Robert Scholes

I really appreciated Scholes's consideration of the place of the English Department in an academic world that's increasingly about students studying the practical, the career-oriented. On the one hand, I agree with him that the teaching of reading and the teaching of writing retain a significant importance, even if we become more and more a "service" department. I agree that the modernist privileging of difficult works needs to be dethroned, and that cultural studies should become an important part of what English departments do. On the other, many of his examples struck me as quixotic in the extreme, to the point of derailing his arguments. The first few chapters are absolutely the strongest.… (more)

LibraryThing user dekesolomon's review of English After the Fall is succinct and accurate - unlike Scholes' own treatise on the evolution of English studies. The premise of Robert Scholes' text is one I certainly agree with - he identifies a need for English department to evolve, both for their own survival and for the benefit of students. As one of the "lowly" adjuncts both Scholes and Deke identify, I have very strong opinions about the state of compositional studies, and some specific ideas about how to change things for the good of all; I do not think Scholes would agree with many of my assessments.

Scholes suggests that the way to extend the life of English departments is to look beyond the traditional canon and recognize other genres as texts worthy of study. This would likely have been a radical idea twenty years ago, but my own experiences as a student suggest that Scholes is behind the curve; I, for example, took courses on Japanese theatre, contemporary fiction, American travel narratives, and a host of other genres that are traditionally "nonliterary" as an undergraduate, and continue to use "nonliterary" sources in my own courses. Much of Scholes' arguments are lost in his enthusiasm for specific texts, and for a reader unfamiliar with the operas and films on which he fixates, his text as a whole loses its power.

Whiles Scholes certainly identifies many of the problems now facing English departments, his "solution" seems to aggravate many of the current difficulties of teaching the subject by continuing to present material that undergraduates will not find compelling (i.e. opera), as opposed to addressing some of the most immediate concerns: a need for students to learn how to communicate effectively, whether or not they pursue English courses beyond the requirements of Freshman Composition.… (more)