Saturday, July 28, 2012

Decline and fall ...

... New Statesman - Critical faculty. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


The longer-term effect of making the PhD mandatory has been manifold and, arguably, malign. It encouraged, most malignantly, the current malaise of English studies: field specialism. If you spent five years researching a subject, until you knew more about it than anyone living, that is what you wanted to teach once you landed the first job. A subject that had hitherto fostered the undoctored jack of all trades gradually fragmented into a mosaic of doctored specialists.

2 comments:

  1. Yup, and the very worst kind of PhDs, and other degrees, are those in 'creative writing'.

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  2. The article is not about basic scientific areas, of course, but the intangible "English". Similar for another article Dave sent me recently, about referring to the literature - did not cover basic science. (The scientific profession knows how to refer to previous articles - does not go into quote minining/cherry picking, which the humanities & social sciences are so fond of).

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