoring or turning the wagons in a circle against?

Sorry, but this post is below Prof. Bauerlein's usual standard of reasonable conservativism. It's Rush Limbaugh in polite language. (And if that's construed by Prof. Bauerlein to be a personal insult, then he has something to work out with Mr. Limbaugh, whose knickers are probably also in a twist over the Chronicle's report.)

To your remarks, goxewu.

1. You mention the political breakdown of Wall Street and "lesser" Wall Streets as the "mirror-image" of academia. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. First of all, if you mean that wealthy folk lean Republican, you're wrong. Obama beat McCain among the richest voters by 52 to 46 percent. But we shouldn't compare the campus to Wall Street anyway. The campus is supposed to be a full marketplace of ideas, the full universe of discourse, not a marketplace of profits and losses.

2. The numbers for Far Left are 8.8, for Far Right 0.7. These numbers are important, as I noted, in light of the Law of Group Polarization.

3. Having visited Spelman several times, met with students, and interviewed the President of the former about precisely the diversity issue for a magazine article, I would set a Spelman degree right up there with the best.

4. The issue is whether a racially non-diverse classroom automatically means an inferior education. I don't think that's true.

5. In truth, goxewu, I respect teaching at any level, and find just as much satisfaction working with middle- and low-performing students as with high-performing students.

6. I don't think that community service is indoctrination, just the demand that students "appreciate" multiculturalism.

7. Let's clarify the term "multiculturalism." We have the broad and simple meaning of " acknowledging other points of view." But multiculturalism on campus, as it works into the curriculum, means a lot more than that. It implies positions toward the past, toward different nations and cultures and races, and toward measurements of value. And to ask students to "appreciate" it is, precisely, to try to instill a point of view, not study that point of view. The binding nature of the "appreciation" is, in fact, implied in your characterization of resistance to multiculturalism as "turning the wagons in a circle against."

"The campus is supposed to be a full marketplace of ideas, the full universe of discourse" is probably what people meant by signing on to the importance of multiculturalism. You seem to possess a clear idea under this heading, but I have never been able to assign it any content; nor has anyone I know; why shouldn't desperate survey takers take an attribution of value to 'multiculturalism' to mean: "The campus is supposed to be a full marketplace of ideas, the full universe of discourse"

On the right v. left issue, it should be remembered that the use of these terms has shifted right. Even ten years ago no one would have said that Democratic party membership also made one a member of 'the Left'. But we do so speak today. Thus what was formerly somehow 'Left' would naturally need to be characterized as 'Far Left' or with some similar nonsense.

The left-wing claptrap that formerly characterized a few disciplines in humanities and maybe social science (don't know much about them for sure) -- it was accompanied by a completely reliable Democratic voting record in almost all cases. It has, I think, always been true that genuine left wingers are rare among academics, and certainly more common in departments of Mathematics and Physics than English, say. The average run of them came to be Democrats in the post War period because it corresponds to their economic interest, surely; there doesn't seem to be any need for a deeper account, does there? By degrees the Universities became a Big Government program starting with the GI Bill; there must have been an intensification of this in the last couple of decades as attacks on the Universities became characteristic of the Republican Party and its spokespeople. There is a vague suggestion that we have grounds for a critique of the Universities in this ideological uniformity of the professors; but there is no attempt here to measure how far it is a response to a Republican or 'right wing' critique that has been going on without actual scientific study of the evidence for about thirty years now.

There is in any case no more reason to be shocked by this than by the parallel facts, noted above, but inadequately meditated upon by people who forever cite Tenured Radical-type statistics. "The Rich" by the way do not form a sociological class, not a Kind -- as academics arguably do; in any case that is the premise of your whole production. Run through some more scientific classifications, like maybe "Auto Dealer" or "Southerner." and find out what they think about multiculturalism. It will be very easy to find parallels with the Clintonism of the dons. In any case, one needs data, in particular data spanning the whole past century. The Rich are not a topic for legitimate data; there are too many ways to come by a pile of money; there can be no science of 'the Rich', no more than of the poor; the fresh datum you cite is in fact evidence of this. To take an example dear to me, my father's engineering firm was a zone of unrelenting right-tending pseudo-market-theoretical nonsense until recently. No opposing position could be found, not a peep. The two black secretaries would bond with all over social issues; the openly gay engineer was -- of course -- a libertarian and could make common cause elsewhere. No academic milieu I know could approach it in 'like-mindedness.' I find it quite unreal that someone should deny this, but I am prepared for a scientific study based on data assembled across decades, not this week's Chronicle quiz.

Multiculturalism is an -ism. It is a position and an agenda. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except when we pretend that it incorporates all respectable viewpoints.

I don't think it is a problem that there are more liberals in academia than conservatives. But I do think it is a problem when professors act irresponsibly because of it, which they often do. They need to be trained otherwise. Even as a liberal myself, I was always uncomfortable as a student when professors made Bush jokes because I felt empathy for the conservatives in the room and because I thought it was so inappropriate. Such behavior needs to be policed better.

On the other hand, these numbers aren't inherently bad. Nor are some of the beliefs expressed. Empirical research shows that students ARE better off in a racially/ethnically diverse student body. White students benefit from this sort of environment far more than do students of color. So, that's not inconsistent with the missions of HBCUs. Certain black students will benefit far more from an HBCU than a traditional (i.e. mostly white) school. So the faculty's views on this issue are supported by actual research and are consistent even with HBCUs.

As for community service, in your article you say a few beliefs about community service that faculty have, and then you say, "Let's give it the proper name: indoctrination." But in your comments you've backed off and said only that the requirement that students appreciate diversity is indoctrination. OK. I can take the comment version, but not the original. Community service is not even a solely liberal value anyway. As non-profit entities that often have a history of trampling on communities, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a university or college to interact positively with the community.

So to reiterate -- I DO believe it is a problem that colleges and their faculties have become lazy about politics and spewing (liberal) opinions to students. Students should be given the facts and be left to make up their own minds. They should be given the skills to seek information, criticize, and form logical arguments. We should not steer them one way or another. If we do find ourselves steering, we should at least acknolwedge our bias and remind our students to use their inquiry and argument skills to come up with their own opinions. On the other hand, I think that there is a lot of, "OMG professors are brainwashing students to be liberals and there are way too many liberal faculty and this is a big problem!" that is unfounded. Nearly all faculty members I've encountered have withheld their political viewpoints and left other opinions at the door; you wouldn't know their affiliations unless you pressed them. It's just a few bad apples that spoil the bunch, and cause people to balk when they see that there are more liberal faculty members out there. It doesn't matter that there are more of them. It matters only what is communicated to the students in the classroom.

1. Re Wall Street: Different occupations attract different types of people. Academe, particularly the humanities, attracts people who don't care quite as much about amassing the McMansion, Lexus, Ski-Doo, riding horses, second home at the shore, etc., as does Wall Street. This characterization admittedly casts academics in a more favorable light than Wall Streeters; somebody who moves money around and skims some off the top for a living might characterize himself or herself as caring less about job security, avoiding stress and risk, and prattling authoritatively about arcane subjects than academics do. The point is: academia is pervasively liberal because it's an occupation that attracts liberals; Wall Street (at least at the "faculty" level) attracts conservatives, or at least non-liberals. No conspiracy. (I know a bunch of academics and they're largely liberals, and I know a bunch of money-movers and they're largely conservatives. Unscientific, yes, but I've a hunch it's the case with others than just me.)

2. "The Law of Group Polarization" is hardly the Law of Gravity or the Law of the Excluded Middle. It's Cass Sunstein (who's written some truly idiotic things about the arts) ballooning the phenomenon of people getting more set and extreme (and louder and drunker and more arm-waving) as an argument progresses, into a "Law" which, apparently, causes conservatives to believe that less than nine percent of faculty--no matter how timid their personalities are--characterizing themselves as "far left" puts academe on the road to Maoism. (I'm exaggerating for effect here, of course, but if you want the full story, please consult Goxewu's Law of Conservative Paranoia.)

3. "I would set a Spelman degree right up there with the best." This is campaign-interview evasive. Could Prof. Bauerlein be more precise? Where does a Spelman degree rank against an undergraduate liberal arts degree from Berkeley, Michigan, Harvard, Texas, Swarthmore, Smith, Georgia, etc.? ("...right up there with the best" does imply ranking, doesn't it?) And by the way, a Spelman degree would rank right up there exactamundo with a degree from my alma mater, and maybe even be better than one, so I'm not being personally snobby here.

4. The issue isn't whether "a racially non-diverse classroom automatically means an inferior education." It's whether, all other things (quality of faculty, facilities, student:professor ratio, quality of student, etc.) being equal, a racially diverse campus (not necessarily each and every classroom) means a superior education. I think it does. That's why we go off to college, instead of being home-schooled through the bachelor's degree.

5. "In truth, goxewu, I respect teaching at any level, and find just as much satisfaction working with middle- and low-performing students as with high-performing students." See campaign-interview evasive, above. Also, I suspect any statement which begins, "In truth..." Does this mean that Prof. Bauerlein's other statements without that introduction are to some degree less truthful? I'll rephrase the original question (which Prof. Bauerlein didn't answer; he answered one of his own making--"Do you respect teaching at all levels?"): If Prof. Bauerlein had equal job offers from Spelman and Emory at the time he took the Emory job, which one would he have taken, and why? (There's probably an easy out there regarding a graduate program at Emory, apparently none in English at Spelman, but what the hell, I can't close off every escape hatch.)

6. If community service by students isn't just a little slumming to show them how the other half lives, then it's "activism" in "solving social problems," e.g. tutoring little kids to try to help solve the "social problem" of their inadequate grammar-school educations. And again, "appreciate" doesn't mean to subscribe to. You can "appreciate" modern art, Catholicism, or free-market economics without signing on to any of them. Isn't part of the whole deal of going to a university to learn to "appreciate" stuff that's not, and not going to be, your cup of tea?

7. Again again: "appreciate" vs. "study." If your study of anything doesn't lead you to appreciate it (i.e., imagine how it feels to walk a mile in that anything's shoes) to some degree, the study of it isn't worth much. A quick check of Google definition citations for multiculturalism yields (and this is a fair sampling): "The doctrine that several different cultures (rather than one national culture) can coexist peacefully and equitably in a single country; the idea that a society, notably one with a high rate of immigration, is enriched by celebrating the separate contributions of its components; the creative interchange of numerous ethnic and racial subcultures" and so on. The "agenda" quality is more on the side of those "resisting" multiculturalism, i.e., the Decline-of-the-Westists who do indeed turn the wagons in a circle and "study" multiculturalism with an bias that anything that didn't come up through the ancient Greeks and Judeo-Christianity is at best suspect and at worst barbaric. Any Arabic language department in that circumstance would forbid any dangerous "appreciation" of Arabic culture and concentrate solely on training translators for the CIA.

By the way, what is jazz if not the supreme example of multiculturalism? Or do we merely "study" the African component while "appreciating" only the Western component?

I think I made a mistake in my composition when I posted this, ksledge. I meant to put the "indoctrination" point at the end of the multiculturalism paragraph, not the social activist paragraph.

As for the research on the educational benefits of a racially-diverse classroom, it's not very scientific. See here:

http://www.uark.edu/us/der/EWPA/Research/Achievement/1799.html

For me, the bias problem isn't a matter of a few professors bringing political opinions in the room. I think you're right to limit that aspect. The real problem is in bias in the curriculum--that is, the values, materials, and goals that swing toward progressivist visions and downplay traditionalist visions.

The jazz I've written about is not multicultural.

I prefer to teach freshman and sophomore courses over all other levels.

Are you saying in point 1 that you suspend the disparate outcome argument when it comes to ideology? What do you think of that argument when it comes to race?

"The jazz I've written about is not multicultural." Say what? "With its roots in the African-American experience, jazz is multicultural music, and its boundaries are constantly being stretched. In an interview I did a couple of years ago, Joel Frahm quoted Wayne Shorter as saying, 'jazz is hungry." It takes music, rhythms and ideas from all kinds of music from all kinds of places, and it does so with increasing frequency." --- Chuck Obuchowski, "Jazz Programming at WWUH: Nine Different Perspectives," http://wwuh.org/program/articles/julaug01/chuck3.htm. (Calling Luther Blissett!)

(Sigh.) Would Prof. Bauerlein prefer--salary, workload and perqs being equal--teaching freshman and sophomores at Emory or Spelman? And why? (Or--since Prof. Bauerlein challenged those of us who think that racially diverse campuses are, all other things being equal, preferable to more racially uniform ones to come out an label the latter as "inferior"--is an undergraduate education at Spelman superior to, just about equal to, or inferior to one at Emory?)

Call me stupid (Prof. Bauerlein wouldn't be the first) but I don't quite get his point about my point ("1") about his point. But, call me reckless (Prof. Bauerlein wouldn't be the first there, either), I'll take a shot at it: Yeah, I think academe as a profession--especially in the humanities--attracts white people more than it does black people. (This is different from saying that it attracts more white people than black people, which should go without saying simply because of the difference in the size of racial populations in the U.S.) The reason (and we're talking generalities here) is that black people, still being statistically and acutally, at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, have other fish to fry: becoming doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, public school teachers, civil servants, military officers, etc. Becoming an expert on Chaucer, or Zora Neale Hurston for that matter, and a professor of English is a kind of luxury. When I was a college professor (in the arts and humanities), over and over again I'd encounter a talented black student who would have made a great major. I'd solicit him or her to become one, only to be told, over and over again: Thanks but no thanks, I'm on my way to being a doctor (or lawyer or engineer or scientist). Yes, there are white kids (I was one of them) who came up from the low end of the middle class and put themselves, via a lot of part-time jobs, through enough school to become arts and humanities academics. But generally speaking, liberal arts college professor is still something of a race/class "luxury" occupation that whites can "afford" more than blacks.

Do black liberal arts professors provide somewhat different content in their courses (i.e., variations on what the department requires in the syllabus) than do white professors? Sure. If they're English professors, they pay more attention to black writers than do white professors. (White professors pay more attention to white writers than black professors do, but they, of course, have the advantage of "white" being the default setting for "great writer" in the, ahem, "traditionalist" canon.) But, regarding ksledge's comment, I don't think that black humanities professors, or liberal humanities professors of whatever race or ethnicity, are per capita more "irresponsible" or "lazy about politics" than are conservative professors. Nor do they "spew" their political opinions in class any more than conservative professors do.

There are a couple of points here that need to be discussed separately.

First of all, the preponderance of academics inclined toward the left politically is unsurprising. To put it crudely, one has to be either intellectually impaired or possessed of an unusual streak of nastiness to take "conservatism", as it is now defined in American politics, at all seriously. Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly, Hannity,not to mention the Republican leaders in Congress--how can these folks be regarded as anything other than intellectually inane, mendacious, vicious, mercenary clowns? The recognition of that fact alone by anyone with half a brain and a little bit of heart (in which category most academics belong)will,ipso facto, produce an advocate of "left-wing" views.

The institutional role of the university in furthering a political line is quite another matter. For one thing, experience seems to show that universities simply don't work well as engines of political change. To the extent that faculty members make "politics" part of their pedagogy, they seem to turn students cynical and apathetic far more readily than they recruit them to their pet causes. This is aside from the principle, largely valid in my view, that universities must maintain a high degree of political neutrality and be open to a wide "diversity" of doctrinal views. Over the past few decades, this principle has been badly eroded without much in the way of political "progress" in the larger world to show for it. It hardly needs pointing out that many disciplines and sub-disciplines are ideological monocultures that apply strict ideological tests to prospective recruits and evaluate "scholarship" on the basis of how vigorously it waves the approved flags. This, I think, is intolerable. "Multicultualism" is the conceptual gonfalon under which those who have striven to politicize academia usually rally, but it is rather thin stuff, a channel for self-righteousness and cause-mongering of various sorts, rather than a coherent paradigm of learning and education. Under its aegis, some rather pallid and feeble stuff has crept into the curriculum. Even worse, it has created a generation of adminsitrators (along with quite a few faculty) who have come to view classical rights of free speech and freedom of opinion as grossly inconvenient, at best, acutely subversive at worst, so that we can easily dig up horror stories of outright repression that has targeted all academic ranks, from callow students to tenured senior scholars. Most academics recognize that this is a disaster, but are too disheartened at this point--in part, by the hegemony of the politically intense--to try to put an end to this foolishness.

In a better world, acdemics would do "politics" on their own time in association with those poor folk who don't live their lives in the shelter of a campus, and without expecting to gain gold stars on their CVs or influence within their departments as a reward for such activities. They might, in such circumstances, actually have some pollitical effect in the real world! Of course, most such activism would be "leftist" as a matter of course--but so what?

Dear Fossil,

I think by your response you actually tipped the argument in Mark Bauerlein's favor. You seem to be blinded by your political perspective. The winner writes the history, but so what?

Dear Fossil,

I think by your response you actually tipped the argument in Mark Bauerlein's favor. You seem to be blinded by your political perspective. The winner writes the history, but so what?

"I don't think it is a problem that there are more liberals in academia than conservatives. But I do think it is a problem when professors act irresponsibly because of it, which they often do. They need to be trained otherwise. Even as a liberal myself, I was always uncomfortable as a student when professors made Bush jokes because I felt empathy for the conservatives in the room and because I thought it was so inappropriate. Such behavior needs to be policed better."


I agree. The university is not a place for political indoctrination. It can be a place for student activism, but professor activism should be discouraged. We're supposed to be professionals who engage in respectful debate, not a bunch of old hippies who can't go two weeks without chaining themselves to something.

There aren't many other workplaces in the U.S. that would put up with the constant loud-mouthed protests of its workers, whether they are right or wrong, that the university does. Why do we have this special right to be annoying in-your-face politicati? Did the 1960s ruin the university, too?

Here's a "traditionalist" schedule of undergraduate college classes in an English Department. Anybody care to name the school? (I've omitted two courses, to be revealed upon positing of the correct answer to the question above.)

En 100 - Introduction to College English

Basics of sentence structure, including parts of speech, sentence patterns, phrases, and clauses. Emphasis on effective paragraph construction. Not applicable toward baccalaureate English requirement
Both semesters, three hours.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring
En 101 - Composition & Grammar

Review of sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, paragraph development and essay organization. Emphasis on expository writing. Not applicable toward an English major or minor.
Both semesters, three hours.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring
En 102 - Composition & Rhetoric

Introduction to academic writing emphasizing argumentation, research, documentation and style; centering on the library paper.
Both semesters and summer, three hours. Prerequisites: En 101, Placement Test, or ACT 26+.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring Summer I
En 103 - Composition & Literature

Critical writing using literary analysis. Discussion of literature by genres and according to basic literary critical concepts and terminology.
Both semesters and summer, three hours. Prerequisite: En 102.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring Summer I Summer II
En 111 - Composition & Grammar Lecture


First semester. Corequisite: En 101.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 112 - Composition & Rhetoric Lecture


Both semesters. Corequisite: En 102.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring
En 202 - British Literature

A historical and critical survey of British literature from Beowulf to 1688.
Both semesters and summer, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring Summer I
En 203 - British Literature

A historical and critical survey of British literature from 1688 to the present.
Both semesters and summer, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring Summer I
En 204 - American Literature

A historical and critical survey of American literature from colonial times to the present. Education majors only.
First semester, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 205 - American Literature

A historical and critical survey of American literature from colonial times to 1865.
Both semesters and summer, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring Summer II
En 206 - American Literature

A historical and critical survey of American literature from 1865 to the present.
Both semesters, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring
En 300 - Literary Criticism

Critical principles, approaches, and technical concepts and terms important in the interpretation and evaluation of literature. Practice in the criticism of specific works.
First semester, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 340 - Advanced Composition & Rhetoric

Principles of rhetoric, ancient and modern, and their application to student writing. Not applicable toward an English major or minor.
First semester, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 342 - Teaching Reading: Content Areas

Materials and methods in adolescent reading improvements. Reading in subject areas. Not applicable toward an English major or minor.
Second semester, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 351 - Shakespeare

Selected comedies, histories and tragedies of Shakespeare.
Three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.
En 380 - Classical & Medieval Literature

Classical and medieval continental literature most influential upon English writers. In English translation.
Second semester, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 381 - Modern World Literature

World literature since the Middle Ages, including major European and contemporary non-Western writers.
Both semesters, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring
En 461 - British Novel

A critical and historical survey of the British novel from its beginnings to 1914, focusing on representative works of major British novelists.
Second semester, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.
En 462 - American Novel

A critical and historical survey of the American novel from its beginnings to 1914, focusing on representative works of major American novelists.
Second semester, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 479 - English Seminar

Required of all students majoring in English. Not applicable toward a major or minor.
First semester, one hour.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 502 - Adolescent Literature

Interpretative and critical study of literature especially suitable for adolescents. Not applicable toward an English major or minor.
First semester and summer, three hours.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 503 - Chaucer

Poems representative of Chaucer's three literary periods, with primary emphasis upon Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. No previous training in Middle English required.
First semester and summer, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisite: En 202.
En 504 - Milton

The poetry and prose of John Milton, with primary emphasis upon Paradise Lost.
First semester and summer, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisite: En 202.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 505 - Modern Poetry

Major British and American poetry from 1914 to 1945.
Second semester, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 506 - Modern Fiction

Major British and American fiction from 1914 to 1945.
Second semester, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.
En 507 - Twentieth Century Drama

Major American and European drama during the last century, inclusive of the forerunners Ibsen and Chekhov.
Three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.
En 508 - History of the English Language

The English language from the time of earliest records, with emphasis on major external influences and internal changes that have shaped our present language.
Second semester, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 509 - Structure of Modern English

The phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics of English according to the most significant theoretical approaches; and some applications of this knowledge for teaching native and non-native speakers effective use of oral and written language.
First semester, three hours. Prerequisite: En 103.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 510 - Advanced Grammar for TESL

Concentration on areas of English structure that are most important in teaching English as a second language.
Second semester, two hours. Prerequisites: Li 301, En 509.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 511 - Shakespeare: Early Plays

Selected histories, comedies and early tragedies inclusive of Hamlet .
First semester, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 512 - Shakespeare: Late Plays

Selected comedies, late romances and major tragedies exclusive of Hamlet .
Second semester, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 516 - Teach English as a Second Language

Theory and techniques for teaching oral and written English to students whose native language is not English.
Second semester, three hours. Prerequisite: En 509.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 517 - TESL Practicum

Supervised teaching of English to a small group of students whose native language is not English.
Both semesters, one hour. Prerequisites: En 510, En 516.

Course Schedule: Fall Spring
En 521 - Sixteenth Century Literature

English literature from 1485 to 1603 inclusive of Shakespeare.
First semester and summer, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisite: En 202.

Course Schedule: Summer II
En 522 - Seventeenth Century Literature

English literature from 1603 to 1688 exclusive of Shakespeare.
Second semester, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisite: En 202.

Course Schedule: Spring Summer I
En 525 - Contemporary Poetry

Major British and American poetry from 1945 to the present.
Second semester, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.
En 526 - Contemporary Fiction

Major British and American fiction from 1945 to the present.
Second semester, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 202, 203, 204, 205, or 206 Prereq.
En 531 - Eighteenth Century Literature

British literature from 1688 to 1789.
First semester and summer, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisite: En 203.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 532 - British Romantic Literature

British literature from 1789 to 1832.
First semester and summer, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisite: En 203.
En 533 - Victorian Literature

British literature from 1832 to 1914.
Second semester, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisite: En 203.
En 541 - Early American Literature

American literature to 1820.
Second semester, even-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 204 or 205 Prerequisite.
En 542 - American Romantic Literature

American literature from 1820 to 1865.
Second semester, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 204 or 205 Prerequisite.

Course Schedule: Spring Summer III
En 543 - American Realistic Literature

American literature from 1865 to 1914 inclusive of naturalism.
First semester and summer, odd-numbered years, three hours. Prerequisites: En 204 or 206 Prerequisite.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 596 - European Studies: Theater

A study tour of Greece, Italy and England designed to acquaint students with the historical and cultural background of significant European and English dramas; expose them to theater history and architecture; and give them opportunities to attend selected productions. Not applicable toward a major or minor.
Identical to DP 596. Summer only, three hours.
En 597 - Field Work: TESL

Practical experience teaching English as a second language in a foreign country. Not applicable toward a major or minor.
Summer only, three hours.
En 598 - European Studies: English Literature

Study tour of England, Scotland and Wales designed to include locations representing British literature from medieval to modern writings.
Summer only, three hours.
En 599 - American Studies: Literature

Study tour of the Eastern United States designed to include locations representing the American literary heritage.
Summer only, three hours.
En 600 - Literary Research

Introduction to the tools and techniques of literary scholarship.
First semester, three hours.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 620 - Medieval English Literature

Studies in Old and Middle English literature.
Three hours. Prerequisite: En 508.
En 621 - The Tudor Renaissance

Studies in English literature from 1485 to 1603.
Three hours.
En 622 - The Later Renaissance

Studies in English literature from 1603 to 1688.
Three hours.
En 631 - Neoclassicism

Studies in British literature from 1688 to 1785.
Three hours.

Course Schedule: Summer III
En 632 - British Romanticism

Studies in British literature from 1785 to 1832.
Three hours.

Course Schedule: Spring
En 633 - Victorianism

Studies in British literature from 1832 to 1914.
Three hours.
En 641 - Colonial & Revolutionary Writers

Studies in American literature from the beginnings to 1820.
Three hours.
En 642 - American Romanticism

Studies in American literature from 1820 to 1865.
Three hours.
En 643 - American Realism

Studies in American literature from 1865 to 1914.
Three hours.
En 651 - Twentieth Century British Literature

Studies in twentieth century British literature from 1914 onward.
Three hours.

Course Schedule: Fall
En 652 - Twentieth Cent American Literature

Studies in twentieth century American literature from 1914 onward.
Three hours.
En 680 - Teaching Writing

Practical techniques and curriculum philosophy for teaching writing.
First semester, three hours.


Course Schedule: Spring
En 682 - Literary Theory: The Tradition

Major texts of literary theory from Plato to Eliot.
Second semester, even-numbered years, three hours.
En 683 - Literary Theory: The Modern Era

Major texts of recent and contemporary literary theory.
Second semester, odd-numbered years, three hours.

Course Schedule: Spring

Dear 22.....:

"I think by your response you actually tipped the argument in Mark Bauerlein's favor. You seem to be blinded by your political perspective. The winner writes the history, but so what?"

Of course, this is self-serving, but I donaaa'at think I'm particularly blinded by my political perspective. FWIW, I'm a left-social-democrat and a (not very active) member of the Democratic Socialists of America, an an admirer of my grandad's politics (he was an honest-to-gosh Bolshevik before that went to the devil, and a Debs man when he got to the states).

I'm also a First Amendment absolutist, and used to look to universities as bastions of that view. What has happened in university life in that respect is fairly dreadful: speech codes, not very) free speech zones, hortatory "orientation" programs spouting narrow political doctrine, censorship under the absurd pretext that "harassment" is at issue, the screwy idea that a "hostile environment" is created whenever anyone says anything that makes a woman, a black person, or someone now on the list of indulged minorities (e.g., Muslims) take umbrage. The administrative gutlessness behind this is transparent, as is the fatuity of trying to justify this crap via "multiculturalism".

On a more rarefied plane, this has been accompanied by a torrent of pseudo-scholarship in the quondam humanities, which, in the end, is the road to academic success in some fields largely because it provides the occasion for pseudo-political grandstanding. A curious thing is the way in which this trend (now slowly decayng, thank goodness) elevated certain figures into virtual demigods, to be cited ceaselessly, but never to be criticized. I'm sure most readers remember the days when Foucault, a fitfully interesting but methodologically hopelessly sloppy eccentric, appeared in every paper that came down the pipe, always with the sense that he, like Moses, had brought transcendent truth down from the mountain.

This whole business has dreadfully depleted the rfaison d'ere of the university. Humanists, nation wide, now complain loudly of the way in which they've been shoved to the bottom of the academic pecking order, so far as funding and such are concerned. But they did it to themselves.

Dear goxewu:

The catalog you list seems pretty worthwhile to me, although it contains quite a few courses that I take to be remedial, as well as "service" courses of limited academic interest. Much depends, of course, on who is doing the teaching. If the faculty is a bunch of hoary reactionary tub-thumpers, the abstract virtues of the catalog will clearly be negated.

goxewu:

PS

Some Google-snooping discloses that the Englishcoursecatgalog you posted is that of Bob Jones University. So what? I doubt that either their faculoty or their students can live up to it in any real sense.

If it were taught by disciples of Harold Bloom Richard Poirier, Frank Kermode, and Harold Bloom, it would be an entirely different matter, yes?

Whoops! Cited the estimable Bloom (a Yankee fan!) twide. Imeant to add Fred Crews.

Nope, goxewu, the jazz I cite (40-60s straight-ahead) is a pretty narrow tradition which is no more multicultural than American transcendentalism or naturalism. And have you ever spoken with Spelman students? And please give me an example of a conservative professor who "spews" political opinions to students. Any parallel to Angela Davis, Bill Ayers, Ward Churchill? (And for what it's worth, I don't think Churchill should have been punished one bit for his Twin Towers statements.) Finally, fossil, I would pick other figures as representatives of conservatism, not media figures.

Dear Bauerlein;

In picking figures to "represent" conservatism, I don't think the choice is yours. The right in this country is what it is--and it's not a bloc of readers of Edmund Burke or the later Wordsworth.

If you're talking about American conservatism under the conventional understanding of the term, you're talking about Palin, Boehner, Frist & Co., as well as the Fox News cretins. Enough, that is, to give anyone the willies.

If you want to think of an entirely different philosophy, represented by serious thinkers, you'll need to coin a new term.

Fossil's right. I simply think that it's interesting (a word my long-ago freshman English professor said would guarantee a D to any paper including it; "very interesting" would get an automatic F) that an English-department course offering closely resembling that of my undergraduate days at a big, mainstream university would now be lodged in a fundamentalist Christian university most known for a lawsuit regarding its tax-exempt status while forbidding interracial dating (or even advocating it).

If there's a point to my posting it (other than to see what somebody else would make of it), it's the old book-by-its-cover caution. Had Bob Jones been included in the survey of core curricula by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, it would have probably gotten an A in ACTA's rating system of American colleges. (Baylor and West Point got A's, Harvard got a D and UC Berkeley got an F.)

If the 1940s-60s "straight-ahead" jazz to which Prof. Bauerlein listens is "no more multicultural than American transcendentalism," then it must consist of one CD by the original Swingle Singers. (Again, calling Luther Blissett to settle this!)

No, there is no conservative parallel to the likes of Davis, Ayers and Ward Churchill (two violent revolutionaries and a nut case). Conservative professors at the right extremity of the politial spectrum are better behaved and come with less criminal history than their counterparts on the left. Point to Prof. Bauerlein. But politically committed liberal professors do not, as a group, "spew" opinions in class any more per capita than do their committed conservative colleagues. There's a 2005 article in The National Review, "Pariahs, Martyrs and Fighters-Back: Conservative Professors in America," by John Miller that details the alleged persecution of some conservative faculty by liberal colleagues and administrators. If, however, you stand some of the cases on their heads or don't accept, ipso facto, that, for example, a complaining gay student had no grounds for complaining about a "hostile learning environment," you'll see that quite a few conservative professors are complained about by student, for political reasons. Not nearly as many as liberals, sure, but then there simply aren't as many conservative professors.

I'd ask Prof. Bauerlein this: How many of his liberal colleagues at Emory proselytize about politics unfairly in class? How many conservatives do? Are the liberals at Emory more prone to try to indoctrinate their students than the conservatives? (I assume Prof. Bauerlein isn't a minority of one.) Or is this something that happens only in San Francisco and Masschusetts?

Finally: No, I've never spoken to Spelman students. (I've spoken to students from other HBCUs, though.) I've never spoken to Emory students. Anyway, that's totally irrelevant to the discussion. What's relevant is that Prof. Bauerlein insinuated that we proponents of racial diversity on campus probably think HBUCs offer "inferior" educations because they're more racially uniform; it's a cute trick to get us to "admit" that we think HBUCs are "inferior" because they're, well, predominantly black. I'm still trying to ask him--since he invoked ranking (albeit not by that exact word) and "inferior"--to say exactly how he thinks Spelman compares to Emory in terms of undergraduate education. That ball's been bouncing around in his court for a while now.

Regarding Sarah Palin as a representative of conservatism is the same as calling Nancy Pelosi a representative of liberalism.

I doubt Herder or Burke would have thought much of Palin--but then, I doubt that Limbaugh has had much to sayt about Herder or Burke.

Interesting column (and I say that as someone who self-identifies as liberal, though not very). I do, however, take serious issue with one of Mr. Bauerlein's assertions about the political makeup of the faculty--that he "...assume[s] that most of those moderates aren't, in fact, in the middle, but rather fall into center-left or liberal."

This sort of assertion, not least since it covers more than a quarter of the respondents, needs some better sort of support than "given the political climate of the campus", since that turns it into a circular argument.

"Regarding Sarah Palin as a representative of conservatism is the same as calling Nancy Pelosi a representative of liberalism."

OK, it's a deal.

The representative of conservatism is the former Governor of a vast, sparsely populated state who, after helping to sink the Republican ticket in the Presidential election, simply up and quit a year and a half from the end of her term to write (well, assist a ghostwriter) a book and give speeches at fairs in red states. Aggressive, attractive (c'mon, it's one of her calling cards), and good at political showbiz, yes, but on the sidelines and somewhat faded from pulic view. She probably wouldn't know the The Chronicle of Higher Education (which has, we hear, politically conservative ownership) from Guns & Ammo and has no idea there even is such a thing as Emory University.

The representative of liberalism is a Congresswoman from the most populous state and the Speaker of the House. Abrasive, agressive, and on the leftish side of the Democratic Party, yes, but somebody actually in the mix, doing something. And she's probably heard of The Chronicle of Higher Education, perhaps even read an article or two and could tell you in what city Emory University is located.

Now, Nancy Pelosi is not Ronald Dworkin and Sarah Palin isn't Robert Kagan, but Prof. Bauerlein did say "a" representative, not "the" representative.

Anyway, if Nancy Pelosi doesn't represent liberalism, what kind of politics does she represent? If Sarah Palin doesn't represent conservatism, what kind of politics does she represent?

My point, goxewu, was that in looking for representatives of any -ism we should select the best idea-makers and value-setters. For liberalism we should take Dewey, Harrington, Sontag, Rawls . . . For conservatism we should take Eliot, Kirk, Friedman, Sowell . . .

Bauerlein is asking us to do the equivalent of evaluating Chritianity, as a contemporary social and political phenomenon, through the writings of Augustine and Aquinas, rather than looking at the Realpolitik of the Vatican, not to mention the activism of all those megachurches and the politcal agndas of the Promise Keepers and the Discovery Institute. As sociology and political science (which is really what Bauerlein's original piece attempted, vis a vis "conservatism"), this would obvously be wrongheaded and quite beside the point.

By the same token, to evaluate "conservatism" by looking at a few articulate intellectuals, rather than all those "teabaggers" with funny hats and subliterate posters (people who have never read the cited writers) and the comparably ignorant demagogues who manipulate them would be to blind onesself to the real nature of what is designated "conservatism" by virtually all analysts of American politics.

The situation is not really symmetric with respect to liberalism; most people who describe themselves as such have read Harrington, Krugman, Ehrenreich, or the like.

I don't aim to examine conservatism as a "social and political phenomenon," fossil. I'm interested in it as a set of beliefs and values, which is how the Chronicle survey asked the question. They had people label themselves as "conservative" etc., not "Republican" etc.

Fossil must be tearing his hair out by now. Bauerlein's answers--to the legit assertion that American political liberalism and American political liberalism should be judged by how their avowed representatives operate on the ground--are sophistries.

They remind me of an old philosophy joke. German, British and French teams of engineers came to a Third World country for the start-up of an irrigation system recently installed by an international aid agency. The switch was pulled, and the water flowed. The Germans checked the pipes and valves for leaks and found everything working perfectly. They smiled, nodded, and gave the locals a thumbs-up sign. The British measured the volume and speed of the flow and did the same. But the French seemed worried. When asked what the problem was, the head of the French team replied, "But how does it work in THEORY?"

M Bauerlein, il est francais.

"...American political liberalism and American political conservatism..."

A correspondent named Thomas Jacobs sent me a comment that he had a hard time posting on the site, so I'm passing it along:

And while we're waiting...

Has Prof. Bauerlein ever read what Thomas Sowell (a fellow Prof. Bauerlein recommends as a spokesman for conservatism's set of beliefs and values) has to say to regular folk in his newspaper pieces? Put a dress on him and he's practically Ann Coulter. Or are we supposed to restrict our view of conservatism or liberalism not only to their hifalutin resident philosophers, but to only the hifalutin philosophers' most hifalutin pronouncements?

I recommend to readers Sowell's first five or six books, running through the mid-80s, and Vision of the Anointed.

I take it that's a "yes" from Prof. Bauerlein in answer to the question: "Are we supposed to restrict our view of conservatism or liberalism not only to their hifalutin resident philosophers, but to only the hifalutin philosophers' most hifalutin pronouncements?" Which is to say that Prof. Bauerlein answers, in effect, that we are not only to judge conservatism by such hifalutin resident philsophers as Thomas Sowell, but ONLY by Sowell's first five or six books, and not his writing for newspapers.

But maybe not. Maybe Prof. Bauerlein recommends Thomas Sowell's first five or six books* AND his newspaper pieces as well. If that is the case, what is it that happened at the end of the mid-80s that prohibits Prof. Bauerlein from recommending Sowell's later books?

a) Sowell quit writing books.
b) Sowell quit writing good books, but we don't know why.
c) Sowell quit writing good books because he went off the deep end.
d) Sowell quit writing good books because he got old and dithery.

* I've only read one of Sowell's books, the early about Marxism. It was every even-handed in laying out the philosophy and pointing out its flaws. It was much more even-handed than the treatment Terry Eagleton (a Marxist) gave to conservative/traditionalist literary theory in his introductory book on the subject.

MB, your difficulty in passing along the Thomas Jacob comment, could it be related to your attempting to "paste it in" in the comment box? I am having the same difficulty in responding to goxewu's latest contribution to the dialogue on the Carey Brainstorm blog. I cannot get it to post but, unlike you, I get the error404 "page not found" -- you, at least, were able to post your preface to the comment.

For some reason the Website seems to only accept paste-ins sometimes and I have no idea why or when. I hope you'll succeed in communicating our fellow reader's comment.

MB, you may have to resort to directly keying in the Jacob comment, for that is the only way I was now able to post at the Carey thread after multiple, unsuccessful paste-in attempts.

Good luck, and thank you for trying to come to the aid of a fellow reader of your blog.

I keep trying, and get the 404, too. I've notified the editors. Thanks for the update.

Here's the Jacobs, which I typed in:

I would simply suggest that the roots of leftism and social activism in academia are far more complex than the 'law of group polarization' can possibly account for. This law, in essence, suggests that when like-minded people get together to talk, they only galvanize their already-existing views and presuppositions and orientations toward the world. The idea is that this makes everyone in the group increasingly more extreme in their positions (although, to be frank, I'm not sure I understand how the two phenomena are related). This is one way to resolve or at least to understand what many see as a problem in academia. Is it not, however, just as possible that the reason people are lefty in academia is that this worldview and philosophical framework just seems more correct than any other?

A friend of mine once asked me why so many professors are radicals and left-wing. I thought about it for a moment, and then said something to the effect that, well, because that is often the only conscionable position. If each of the disciplines in the humanities bear some meaningful relation to social reality (past, present, and future), it seems to me that most lefty academics have come to the conclusion that there are real and profound problems with capitalism (either as it currently exists or even on a conceptual and practical level), that radical change in the way we produce, consume, labor, and leisure throughout our lives is not only possible but totally necessary, and that all of these things must be reflected in what gets taught and how. The notion that education is a neutral rite of passage or some such thing that should simply provide you with certain tools to make you a good citizen is something that I actually find salutary, but has it ever really been this way? hasn't education and teaching (from, say, Socrates onwards) always been about debunking myths, disrupting and maybe even overturning the status quo, and making students more aware of their presuppositions so that they can grapple with the complexity the world casts forth in more sophisticated and coherent ways? Social activism and leftism are only anomalies if you view them from a certain (centrist or rightist) perspective. Otherwise, they are simpy the only possible solutions to a problematic problem, even if they could easily be characterized as failed projects over and over again. The same, I think, could be said about capitalism, but that's a whole other story.

I just got back from a trip to South America, and no one there finds it strange that most intellectuals are left wing. There is simply no other position to adopt down there (for a variety of reasons, ranging from the social, the economic, and historical, and the cultural--American neo-liberalist policity have simply destroyed many economies down there, and what remains is a wealthy elite and the impoverished and disempowered masses). I mention this because I think, despite the appearance of progress and continuous evolution, things aren't dramatically different up here. It might be better to be a nation of consumers than a nation of angry eunemployed or exploited workers, butnot much--it's simply a different form of oppression ("false consciousness" is, I suppose, the closest one could come to giving it a name).

Left of right, it's not about balance or 'different points of view.' It's about what's right. And most academics have come to believe that Marxist, progressive, or even liberal perspectives are simply morecorrect (or perhaps provide better descriptions to social reaolities) than any others. The Law of Group Polarization has nothing to do with it. It's a cultural, not an empirical 'problem.'

Thanks to Prof. Bauerlein for making the above-and-beyond effort to bring Mr. Jacobs's post to "Brainstorm" readers, especially since it doesn't--to put it mildly--offer unqualified support to Prof. Bauerlein's position on why most academics are species of lefty.

I propose this oversimplification:

A1. Wall Streeters are smart people who care a lot about making big money.
A2. A majority of Wall Streeters prefer a "traditionalist" economic canon, i.e., to be guided by the principle that people ought to be allowed to make, legally, as much money as they can.
A3. A minority of Wall Streeters care about the principle of making big money having to be tempered for the benefit of the greater society.


B1. Humanities academics are smart people who don't care a lot about making big money.
B2. A majority of humanities academics prefer a "progressivist" literary canon, i.e., guided by the principle that the idea of literary excellence is mutable, as evidenced by new voices in new forms.
B3. A minority of academics prefer a "traditionalist" literary canon, and worry about its immutable excellence being subverted or overwhelmed by new voices in new forms.

C1. (A3) Wall Streeters don't care much about the doings of (B2) humanities academics.
C2. But (B3) humanities academics generally care a whole lot about the principles of (A2) Wall Streeters.
C3. And (B2) humanities academics generally care a whole lot about the principles of (A3) Wall Streeters.

D1. (A3) Wall Streeters are a tiny, even mostly theoretical, minority.
D2. (B3) Academics are a small, but less tiny and more palpable, minority.

I'm late to this discussion, and I admit that I only scanned the comments, so someone else may have said this already.

If I took that survey, my interpretation of the question about multiculturalism would be that it was asking if I thought *the institution* needed to appreciate multiculturalism -- in its students and faculty, presumably -- NOT that the university needed to get the *students* to appreciate it. Maybe that's how some of the respondents interpreted it, too.

And I'm pretty liberal, and I'd have probably answered "no," unless I thought my institution had a pretty serious problem in this area.