Are English departments dying? Or, are they simply changing to meet the wants and needs of today’s students? Emory University professor Marc Bousquet argues it’s the latter, and sees more change ahead:
If universities like mine are still offering doctorates in English 10 years from now, the programs won’t resemble the lit-only degrees at Yale or Columbia. They’ll emulate those at lower-ranked institutions that have more success in placing their students, like Clemson or the University of Pittsburgh, where English has tracks in media and comp-rhet, together with top research faculty members selected only for expertise in their fields, not loyalty to a pedagogy from the 1950s.
