Perhaps this very list (or someone on it) could organise to recommend, assemble and host a “virtual anthology” to which students worldwide in our classes could be directed as a single focussed resource. Luminarium etc serve something of this function, of course, but they also more voluminous than our needs. It might not even be such a big job if the poets themselves were “adopted” by a plurality of scholars. It would certainly save the labour of each in compiling “course readers” piecemeal.

Best,

Tom

From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of John Staines <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, 7 April 2018 at 2:27 AM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: FW: Books out of print

Hannibal-- For the piece I wrote for MLQ (which was a special edition on "Milton and the Politics of Periodization"), I skimmed through the MLA Job Lists since their origins in mimeographed, typewritten leaflets, and the pattern is clear: in the past 20 years, the Renaissance/Early Modern jobs increasingly conflate the period with Shakespeare and drama, which the collapse of the field in the past decade has hardened into the basic structure of the Early Modern. Even the increasingly rare Renaissance poetry ads will ask for 15 other requirements, including "An ability to teach Shakespeare and drama." There use to be ads that mentioned Spenser by name (and that was in the 60s, where the postings were closer in length and style to newspaper classified ads), but Milton is (I think) the only other named writer in recent years, even as the ads have grown to hundreds of words in length.  My conclusion is that advisors would be derelict in their duties not to push students to have a Shakespeare chapter in their dissertations, no matter how intellectually unjustified that would be. That's not writing for the fashions of the times, which is most often terrible advice, but writing for a job market reality that is unlikely to change any time soon.  Obviously that limits the kinds of dissertations students can write, and leads to a cycle that further marginalizes all other perspectives into oblivion.

John D. Staines
Associate Professor
Major Coordinator and Advisor
Department of English
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The City University of New York
524 West 59th Street, Room 7.63.06
New York, NY 10019

---

From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Hannibal Hamlin [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2018 10:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: FW: Books out of print

Thanks for forwarding this, John, and thanks to all for interesting replies. Peter's point is no surprise, since we all know about supply and demand, but it aligns with my point about the trend in our profession toward Shakespeare and drama. Or is this just my perception? We had a job available this year at Ohio State, so I was able to survey what was probably most of the Renaissance people on the market, and most -- no surprise -- were in drama. Of course, the job ad stressed Shakespeare too, since that is THE bread and butter course for early modernists. The obligatory Shakespeare chapter is not a myth (or a joke). So I suppose if we are not teaching Vaughan or Traherne, they go out of print. (I noticed the same thing some years ago with pastoral, which used to have a number of excellent anthologies in print, now none.) It would be interesting, too, to know if the Penguin classics, and other such editions, depend entirely on the academic market, or whether there were sales to that rare beast, the general educated reader.

Hannibal

On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 9:49 AM, John Staines <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Peter Herman asked me to forward this contribution. --jds

---

From: Peter Herman [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2018 9:47 AM
To: John Staines
Subject: Fwd: Books out of print

Hi John, 

My email address changed, and so I'm temporarily unable to post to Sidney-Spenser list. I've sent a note begging to be reinstated, but in the interim, could I ask you to post the response below? 

Thanks in advance, 

pch

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Peter Herman <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 6:41 AM
Subject: Re: Books out of print
To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

At SDSU, we are also encouraged to find the cheapest possible product, and our "bookstore" (really more of a totchke store) also offers textbook "rentals" and the like. At the end of every exam, you will also find students lining up to return or sell their books. I swear I've seen the same copy of a few books I've ordered show up in class after class.

 But publishers are responding to changes in the market: Thomas Browne went out of print not because of a plot against him, but because nobody ordered the book. The result is a circle of death: because nobody orders these books (or few people) do, the books go out of print, so nobody reads these authors, so there's no demand. And if one tries to buck the trend and offer a volume of a worthy author without a modern edition, it molders in a warehouse. Broadview took a chance on a student edition of Thomas Deloney's Jack of Newbury, a terrific read with all sorts of fun politics--imagine a cloth worker, even a wealthy one, telling Henry VIII "you come to me, I don't come to you"--and it sold all of 150 copies. I doubt Broadview will be taking a similar chance in the future. 

pch

On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 6:30 AM, John Staines <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I didn't realize Penguin was pulling back on its list--I suppose someone could write a history of literary criticism and university curricula from what those publishers put in and out of print over time. And any such study would note the continued proliferation of Shakespeare editions, in every size and shape imaginable. (I touch on this in an article on Milton and Shakespeare in last fall's MLQ.) Oxford Authors does have a new edition of Browne just out in paperback, which fits the return of Browne in criticism. Norton continues to keep Mario Di Cesare's 40-year old Herbert and the 17th C. Religious Poets in print, but someone on this list should convince them to create a new volume. Otherwise, crafting a syllabi becomes a maze of PDFs--with the added wrinkle that we here in NY are under pressure from the governor to have our classes labeled "Zero Textbook Cost," which shows up as a searchable label for courses when students are selecting classes for the semester and as a denotation next to the course on their transcripts. I cannot fathom the reasoning behind the transcript note, but probably it's there so Cuomo can point it out when he speechifies about all he is doing to bring down the cost of college. We in the humanities are angry that a course with $50 in paperbacks is being lumped in with science and social science courses with $500 textbooks. I'm sure other states are putting on similar pressures.

John D. Staines
Associate Professor
Major Coordinator and Advisor
Department of English
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The City University of New York
524 West 59th Street, Room 7.63.06
New York, NY 10019

---

From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Hannibal Hamlin [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2018 8:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Books out of print

In teaching a course on literature and religion in the seventeenth century, I've been struck by how many major authors are no longer in print, mainly, I think, because of the disappearance of good Penguin editions. Thomas Browne is gone, as are Henry Vaughan and Thomas Traherne. And there are no viable alternatives. Has anyone else noticed this, and are there other authors who have dropped out of circulation?

I guess I have a couple of ideas about this development. The first is that the interest in poetry in general has waned over the last several decades, perhaps due in part to the focus of much popular theory on the novel. (I note with surprise how little the critical bibliography on seventeenth-century poets, except Milton, has developed since the 80s.) The other thought is that the dwindling job market has resulted in an unhealthy focus on Shakespeare and drama, since as the Humanities sink below the waves, Shakespeare is the last Renaissance writer to go under.

Thoughts?

Hannibal

--

Hannibal Hamlin
Professor of English
The Ohio State University

Author of The Bible in Shakespeare, now available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199677610.do

164 Annie & John Glenn Ave., 421 Denney Hall
Columbus, OH 43210-1340
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--

Hannibal Hamlin
Professor of English
The Ohio State University

Author of The Bible in Shakespeare, now available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199677610.do

164 Annie & John Glenn Ave., 421 Denney Hall
Columbus, OH 43210-1340
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