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