Changing a curriculum is already stressful enough without finding new ways to create anxiety, discontent, and rancor. To provide a truly integrated liberal education, the author contends that educators must not only change their curricula--the courses they offer--but they must change what they do in the classroom, the kinds of papers and…

This essay argues that a trend in histories of literary and writing studies is to bifurcate the origins of the fields and so engage in those modernist narrative fallacies described by Jean-Francois Lyotard. Such works limit our understanding of past practices and the longstanding connections between disciplinarity and labor. (Contains 2 notes.)

2009 is the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Naturally, historians are thrilled. But what about their discipline? Why and how might Lincoln matter to English studies? In this article, the authors reflect on Lincoln and his influence on English studies. They argue that Lincoln has played or can play an important role in the college English…

This collection of essays, "Literary Study, Measurement, and the Sublime: Disciplinary Assessment," edited by Donna Heiland and Laura J. Rosenthal, represents an important new venture in the Foundation's communication program. The book is the product of many authors, including the editors, both of whom have written essays for it. But it…

This article presents a course design of English 450: Theories and Methods of Argument. The course is an upper level course in the Writing concentration of B. A. in English and American Language and Literature at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, a metropolitan university in the South. At the 400 level, Theories and Methods of Argument is…

Discussions of English department identity and mission more often center on the undergraduate major curriculum than on classes for general-studies and other non-major students. In such courses, though, educators have an opportunity to touch the intellectual lives of far more people than they do in courses for majors. The author argues in this…

Applies Bailey's paradox--the absolute belief that only tentative beliefs may safely be permitted--to the teaching of English. (RB)

Argues that adherence to rigid disciplinary boundaries of English studies will lead scholars to miss important occasions to advance their work and effect change. Attempts to redefine the integrity of English studies--to move it from an authorial and structural referential to an ethos committed to knowing, learning, and studying other forms of…

Suggests that English graduate departments ought to begin discussing what will make graduate education more organic to the teaching experience of the graduate student. (RB)

Discusses the role of the English department in providing students with a liberal arts education. (RB)

The collection of articles in this book, covering some of the significant events and topics in the history of the Indiana University English Department, brings together some of the material assembled by William Riley Parker, especially the reminiscences of faculty members and former students. An introductory chapter by Parker is titled "Where…

Steps to make the teaching assistant system work better for all concerned. (AA)

Explores some aspects of a "literary education," and concludes that a literary education helps one to live alertly in a culture which is "idiotically" stratified. (JM)

A former English department chairman looks back with optimism at the state of English education since 1930 and discusses how it might be of use in developing future curricula. (HTH)

Calls for increased awareness of the self-representation, gender, labor, and intellectual property issues that surround faculty members' homepages, arguing that faculty members construct identity online in context of the university as workplace. Examines the homepages of 18 faculty members within English programs. Draws on research from…