I've found the discussion initiated by Prof. Willett 
instructive and potentially important, not merely for the 
statistics, but for our various reactions to the 
deductions and arguments being made from or against them 
-- I suppose that in the fallen world some would say 
there's no such thing as an innocent bystander or a 
neutral country.  But what I've been struck by, in the 
exchange, is the relevance of (1) Milton's Areopagitica 
and other remarks of Milton elsewhere on the elicitation 
of truth by contraries, as eventually taken up by William 
Blake (Joseph Wittrich wrote an article on this 
development in the 1960's), and (2) Plato's Phaedrus 
274-276, as taken up by moderns like Derrida, Eric 
Havelock, and Marshall McLuhan.  For listserve discussions 
seem to overcome some if not all of the objections 
Socrates is made to offer regarding writing, even while 
they also reinforce them.

To wit: "You know, Phaedrus, that's the strange thing 
about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. 
 The painter's products stand before us as though they 
were alive, but if you questioned them, they maintain a 
most majestic silence.  It is the same with written words; 
they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, 
but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a 
desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the 
same thing forever.  And once a thing is put in writing, 
the composition, whatever it may be, drifts all over the 
place, getting into the hands not only of those who 
understand it, but equally of those who have no business 
with it; it doesn't know how to address the right people, 
and not address the wrong.  And when it is ill-treated and 
unfairly abused it always needs it parents to come to its 
help, being unable to defend or help itself."

Plato's Socrates goes on to propose a living speech (as 
opposed to a dead writing) that implants its seminal words 
in suitable soil:  "[The speaker] will sow his seed in 
literary gardens, ... and write when he does write by way 
of pastime, collecting a store refreshment both for his 
own memory, against the day 'when age oblivious comes,' 
and for all such as tread in his footsteps, and will take 
pleasure in watching the tender plants grow up.  And when 
other men resort to other pastimes,regaling themselves 
with drinking parties and such like, he will doubtless 
prefer to indulge in the recreation I refer to."  And so 
on to the praise of "the art of dialectic":  "The 
dialectician selects a soul of the right type, and in it 
he plants and sows his words founded on knowledge, which 
which can defend both themselves and him who planted them, 
words which instead of remaining barren contain a seed 
whence new words grow up in new characters, where by the 
seed is vouchsafed immortality, and its possessor the 
fullest measure of blessedness that man can attain unto." 
Just exactly how "those lessons on justice and honor and 
goodness that are expounded and set forth for the sake of 
instruction, and are veritably written in the soul of the 
listener" are to be distinguished from "what is a mere 
dream image of justice and injustice, good and evil," 
Socrates seems to leave to the future development of the 
next generation, in which his own words may bear fruit, 
the very promising Isocrates in particular.  By a happy 
turn of events, the Logos Areopagiticos of that Athenian 
orator, we are told, was a speech meant to be read, not 
heard, and so it survived its promulgation in Plato's 
Athens.  It was--or is--in defense of an open court.

-- Jim N.

PS John Leonard's perhaps not altogether fanciful 
suggestion about combining two rather different threads 
might remind us that the true Florimell is shadowed by a 
false and meretricious one, just as Una is; Milton (in 
Reason of Church Government) imagined the commodification 
of spiritual goods somewhat similarly:  "That undeflowered 
and unblemished simplicity of the gospel, not she herself, 
for that could never be, but a false-whited, a lawny 
resemblance of her, like that air-borne Helena in the 
fables," who "gives up her body to ... mercenary whoredom 
... and ... makes merchandise of ... the souls of men."

On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 16:35:01 -0800
  denise maclachlan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I, too, want to thank Steve Willett from bringing up this 
>topic. I'll include a link to a news story that includes 
>the information that non-tenure track professors make up 
>70 percent of faculties:
> http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/
> 
> 
> One reason to continue this discussion is that no one is 
>so well suited to consider the problem of debt and chronic 
>underemployment among classics and humanities PhDs as 
>those who have studied rhetoric, philosophy, and 
>literature, and also teach in the very institutions whose 
>practices are under scrutiny. The people on this list have 
>the imaginations to place themselves in the shoes of the 
>adjunct, and they have the experience and intellectual 
>discipline to analyze the situation. I would far rather 
>read what these folks have to say on the topic than almost 
>anyone else. 
> 
> Denise MacLachlan
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Brian Lockey <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Tuesday, November 
>12, 2013 7:21 AM
> Subject: Re: beyond the passive professoriate
> 
> 
> Although I don't agree with what he has written about the 
>uselessness of a humanities degree, I did want to thank 
>Steve Willett for bringing this topic up and for 
>stimulating an interesting discussion. I am not sure why 
>we are suddenly being encouraged to "move on." The issue 
>of student indebtedness seem to me to be among the most 
>pressing issues for our profession, something that is 
>being brought up continually at my university as well as 
>outside the university as well, and it seems the most 
>ethical of discussions to have at this point, even if it 
>is off the topic of Spenser and Sidney.  I certainly hope 
>that Andrew does not intervene.
> 
> Brian Lockey
> ________________________________________
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List 
>[[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dorothy Anne 
>Stephens [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 9:02 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: beyond the passive professoriate
> 
> Chelsea Hernandez’s insight is, indeed, brilliant.  She 
>should push that essay onward.
> 
> Dot
> 
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List 
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David 
>Miller
> Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 5:39 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: beyond the passive professoriate
> 
> To bee, or not to bee.
> 
> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 6:35 AM, Herron, Thomas 
><[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> Mel, honey, is indeed a commodity taken from flowers... 
>--Tom
> ________________________________________
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List 
>[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] 
>on behalf of Heather James 
>[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:22 AM
> To: 
>[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: beyond the passive professoriate
> 
> Michael, I'd love to talk about Spenser, Du Bellay, and 
>translation.  I will be looking into this article, and 
>soon.  I need to know more about Du Bellay.
> 
> And if we can pursue an addendum, I'd also like to float 
>a topic — a teaching topic — about the potential for 
>insight that Dory, Florimell's dwarf, provides into 
>Florimell's status as the eternally fleeing woman in FQ 
>III.  For some years — perhaps since I took my 
>undergraduate course on Spenser — I have been wondering 
>why it is that Florimell attracts the kind of attention 
>she attracts (poor Arthur) and raises the questions of 
>complicity that her figure (that of the fleeing and 
>under-dressed woman) raises and yet can claim, rightly, 
>that the suspicion should be referred to her pursuers and 
>not to herself.
> 
> One of my undergraduate students came into my office 
>today with a paper on Florimell and Chastity, and of 
>course it was inadequate as a statement of what my student 
>thought was really interesting in Spenser.  But by the 
>time she was done, it was clear that she thought that 
>Florimell would be perpetually caught in the Erotic Chase 
>as the consummate object of petrarchan desire so long as 
>she thought of her own chastity as a commodity, a gift 
>that she was "saving" for Marinell.  And I thought, gosh, 
>that's brilliant.  That's not what Britomart thinks of her 
>chastity or of Artegall.  But that is definitely what 
>Florimell thinks as she runs away from what my student 
>called "phallic aggression" and towards her own love 
>object.  Florimell will always be taken for a string of 
>splendid body parts—each one of which can be related to a 
>commodity—so long as she thinks of chastity as a 
>commodity, too, and one that belongs in extension to her 
>future husband.
> 
> That is the message of my student, Chelsea Hernandez, to 
>you on this fine Monday evening.
> 
> Heather James
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List 
>[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] 
>on behalf of Michael Saenger 
>[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>]
> Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 8:23 PM
> To: 
>[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: beyond the passive professoriate
> 
> Heather, a welcome suggestion.  I just noticed this new 
>article.  Could we talk about Spenser, Du Bellay and 
>translation?
> 
> http://www.academia.edu/5032381/How_Spenser_Excavates_Du_Bellay
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 10:01 PM, Heather James 
><[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> 
>wrote:
> Dear Andrew,
> 
> Might we have a change of topic, please?  And a 
>retirement of this one?  I'd be ever so grateful.
> 
> Heather James
> 
> 
>From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List 
>[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>] 
>on behalf of Steven J. Willett 
>[[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>]
> Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 7:11 PM
> To: 
>[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: Re: Student debt and the passive professoriate
> 
> Let me start by saying my focus was the Classics major, 
>particularly the
> graduate degree major, and I held no invidious motives in 
>what I wrote.
> The undergraduate employment rate in the International 
>Cultural Studies
> Department of my University here in Japan, the Shizuoka 
>University of Art
> and Culture (静岡文化芸術大学), is in the 90th percentile.  The
> unemployment rate in Japan is 4%!  And we have full 
>national health and
> dental insurance matched only by France and the UK in 
>terms of per capita
> cost.
> 
> I would recommend that you study the following statistics 
>as background to
> what I write:
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/adjunct-faculty_n_4255139.html?ref=topbar
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/adjunct-faculty_n_4255139.html?ref=topbar
> 
> http://www.ibtimes.com/educated-unemployed-unemployment-rate-recent-college-grads-higher-high-school-grads-1324431
> 
> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/
> 
> http://www.policymic.com/articles/65609/44-of-young-college-graduates-are-on-the-wrong-career-path
> 
> 
> On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 05:07:58 +0900, Rankin, Mark C - 
>rankinmc
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> 
>wrote:
> 
>> 1) A humanities degree when properly taught teaches 
>>students to think
>> and gives them reasoning skills and skills in written 
>>communication that
>> are readily transferrable to a range of careers. 
>>Moreover, asking
>> important questions about life are not improper to ask 
>>just because
>> there is no ready connection to $ on the back end. By the 
>>same token,
>> teaching students to reason through these questions seems 
>>to be to have
>> great value.
> 
> This of course is the tried-and-true argument going back 
>centuries for
> studying the Classics, which will do a better job of what 
>you advocate
> than English.  I note your qualification above with the 
>modal "seems."  Do
> you have data to demonstrate it?
> 
>> 2) A corollary to (1) is the following: the humanities do 
>>appear to be a
>> waste if one values the pursuit of financial profit above 
>>all other
>> pursuits. Many obviously do place highest premium on 
>>financial profit,
>> but not all, and I think that even the most skeptical 
>>would agree that
>> life is more than money.
> 
> If you'd actually read the several hundred thousands of 
>words I've posted
> to this list nearly from its start, you would know I 
>agree completely.
> But the hard facts are really quite hard: Erst kommt das 
>Fressen, dann die
> Moral to quote Brecht.  Or, in our vernacular, "Grub 
>first, then ethics."
> The problem is not just high unemployment and 
>mal-employment, it's the
> lack of good, affordable healthcare.  The young may think 
>they're
> immortal, but they're one fall on concrete or one auto 
>accident from
> improvidence.  Maybe you have good university insurance 
>and maybe you
> don't, but you'll only find out when a catastrophe hits.  
>We don't yet
> know if the ACA will deliver, but I doubt it.
> 
>> 3) More fundamentally, we are an indebted society. The 
>>average household
>> in the United States carries tends of thousands of 
>>dollars of consumer
>> credit card debt because people as a whole spend more 
>>than they can
>> afford. Student loan debt is only one facet of a larger 
>>problem. The
>> larger problem should be addressed rather than targeting 
>>one sector of
>> the higher education system because its graduates do not 
>>automatically
>> earn six-figure salaries.
> 
> Did you read my statistics?  Student debt is $1.2 
>trillion, greater than
> all credit card debt:
> 
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/specialfeatures/2013/08/07/how-the-college-debt-is-crippling-students-parents-and-the-economy/
> 
> This is a fatally heavy burden compared to my times in 
>the 50s and 60s.  I
> did not "target" one sector of the higher education 
>system, economics
> did.  The US is a dying economy that has no future 
>without divesting
> itself of the military-industrial-congressional complex.  
>Please read the
> work of my friends Bill Astore and Andrew Bacevich.  
>Bacevich has
> recommended that the DOD cut its budget 10% per year for 
>10 years, which
> would leave us with an enormous defensive potential 
>without the foreign
> wars of aggression and global hegemony.  Think where all 
>that money could
> go.  Consider the opportunity costs of the almost certain 
>war with Iran
> that is coming.
> 
>> 4) Even more fundamentally, the humanities enriches our 
>>culture. Imagine
>> a society without the arts, without theater, without 
>>film, without
>> literature, without music, the list can go on. I don't 
>>want to live in
>> such a society, and I think most others would not wish to 
>>do so either.
> 
> Well, heck, that is what we used to call a gigantic 
>glittering
> generality.  My whole life has been spent in defending 
>high aesthetic and
> educational standards, as those on this list know who 
>have debated with me
> for better or worse.  You make a common mistake, however: 
>the fate of the
> humanities does not hang on university classes and 
>degrees.  It hangs on
> readers and passionate voyagers into the heritage--for me 
>the Classical
> heritage, but for those here the rather shorter but 
>enormously revivifying
> medieval-renaissance heritage.  Doubtless Jim N. will 
>come to our rescue.
> 
>> 5) Historically, humanities educations always prepared 
>>students to
>> think, and the more professional skills were simply 
>>learned through
>> apprenticeship or other means. Just because these skills 
>>are now taught
>> in universities does not mean that the universities 
>>should automatically
>> jettison the humanities. We need to do a better job 
>>teaching students to
>> envision how they can market themselves in the workforce, 
>>not cancel
>> entire humanities programs.
> 
> I never said and have never said that universities should 
>"jettison the
> humanities" and did not advocate that they "cancel entire 
>humanities
> programs."  That's just shoddy thinking and reasoning on 
>your part.  I had
> a narrow focus: What is the long-term consequence of 
>assuming a huge
> nonrecourse debt in today's job market?  The academic 
>market will never
> get better unless the United States (I exclude the other 
>English-speaking
> countries and the EU) profoundly revalues its 
>militaristic priorities.  I
> personally think that university education *for the 
>qualified* should be
> free as it is in other countries.
> 
>> I also do not accept your argument that tenured 
>>humanities faculty are
>> complicit in an act of injustice by encouraging students 
>>to pursue
>> humanities degrees. The system of tenure can certainly be 
>>reformed, but
>> tenured faculty are not perpetrators of an injustice by 
>>virtue of the
>> fact that they have earned tenure in the humanities. Your 
>>argument seems
>> to suggest that all tenured professors care more about 
>>job security than
>> about educating students and pursuing intellectual 
>>challenges in
>> research. I certainly don't, and I'm sure others do not 
>>as well.
> 
> You have a lot of living to do if you think that the 
>tenured staff have
> really "earned" their status and don't place the highest 
>personal priority
> on continuing the racket.  It is a racket, will 
>eventually die as now
> slotted into the bureaucracy, and the tenured know it.  
>They want to hang
> on to the perks for their lifetimes.  The majority of 
>tenured staff stop
> researching and publishing after they've crossed the 
>magical decision
> border.  This is an anomaly in global employment and does 
>not, except in
> rare cases, lead to a bonanza of research, discoveries 
>and life-enhancing
> philosophies.  I support tenure on the now largely 
>illusory basis of
> freedom to state unpopular ideas and research.  Name me 
>some of those
> unpopular ideas you've met here?  I've articulated more 
>unpopular ideas on
> this list than any of the tenured.  I'm free, you see, 
>and need not toe a
> line.  The line grows thicker year-by-year.
> 
> Any faculty member who advises students on an 
>undergraduate or graduate
> major in English without fully divulging the consequences 
>is complicit.
> Some graduates in the humanities will find a job, 
>someday, with a few
> earning good money.  Many will ruin their lives in a 
>quagmire of debt.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Steven Willett
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> US phone: (503) 
>390-1070<tel:%28503%29%20390-1070><tel:%28503%29%20390-1070>
> Japan phone: (053) 475-4714
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Michael Saenger, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of English, Southwestern University
> Office: Mood-Bridwell #206
> 
> Office hours: MW 10:00-11:00, TTh 1:00-2:00
> 
> Profile on Academia
> 
> http://southwestern.academia.edu/MichaelSaenger
> 
> Departmental Profile
> 
> http://www.southwestern.edu/departments/faculty/faculty.php?id=saengerm&style=english
> 
> Shakespeare and the French Borders of English
> 
> http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=661927
> 
> The Commodification of Textual Engagements in the English 
>Renaissance
> 
> http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&isbn=9780754654131⟨=cy-GB
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> David Lee Miller
> University of South Carolina
> Columbia, SC  29208
> (803) 777-4256
>FAX   777-9064
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Center for Digital Humanities<http://www.cdh.sc.edu/>
>Faculty Web 
>Page<http://www.cas.sc.edu/engl/people/pages/miller.html>
> Dreams of the Burning 
>Child<http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100865590&CFID=8776879&CFTOKEN=5f96265f3e78e4c1-CD8CDD45-C29B-B0E5-3A132DAF587030F4&jsessionid=8430cfc86f9c780302f52b2158647f227d5dTR>
> 
> A Touch More 
>Rare<http://www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823230303
>>

[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121