I must admit, I'm fascinated by the cantankerous debates within the field of literature about who belongs in the literary canon - or indeed, if such a canon should exist.  These debates not only serve to define the boundaries of the academic discipline, but also touch on some fascinating universal questions, such as, "what makes literature great?" and "what defines our culture?"  The fact that this debate has raged for so long and has become a defining conflict within the discipline is a testament to the vitality of the free exchange of ideas in academia.

So it was with great expectations that I read the American Council of Trustees and Alumni's recent report, The Vanishing Shakespeare [.pdf], which has been generating a lot of press of late.  Not that I was expecting a scholarly manuscript or a scientific study by any means, but I was looking forward to a spirited and well-reasoned defense of the Bard's importance to the study of English literature.  But alas, poor reader, it was the ACTA we knew well, producing yet another report with a sloppy methodology, a list of non-problems, and a barely disguised political agenda.  In other words, it's much ado about nothing.

In their report, ACTA surveyed the U.S. News & World Report's list of the top 25 national universities and top 25 liberal arts colleges, the universities of the Big Ten, three public universities in both California and New York (one of which was included in the USN&WR list), and universities in the vicinity of the District of Columbia (their sampling is explained on page 3 of the report).  From this sample, we can draw meaningful generalizations about... well, about the sample.  As we've noted before, ACTA ignored the thousands of colleges and universities that aren't "elite" institutions or located on the coasts or in the Midwest.  Basically, the higher education institutions attended by most Americans are conspicuously absent in this particular study.  Is Shakespeare really vanishing from the English curriculum in colleges?  It's hard to tell from this narrowly constructed sample.

Similarly, the criteria for determining whether Shakespeare is "required" is also narrowly defined.  Basically, Shakespeare is only counted as required if a department requires a course solely on the Bard.  We're not privy to knowing how many other required courses may require Shakespeare (say, an introduction to British literature course, which still seems to be a necessity in most English departments).  Again, this is not to say that Shakespeare is not "vanishing" from the curriculum, but from this criteria, the bold claims made by ACTA simply don't follow.  In the absence of any sort of justification for their sampling methodology or their determinant criteria, a reader is left to wonder how widespread this "problem" actually is, or whether ACTA left inconvenient and contradictory data out of their report.

In addition to the lack of evidence pointing to a "Vanishing Shakespeare" in higher education, we are treated to the following hyperbolic claims, made on page 11 of the report:

As this report makes clear, English majors across the country can graduate today without reading Shakespeare in depth.  Employers - especially newspapers, publishers, schools, and others who hire English majors - should be deeply concerned.  So should parents, alumni, trustees, and interested citizens.

If reading Shakespeare is not central to a liberal education, what is?  But for English majors to miss out is far worse.  As we said before: A degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy.  It is tantamount to fraud.  A high school that hires someone with a B.A. in English should rightly assume that this individual can teach Shakespeare and other great authors.  However, in a world where Shakespeare is no longer required, it's easy to imagine a day when schoolteachers will not have read Shakespeare, and will not teach him.

Perhaps I haven't been following the news closely enough, but has there been a rash of school boards who are considering removing Shakespeare from the high school curriculum?  Have there been widespread complaints that high school English teachers are fumbling through their teaching of Julius Caesar and Hamlet?  Are newspaper editors up in arms about the inability of their cub reporters to throw an appropriate Shakespeare quote into their article on the latest City Council meeting?  Even by their typically low standards of flimsy anecdotal evidence, ACTA is unable to support their hysteria.

And what to make of the statement that "[a] degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy?"  As I mentioned earlier, there are many, many reasoned arguments as to why the Bard should be given a privileged place within the curriculum.  ACTA's reason for his inclusion boils down to "because it's always been that way" and "because we said so," reasons which would be unacceptable to anyone teaching basic argumentation.

Let's be clear: ACTA isn't concerned with the quality of education that English majors are receiving at colleges and universities across the country.  Fitting Vanishing Shakespeare into the broader context of the ACTA agenda, it becomes clear that this is another attempt to impose their ideology on academia.  Threatened by the expanding definition of what is considered art and the fact that scholars believe that literature is a reflection of the society in which it is produced - sometimes an unflattering reflection, to be sure - ACTA attempts to usurp the professional work of a dedicated and highly-competent English faculty with a one-size-fits-all standardized curriculum which reflects the priorities and agenda of a narrow stratum of society.  Rather than allowing for the free exchange of ideas to be reflected in higher education curriculum, ACTA would impose their narrow view of what great literature is.