The English Major in Decline

A smart post at ads without products responding to last week's book review/assessment in The Nation about the English professing gig.

Both pieces, and the book in question , seem like pieces of conversations we should be having.

Jason gets it right....

Jason Jones has just saved me 15 minutes by writing out his own response to the question below, which echoes many of the things I would have said. He also offers his own career as a real-life (and successful) example. Read it.

Defeatism

Brian's post makes me miserable and I wanted something else at the top of the page.

To graduate or not?

Tenured Radical wrote yesterday about whether one should graduate or not when one doesn't have a tenure-track position lined up. In short, her advice is to stay in school--if possible--, polish your diss, and get some articles out. She sees adjuncting or VAPing as taking too much time to allow you to polish your writing.

Others thoughts?

Social scholarship

On the rise of "social scholarship" in the humanities.

Working and whining

Mark Bauerlein on working and whining.

Update: Some responses, here, here, here, and here.