>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:31:23 -0400
>From: Frank Dominguez <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Literatura y los programas académicos
>To: "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]>
>Cc: [log in to unmask]
>
>Dear Robert:
>
>I seldom participate in listserv discussions, 
>but Nancy D'Antuono's comments (hi, Nancy!) have 
>moved me to add my two cents. I agree that the 
>preparation of today's students in every area of 
>pre-18th century literature (and I am really a 
>medievalista rather than a Cervantista) has 
>become woefully inadequate. But, it is not their 
>fault. It is ours for permitting programs to be 
>streamlined to fit students' natural desire to 
>concentrate on the modern to the exclusion of 
>the older periods and for watering down the qualifying exams.
>
>In part, this was a reaction to pressure from 
>the administration which, working from a 
>business model, wanted student training 
>accelerated so that they could complete their 
>MA/PhD in 5 years. But, what seemed fine for 
>English, because they could build on a solid 
>undergraduate background, or History, because it 
>did not have language problem, was and is a 
>disaster for us in language and literature 
>departments. The upshot is that we are 
>graduating a generation of students that do not 
>realize that they are hopelessly unprepared.
>
>Today, I sat on a good dissertation on feminine 
>writing as a coping mechanism for loss. However, 
>the candidate could not answer how writing had 
>been conditioned by loss from time immemorial. 
>Perhaps I was wrong in asking, but before, any 
>student worth his or her salt could have 
>anticipated a question such as mine, even if 
>their main concern was the application of Cixous's theories.
>
>The answer is to insist that students have a 
>good background in every period (I too am 
>grateful to Glaser!), that their qualifying 
>exams cover all periods, and that we do not hire 
>faculty who are so deficient in the earlier 
>periods, that they do not see the value of a 
>rounded preparation or can participate fully in 
>the discourse of a department. This last is 
>particularly critical, because the person you 
>hire today will be making decisions about 
>programs in the not too distant future.
>
>Frank Dominguez

Prof. A. Robert Lauer
The University of Oklahoma
Dept. of Modern Langs.,  Lits., & Ling.
780 Van Vleet Oval, Kaufman Hall, Room 206
Norman, Oklahoma 73019-2032, USA
Tel.: 405-325-5845 (office); 405/325-6181 (OU 
dept.); Fax: 1-866-602-2679 (private)
Vision: Harmonious collaboration in an international world.
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