(The Profession of English)

This course will provide an introduction to the profession of English from both theoretical and practical perspectives. We will look at the history of the university and the profession (perhaps using Gerald Graff’s Professing Literature complemented by some reading in the history of higher education in America (e.g. selections from Clark Kerr or Frederick Rudolph’s The American College and University). We will then look at some criticisms of the current state of higher education, from both the right and the left (e.g. selections from Charles J. Sykes’s Profscam, Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt’s Academic Keywords, and Bill Readings’s The University in Ruins) and defenses of the university by such writers as Paul Lauter, Joan Scott, Jonathan R. Cole, and Francis Oakley.. We will then turn to the current organization of the profession, again considering each topic both theoretically and practically: the job search, research, teaching, and service, and tenure. For these sections we will be using readings from Academic Keywords, The Academic’s Handbook, ed. Leigh DeNeef and Crauford D. Goodwin, The Social Worlds of Higher Education, ed. Bernice A. Pescosolido and Ronald Aminzade, On the Market: Surviving the Academic Job Search, ed. Christina Boufis and Victoria C. Olson, and other articles from such sources as Profession, the annual MLA publication on topics of professional concern.

The course will meet twice a week in a seminar format; each participant will be responsible for presenting readings to the class, and there will be a 20-page seminar paper at the end.