Featured photo by Regina Kühne. CC BY-SA 4.0.
College students who majored in English used to be required to study Shakespeare, the preeminent author of English literature. The bad news is that Shakespeare has disappeared from required courses in English departments in most of the top U.S. universities, but the good news is that only about 2% of America’s undergraduates major in English. English departments have become some of the most radicalized of all university departments, more so than sociology, psychology, anthropology, or even women’s studies. Many undergraduate courses focus on extremely specialized subjects of interest only to the professor, but of virtually no value to students. With the abundance of great literature written in the English language, it is a pity that colleges have abandoned their mission to introduce students to the best that has been thought and written.
Forty years ago, University of Chicago Professor Allan Bloom achieved best-seller lists and fame with his book called The Closing of the American Mind. He said the change in academic curricula began in the 1960s. What happened? To quote words from Hamlet: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” That’s right; none of this is an accident. Universities deliberately abandoned the classic works of literature and purposefully adopted multicultural readings written by untalented, unimportant women and minorities. Universities deliberately replaced courses in the great authors of English literature with “fresh concerns,” “under-represented cultures,” and “ethnic or non-Western literature.”
Bloom’s book showed how the Western canon of what educated Americans should know (from Socrates to Shakespeare) was replaced with relativism and the goals of opposing racism, sexism and elitism. Current works promoting multiculturalism written by women and minorities replaced the classics of Western civilization written by the so-called “Dead White European Males.” Leftwing academics, more truthfully called tenured radicals, eagerly spread that message. The classicists were cowed into silence.
In colleges today, Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton have been replaced by living authors who toe the line of woke political correctness. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni once said that “a degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. It is tantamount to fraud.” College students: don’t waste your scarce college dollars on a major in English. Buy a copy of Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind, instead!
Radical leftists have overrun America’s education institutions. We are always tracking the latest at Phyllis Schlafly Eagles. The best way you can stay informed is to visit PhyllisSchlafly.com and subscribe to our emails. Visit PhyllisSchlafly.com today and join us next time for the Phyllis Schlafly Report.
This post originally appeared at https://phyllisschlafly.com/family/colleges/the-closing-of-the-american-mind/
Phyllis Schlafly