The following comes from the Winter 2014 edition of the City Journal.
In 2011, the University of California at Los Angeles decimated its English major. Such a development may seem insignificant, compared with, say, the federal takeover of health care. It is not. What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift in our culture that bears on our relationship to the past—and to civilization itself.
Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton—the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing.
In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton, or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.”
Such defenestrations have happened elsewhere, of course, and long before 2011. But the UCLA coup was particularly significant because the school’s English department was one of the last champions of the historically informed study of great literature, uncorrupted by an ideological overlay. Precisely for that reason, it was the most popular English major in the country, enrolling a whopping 1,400 undergraduates.
Let’s compare what the UCLA student has lost and what he has gained. Here’s Oberon addressing Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
Once I sat upon a promontory
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the seamaid’s music
To which UCLA’s junior English faculty respond: Ho-hum. Here’s the description of a University of California postcolonial studies research grant: The “theoretical, temporal, and spatial intersections of postcoloniality and postsocialism will arrive at a novel approach to race, gender, and sexuality in present-day geopolitics.”
To read the entire article, click here.
“Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them…” Mao’s Long March through the institutions goes on. Long live the Cultural Revolution!
This article is very deceptive. One could potentially take Milton instead of Shakespeare at UCLA, but you couldn’t be an English major without taking either one. As for Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales takes a very negative view toward the Catholic doctrine of relics (along with the religious practice of making a pilgrimage)–I don’t see why it should necessarily be required reading if a student wanted to take a different course in Early English Literature and read, say, Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight instead.
You can not change history. Truth is Truth.
In the past, relics as well as indulgences had been abused in the Church.
So Ann the truth about you is coming out. Apparently you are believer in “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”!
May God have mercy on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Without Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton, there is no English Dept. at UCLA. They and other English writers are the framework of the English literature. It is tragic that UCLA would “defenestrate” these beautiful works and replace them with required leftist trash. In addition to the rich, precise and inspiring language of these masters, their works depict Christian ideals. The ideas, plots and beautiful language they created are not forgotten, but they often come to mind even decades later. Only twisted minds could demand leftist literature be taught in place of these masters.
Thank you California Catholic for keeping an eye on the War on our Culture. Shame on UCLA.
“Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.” UCLA: Don’t worry if you don’t get it…
UCLA is confusing English majors with Sociology majors.
They are brainwashing the youth for future generations.
“Dave N.”: Or the “Green Lantern!” This decision of UCLA (and other schools) is simply and completely absurd. The anti-intellectual atmosphere at many “leading” colleges around the country actually has roots in high schools everywhere (and middle schools, too). The efforts of one John Wallace, a onetime Administrator for, ironically, Mark Twain Intermediate, and a Fairfax County Human Relations Committee member, sought to have “Huckleberry Finn” banned from school curricula (which would have happened at Mark Twain Intermediate save for intervention of the Superintendent of Schools). A compilation of teaching materials about this type of censorship concern was developed by Dr. Allen Webb of Western Michigan University. One article, “The Struggle for Tolerance,” by Peaches Henry, was illustrative: “Since the Fairfax County incident, he [John Wallace] has appeared on ABC’s “Nightline” and CNN’s “Freeman Reports” and has traveled the country championing the cause of black children who he says are embarrassed and humiliated by the legitimization of “nigger” in public schools. Devoted to the eradication of Huck Finn from the schools, he has “authored” an adapted version of Twain’s story.” Works of art, even transcendant literature such as “Huckleberry Finn,” are to judged by their political merit, not intrinsic value. Imagine that, Shakespeare being judged unimportant because it is tainted by association with . . . ? (What is the “Empire” anyway?) Perhaps, the better decision would have been for the Chair of the UCLA English Department to simply tell the “junior faculty” to teach Chaucer/Milton/Shakespeare, or leave.
St. Christopher, thank you for your comments. Common Core has eliminated all British Literature from the high school curriculum.
“Tracy”: Ah, that must be the “Empire.” Well, who cares about Virginia Woolf, George Elliot, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, H.G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling (Ooops, the “Empire” again), all those guys? The UCLA faculty that postured this “new” English department should lose any chance of tenure and probably be fired; the head of the department should certainly lose his position. What dopes.
Last time I checked, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Donne, Shelley, Keats were all English.
Please refer to the document: Common Core Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, Appendix B: Text Exemplars. It’s readily available on the Internet; high school texts begin on page 9.
I’m going to assume you are sorely misinformed and not intentionally publishing an untruth.
I was told this by a high school English teacher who was distraught over this. If UCLA is dropping the British writings, the new generation of teachers will probably not even be aware of what is missing. This reeks of more American revisionist history. The socialist are intent on “fundamentally changing America”
Don’t believe everything you hear; do your own research. UCLA is not “dropping” their British writings. You can see for yourself by visiting the UCLA website and surveying the requirements for a major in English.
To tell this leftist sycophants to leave would require moral and intellectual courage, and those two things are sorely missing in academic insanity these days.
You can find these and many other writings at places like Thomas Aquinas College, the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Hillsdale College, and The University of Dallas still.
May God have mercy on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
So much for English literature, this decision is ridiculous, be assured, it is an affront to serious students of literature! What the hell is wrong with these so-called academics?!
TEM, you asked, “What the hell is wrong with these so-called academics?!” They are socialist (:
Sick!