I don’t have the bandwidth or venue to write the essay I would like to write about the crisis of the humanities, but: 1. English is not the same as the humanities and confusing one with the other fogs the discussion. 2. The enrollment drops are sobering but the difference….

Between enrollment in majors vs enrollments in classes is not insignificant. I teach classes with 30-75 students (no TA) for a program that has 20 majors in a good day. Humanities programs serve a lot of non majors without credit. 3. The distance between the strength of …

culture in the public sphere and the weakening of the humanities is a question that requires far more attention. 4. The humanities is not literary studies only (which is also not the same as English, bears repeating). 5. The article at the New Yorker points to something…

important: the investment in infrastructure in professional schools has gutted liberal arts infrastructure. 6. We all have anecdotal data, but student enrollment is ultimately an effect and not a cause. The cause is permanent economic anxiety. 7. At the same time …

Admissions offices, career counselors and others perpetuate the myth that humanities majors cannot lead to profitable careers when we know many employers don’t care much about the major pursued in college because undergrad majors do not create expertise. 8. If you write a story..

Interviewing people in the humanities, contingent faculty need a more prominent role. So does the fact that the precarization of the humanities is a laboratory for the destruction of academic labor rights at large. 9. The humanities are not doomed or close to the end. Rather…

They are experiencing a contraction that results from capitulating to the idea that college is solely to train for labor skills. Until the humanities find an argument to push back against that effectively, the downward turn with continue. But many of us teach successfully…

To students who come back and perhaps conversations have to be led by those willing to put up a fight and not doomsayers and nostalgics. Turned off open replies because of protecting my time but maybe one day I will formally write all of this.

Although I presume most people reading this are aware, this thread is in response to this piece: The End of the English Major newyorker.com/magazine/2023/…