Jessica Taylor’s report in this ADE Bulletin documents some alarming developments in English literature doctoral education and some statistics that reflect trends in graduate studies about which there might be two opinions. As director of the English PhD program at Boston College—a private, religiously affiliated R1 institution—I do not know how worried I should be that “PhDs in both letters and the humanities and arts have fallen to near-historic lows as a share of all new doctoral degrees,” as Taylor states. The neoliberalization of higher education presses departments to compete for scarce resources; pandemic-era austerity measures undeniably exacerbated that dynamic. However, the reduced share of doctoral degrees granted in humanities fields may have as much to do with the proliferation of fields for doctoral research as it has to do with any crisis of purpose internal to humanistic disciplines. Taylor’s report notes that “PhDs awarded overall increased by 27% from 2005 to 2020. . .while degrees in the humanities and arts declined by 5%.” In other words, the difference in the 2020 proportions is due almost entirely to the creation or expansion of other programs, not to a drain away from humanities fields. Given that the tenure-track job in English literature is becoming an endangered species and that we lack an American Medical Association–type institution that could bargain with the federal government over graduate slots on behalf of our profession, it is doubtful whether it would have been beneficial for English to have kept pace and awarded 27% more PhDs in 2020 than in 2005. On my campus, which is guided by its Jesuit, Catholic educational mission, humanistic ways of knowing the world continue to feel central and valued (see Crane). I know this is not universally the case.

Much more concerning, from where I sit, are two other data points in Taylor’s report. [read more]

ADE Bulletin 161 (2024): 44-6.