English Studies: The State of the Discipline (THS)

From The Times Higher Educational Supplement, Lennard Davis

"English studies has traditionally been a powerhouse in the anglophone academy. But in an era of rising fees, concerns about employability and a growing distaste for difficult texts written by dead white authors have combined to push down enrolments and endanger departments. Seven academics – from the UK, the US, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong – assess the state of the discipline and share their views on whether and how it needs to evolve. Trisha Pender, associate professor of English at the University of Newcastle in Australia, says that “a course filled entirely with triple-decker tomes…is unlikely to attract big undergraduate enrolments”. Meanwhile, Alexander Dick and Patricia Badir at the University of British Columbia argue that when universities and scholars are “confident about the value of literature, linguistic and humanities research in our increasingly complex, uneasy world, our students feel confident about it too”.