Indeed I am, Peter (lucky, that is). Thanks for your comment. However, I said nothing about the economic analysis. I was referring to clear statements about the strong preferability of "staying away" from the humanities, in order to "benefit the public" in, e.g., the applied sciences. Notably, this is consistent with the logic of quantitative evaluation and instrumental justification to which you object below. However, I am not sure that I share your objection. Best, JDF


----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter C. Herman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Saturday, February 7, 2009 9:36:28 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: Neglecting Spenser

At 09:26 AM 2/7/2009, you wrote:
>I must say that I find extraordinary the view, 
>coming from a senior academic in literary study, 
>that literary study is (more-or-less) a waste of 
>time. Perhaps this reflects poorly on the mooted 
>conception of what literary study basically is.

Forgive me, but I think James entirely misses the 
point. It is not that Prof. Willett thinks that 
literary study is a waste of time, but that the 
economic conditions supporting English 
departments with tenured faculty have 
disappeared, and that we now have to justify 
ourselves in terms that we never did before. I 
cannot speak for others, but administrators in 
the CSU think of very little else other than 
cost-benefit analyses and budgets. The 
traditional justifications for literature in 
particular and the humanities in general no 
longer carry any weight, as evidenced by the rise 
of the University of Phoenix, whose CEO has 
stated publicly that the whole business about the 
life of the mind is crap. Prof. Willett also 
points toward the rise of assessment (people 
should look read some of the article on Inside 
Higher Education) and the necessity of justifying 
ourselves in quantitative, rather than 
qualitative, terms. If none of this applies to 
Prof. Fleming, then all I can say is that he is very, very lucky.

pch


>JD Fleming
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Steven J. Willett" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Saturday, February 7, 2009 1:52:49 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
>Subject: Re: Neglecting Spenser
>
>
>
>
>On Feb 7, 2009, at 9:35 AM, Peter C. Herman wrote:
>
>
>
>As for Fish's blog for the NYTimes, his point 
>was that the conditions that allowed him to have 
>his terrific career no longer exist. The 
>institutional supports are no longer there. 
>Rather than promoting a scholar's career, 
>colleges and universities prefer to devolve more 
>and more of the teaching to part-time employees. 
>And from what I can tell, no administrator today 
>would even begin to countenance the expenditures 
>necessary for hiring the academic superstars 
>that became, for a short, the Duke University 
>English department. While it is always difficult 
>to argue over tone, I would not say that Fish 
>was "smug" but rather, both grateful and sad, as 
>the chances for people entering the profession 
>now to have the kind of career he had are about nil.
>
>
>
>The decline and fall of academic superstars is 
>actually a healthy development: they never were 
>worth the extreme commitment of university 
>resources. Â But far worse is coming. Â We know 
>from research of the NASULCG (National 
>Association of State Universities and Land Grant 
>Colleges) published last year that the real cost 
>of per student in public higher education is not 
>increasing. Â It has remained nearly unchanged 
>since 1996. Â But over the past decade 
>university tuition has risen 6.61 percent, 2.7 
>times the consumer price index. Â Community 
>college tuition rose 3.83 percent, 1.6 times the 
>CPI. Â While private universities grew at a 
>slower rate, their absolute dollar amounts were 
>far greater: at the average public research 
>university, required tuition and fees rose by 
>$3,063 over the decade; at the private 
>counterpart, they rose by $13,259. Â What caused 
>constantly rising tuition when student costs 
>remained nearly constant: real per student 
>appropriations have declined. Â State and 
>federal funds are dwindling, will dwindle far 
>more and will never return to the levels we 
>enjoyed in the 30 years from 1950 to 1980. Â 
>It's all over because the United States has run 
>up an unsupportable public debt.
>
>
>Forgive me for some hard economic facts before I 
>return to the curriculum issue. Â As of November 
>19 last year, the total US public deficit stood 
>at $10.6 trillion. Â This is not, however, the 
>true deficit. Â For those of you with a high 
>tolerance for mathematics and economics 
>analysis, Laurence J. Kotlikoff (Boston 
>University) provides a tour of the actual debt 
>in "Is the United States Bankrupt?": Â  Â  Â
>
>
>
>http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/07/Kotlikoff.pdf
>
>
>The answer is, yes in effect. Â Since the 
>article was written, the debt has probably 
>swollen to well over $70 trillion. Â Kotlikoff 
>argues that we have only a very narrow window of 
>opportunity to begin the massive task of 
>reducing this debt, a debt we cannot ever 
>liquidate by growth and which we can never pay 
>down without complete structural reform of the 
>economy. Â He provides a scenario that would 
>probably work, but it guarantees deep pain 
>across the entire socio-economic spectrum and 
>the end of the profligate US lifestyle. Â If we 
>fail to act in time, however, national 
>insolvency on the scale of Iceland is 
>inevitable. Â We are not acting, and Obama's 
>fiscal stimulus will not have any long-term 
>affect, though we certainly need to repair our 
>infrastructure, which fallen to a third-world 
>level. Â The American Society of Civil Engineers 
>just increased its estimate for the total cost 
>of restoration from $1.6 trillion to $2.2 
>trillion. Â You can compare that with the two 
>stimulus bills in the House and Senate. Â 
>Geithner will announce the bank bailout program 
>on Monday, but from what I've read and heard, 
>it's just more of the Rubin cabal trying to 
>protect their bankster friends. Â It has, 
>indeed, the potential to destroy the US economy. 
>Â Full analysis offlist if anyone is interested.
>
>
>Contrary to the pronouncements of Krugman and 
>Summers that the US is at risk of deflation, the 
>country is already in serious deflation. Â The 
>most accurate measure of the CPI is not that 
>from the BLS but from Case-Shiller. Â The latest 
>BLS shows a positive 0.1% for CPI-U (=All Urban 
>Consumer), but the Case-Shiller CPI gives a 
>stunning 5% YOY decline. Â Deflation will 
>increase as retail sales fall, commercial real 
>estate collapses, ALT-A, optional ARM, Jumbo and 
>Prime foreclosures grow and joblessness 
>skyrockets. Â From December, 2007, when the 
>recession began, to January, 2008, 3.8 million 
>jobs have been lost, half in the last three 
>months. Â This is only the beginning of job 
>hemorrhaging. Â The BLS just released 
>unemployment data, and the official U-3 is 7.6%, 
>but the far more meaningful U-6 is a 
>seasonally-adjusted 13.9%. Â It was a staggering 
>15.4% without seasonal adjustment. Â We face the 
>very real possibility of a deflationary spiral.
>
>
>If we're lucky, we may limp along with something 
>like the Lost Decade of deflation in Japan, but 
>it will be far more painful since Japan had high 
>personal savings and a large trade surplus. Â I 
>lived through the Lost Decade without much 
>discomfort as did most Japanese. Â It we're not 
>lucky, we could see inflation up the line as the 
>government tries to monetize our debt. Â Here's 
>why. Â The budget deficit for 2009 will run at 
>least $2 trillion with the stimulus and probably 
>even more. Â The US faces trillion+ dollar 
>deficits for several years, perhaps all through 
>Obama's first term. Â We can only pay for that 
>by selling Treasuries against which the Fed 
>prints money. Â Because the US dollar is the 
>world's reserve currency, we can sell government 
>debt denominated in dollars to our great 
>advantage. Â In economics terminology, we are 
>free of original sin. Â But if the recession 
>deepens or slides into a depression (which some 
>economists think has already arrived), we may 
>start running discretionary fiscal measures that 
>produce 12% - 14% of GDP general government 
>financial deficits. Â Should we decide to 
>monetize those deficits because we can never pay 
>them down, our credit sources (China, Japan, the 
>Gulf States and the EU) will pretty quickly 
>realize it and stop buying our debt from lack of 
>confidence. Â A large fiscal stimulus from a 
>government without fiscal credibility could 
>trigger a sudden stop of all capital inflows. Â 
>That would mean instant national insolvency and 
>the implosion of the US, since we must borrow 
>$2+ billion a day just to pay basic operating 
>expenses. Â If you think this can't happen, you 
>don't appreciate the gravity of our position, 
>though it may be cold comfort to realize the UK 
>is in far worse condition. Â I would say its bankruptcy is likely.
>
>
>So what has this got to do with the economic 
>malaise in the humanities? Â Almost everything. 
>Â The housing and derivatives bubble that began 
>to deflate in December, 2007, actually began to 
>inflate during the early years of the Reagan 
>administration when it began the fatal 
>neo-liberal process of deregulation. Â The 1999 
>cancellation of Glass-Steagall, which prevented 
>commercial banks from engaging in financial 
>speculation, the elimination of hedge limits on 
>banks in 2004 (thanks to Rubin, Paulson and 
>Greenspan) and the monetary policies of 
>Greenspan in the wake of the Dot Com collapse 
>blew the little bubble to a megabubble. Â 
>Because of Greenspan's easy money and credit 
>policies,US consumption rose to 72% of GDP. Â 
>Only the bubble made this possible, but the 
>bubble has burst and there will be no more 
>bubbles. Â The whole US economy must contract 
>dramatically to a point where we can satisfy our 
>governmental expenses with our available 
>revenues. Â That means no more borrowing 
>$2+billion a day and serious economic 
>restructuring. Â In the short run tax revenues 
>will fall steeply as consumption recedes, but if 
>we don't restructure, the global credit market 
>will force it on us. Â Bear in mind that 
>manufacturing comprises only about 12% of US 
>GDP, dwarfed by consumption's 72%. Â The 
>disjunct between the real economy and 
>consumption has come to an end. Â Only the real 
>economy can produce stable, long-term wealth. Â 
>Right now we have no robust real economy.
>
>
>State and federal appropriations for higher 
>education will and must contract far more than 
>they have to date. Â As they contract, the 
>corporatization of higher education will 
>proceed, since it offers the only practical way 
>to manage the budget as tax money evaporates. Â 
>One obvious tactic will be to unbundle the cost 
>structure in large megauniversities. Â These 
>behemoths have agglomerated many disparate 
>departments and programs in a very complex 
>organization whose cost effectiveness cannot be 
>easily ascertained. Â It makes sense to reduce 
>cost by unbundling their cost structure so the 
>quality and effectiveness of each component can 
>be measured. Â Low-quality components would 
>receive lower budgets, higher quality higher 
>budgets, poor quality budget cancellation. Â 
>This triage process is now under way according 
>to the NASULGC report. Â More threateningly for 
>the humanities, unbundling will spread to 
>individual arts and sciences departments. Â 
>However much we may object to the application of 
>cost-effective indices to say an English, 
>foreign language or philosophy department, that 
>is coming. Â Despite all the hot air that's been 
>blown to justify the practical benefit of the 
>liberal arts, there exists no quantifiable 
>measure of their value. Â We don't even have a 
>valid instrument for measuring the quality of 
>higher education. Â The data show that holders 
>of a BA will earn higher annual and lifetime 
>earnings than nonholders, but no data exist that 
>reliably show that the earnings bear any 
>relationship to the institution from which an 
>individual graduates. Â We do, however, have 
>data to show the concrete value of a degree in 
>chemical engineering, biochemistry, biological 
>engineering, geology and so on. Â Since there is 
>no connection between institution and earnings, 
>more and more students will naturally move to 
>cheaper public institutions. Â As the economic 
>contraction bites, even the upper middle class 
>and wealthy may start to blanch at spending 
>$45,000-55,000 a year (minus books, food and 
>fees) at a private school. Â Some institutions 
>will fail--Brandeis may have sold off its art 
>collection in toto to avoid bankruptcy--and 
>others will have to shrink as they unbundle cost 
>structures. Â Many departments will suffer 
>funding cuts or funding termination. Â The 
>humanities will take a very big hit. Â Tenure 
>will also have to change. Â It's already under 
>assault and may evolve into periodic reviews of 
>tenured staff to determine continuation or 
>cancellation. Â The private world enjoys no such 
>privilege, and most tenured professors do not 
>engage in any research that requires protection. 
>Â Tenure has no more value than an appendix.
>
>
>Let me say as prologue to what follows that I 
>believe in the personal benefits that the 
>humanities have given me. Â They have enriched 
>my life immeasurably. Â They even got me good 
>positions since I entered   academic job market 
>at the right time. Â But those times are gone, 
>and we're not going home again. Â I urged my son 
>and daughter to stay far away from the 
>humanities, and they did, taking advanced 
>degrees in chemical engineering and mathematics. 
>Â Now they're working to help the public.
>
>
>What is the value of an English Department 
>today? Â What does it do that conveys an 
>intrinsic public benefit? Â The comments here 
>and over at the NASSR list suggest a widespread 
>loss of confidence about its function and a 
>sense of some malign intellectual disease eating 
>away the heart of the profession. Â Professors 
>who don't read, who don't know the English 
>heritage prior to the nineteenth century, who 
>regard themselves primarily as politicians or 
>revolutionaries raising student consciousness, 
>who know few foreign languages, who know nothing 
>of the Classical past, who engage in 
>intradepartmental cultural warfare, who angle 
>for promotions that relieve them of teaching 
>loads and maximize research time, who churn out 
>badly-written opaque essays for journals that 
>only a few hundred (optimistically) will ever 
>read, who rush into producing monographs far too 
>early in their career as the pressure of tenure 
>distorts their creative development, who 
>gravitate to minor authors and genres in the 
>hope of carving out a personal fiefdom and who 
>backstab competitors in the market of ideas make 
>little or no contribution to the public welfare. 
>Â They don't even contribute much to the mental 
>welfare and knowledge of their students. Â And 
>the students don't seem to raise much enthusiasm 
>in their teachers. Â Everywhere I go in the US, 
>and I'll be at my home in Oregon next Tuesday, I 
>sense a loss of confidence in the value of what 
>we do as teachers and researchers. Â Another 
>book of literary criticism on Spenser or Sidney 
>creeps into publication, is purchased by 
>libraries and the relevant specialists and then 
>vanishes into the remaindering grave. Â As a 
>model for research, criticism and theory are 
>dead ends. Â They can only lead to more inbred 
>over-refinement of technique, more attempts to 
>find an idiosyncratic take on a set body of 
>texts that will give the discoverer 
>bragging--and lecturing--rights. Â This list at 
>least has a greater proportion of scholars doing 
>the only honest, viable sort of research that 
>conveys some public benefit: literary historiography and philology.Â
>
>
>English departments are going to have to take a 
>long, hard, realistic look at what they do 
>relative to the economic contraction. Â They 
>will need to restore intellectual integrity to 
>the curriculum, to show that it gives students a 
>full grasp of the English heritage and to 
>demonstrate with objective metrics that a degree 
>in English confers practical value in the 
>marketplace. Â An English degree should require 
>very hard work: the content should be rigorous, 
>the standards should be strict and the 
>assessments should be objective. Â The cachet of 
>earning such a degree, known to be 
>intellectually honest, is more likely to attract 
>good students over the long run than watering 
>the major down so anyone can get a degree. Â 
>Such a degree could stand next to science and 
>engineering degrees without embarrassment. Â The 
>marketplace that is now developing will be 
>merciless. Â It won't tolerate flabby degrees, 
>but rigor will at least provide a better chance 
>of competing for scarce financial resources. Â
>
>
>If we don't want adjuncts taking over our jobs 
>as tenure positions are axed, we had better show 
>that what the full-time faculty does is sui 
>generis and not transferrable to poor, 
>overburdened, out-of-the-loop, 
>evaluation-fearful, grade-inflating adjuncts. Â 
>If we can't persuade administrations that the 
>full-time faculty and only the full-time faculty 
>can conduct an honest English program, why 
>shouldn't they replace us with adjuncts? Â We 
>can't even advance a persuasive defense. Â
>
>
>Â Â  Â
>
>
>
>
>Steven J. Willett
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