A degree in English isn't considered a ticket to a bright future. Under pressure to be relevant, university English departments must find a way to appeal to the young, to show that a study of words is not a mindless pursuit for those not clever enough to major in engineering or pre-med.Professor Scott Calhoun of Cedarville University in Ohio has found a modern approach that avoids the pitfalls of Moby Dick or The Scarlet Letter. Old stories don't have the messages that resonate with the modern college students. They've found other spokesmen for the current generation.
All are welcome to an academic conference scheduled for October 2 at North Carolina Central University in Durham. No coincidence that U2 will be performing in Raleigh, NC, that weekend. The academic conference is all about U2.
U2: The Hype and the Feedback will feature guest speakers delivering lectures that relate to English literature studies, but without the great white whale.
The conservative tone of U2's lyrics will be expounded upon by Stephen Catanzarite of the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center. A paper entitled The Meme of Surrender is on the schedule of events, along with talks by Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone magazine and Jim Henke of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
A major in English doesn't have to be all about dusty tomes and long-dead writers. It can be rock and roll lyrics as poetry, rock bands as chroniclers of the modern era.
But a degree in English still isn't a ticket to a bright future unless you want to be an English teacher.
7 comments:
I hope this is a joke! This kind of conference doesn't make our departments look relevant, it makes us look silly.
The teacher who can't make The Scarlett Letter relevant and interesting to the students is just a bad teacher who tries to hide his/her pedagogical impotence behind such unintelligent endeavors.
I was so shocked by this announcement that I posted about it on my blog and linked back to you. Hope youu don't mind.
It's a real conference.
Do you think that Professor Calhoun had tickets to the U2 concert and was looking to write off the costs as business expenses?
Or maybe he's trying to be creative, to show the commonalities between the old and the new.
Well, ahem, nobody ever asked me if I was having trouble making Melville and Hawthorne relevant. (Sitting in my 19th century Amer. Lit. class last spring would have given answers about that.) And this is not a quote from me: "Old stories don't have the messages that resonate with the modern college students." I'd say U2 are all about telling the old stories. But I'm thankful for helping spread the word about the conference! A biblio, btw, is here: http://www.u2conference.com/biblio.php
If U2's music is good enough for a church, it's good enough for a secular conference.
It's just another example of how the Irish are saving civilization.
"If U2's music is good enough for a church, it's good enough for a secular conference."
-Really? If we start bringing all the rubbish that often gets spouted off in churches into the classroom, we will soon be able to forget the idea of offering anybody a real education.
"nobody ever asked me if I was having trouble making Melville and Hawthorne relevant. (Sitting in my 19th century Amer. Lit. class last spring would have given answers about that.) "
-I was not responding to you, of course, but to the author of the post. Still, I find the idea of such a conference extremely silly. I don't dispute your right to hold the conference but my opinion about it is that it's a profanation of the idea of literary studies.
Nothing, but NOTHING can make the Scarlet Letter relevant. :) I can still fell the pain of reading that thing. ***shudders***
While the supposed "irrelevance" of English departments is certainly a matter of debate, I must say that I am thankful I never had a professor like Clarissa when I was getting my undergraduate degree in English. For better or worse (and great topic for scholarly debate) rock and roll has been one of the most potent artistic and social forces of the last 50 years...and U2's music (with which I am guessing Clarissa is unfamiliar) is internationally admired, respected, and relevant. Those two facts alone make the study of U2's music and influence not only appropriate but long-past due. So Kudos to Professor Calhoun. If Clarissa finds the announcement of an academic conference on U2 "shocking," she has spent too much time in the Ivory Tower. Get over yourself, darling.
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