TO THE EDITOR:
The Daily Tar Heel published an article about the Pope Foundation believing liberals are ruining the UNC English Department. I can’t think of a greater irony than the Pope Foundation complaining about politics in higher education — it’s an organization with a long, storied tradition of meddling in fields they disagree with ideologically. Now, an English degree is incomplete without a study of Shakespeare and the classics, but Jay Schalin wants to return to the English class of the ’60s, when most of the world’s literature was ignored in favor of a cult-like devotion to the same half-dozen English poets.http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2015/09/report-diversification-politics-hurting-english http://jwpf.org/ CVD
Schalin then discourages having professors you disagree with, condemns relating books to the real world and preaches supreme authorial intent: two outdated ideas and one ridiculous one.http://www.popecenter.org/commentaries/article.html?id=3254 CVD
And few scholars of English agree with him. You need look no further than The Daily Tar Heel’s article itself to see I’m right, where they did find and quote an associate professor at a university so minor it has no English department.http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2015/09/report-diversification-politics-hurting-english CVD
Schalin says liberals are ruining the study of literature, but the article seems to reveal the Pope Foundation doesn’t even understand the study of literature — or the college classroom, for that matter.
Alex Haggis
Freshman
English pic sent to copy CVD
