Class Two: Shapes and Contours of English Studies

Where did English Studies come from, as a field? Where is it going? Where do we see ourselves fitting into this shifting terrain, and how can we navigate it most effectively—both intellectually as developing scholars and practically as graduate students in this department? These are the central questions for tonight’s discussion. 

I. McComiskey (Introduction) and Eagleton (Chapter 1) offer different but overlapping histories of English Studies.  What moments/events in the field seem especially important for literary studies?  What outside forces have worked to shape the field? Did anything surprise you about these origin stories?  With your neighbor, build a quick timeline of these moments/shifts.  We will compile these on the board.

II. How has literary studies organized itself (in different ways over time)? Why do we (in English) care about genres? Periods? Class? Gender? Ethnicity? Race? Sexuality? National boundaries? Have you taken courses that you now recognize as coming out of particular moments in the history of the field? 

III. Moore and Miller write, “The field is still in the process of rethinking itself, even as it is working to reconceive its place in the evolving academy” (xi). What evidence do you see of this rethinking at UMB? Who counts as faculty, and how are faculty hired? Who does what jobs in English departments? How does the UMB English department reflect the field as described by McComiskey, Moore/Miller, and Eagleton?

IV. Can we see evidence of these changes in the terms faculty use to describe themselves? Which terms seem especially to reflect different shifts in the field?

V. Take a look at the list of courses offered to undergraduates by our department.  How do the titles reflect different trends/moments/ideas described in our readings? With your neighbor, find courses that announce themselves as belonging to a particular historical view, belief system about English studies, and/or organizational philosophy of the field.