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MY INITIAL concern in writing about advanced literary studies in a department of modest proportions was to choose whether to focus on the reality or the ideal. While some colleges and universities value and nurture literary studies, at others literature is perceived to be low on the scale of institutional values. I attempt to examine both views.
It seems to me that student, administrative, and perhaps even faculty interest in advanced literature courses in the 1980s is markedly less than it was when most of today's professors were engaged in their own graduate studies. As Joseph Duffey so clearly pointed out seven years ago, “more and more teachers of foreign languages or of English as a second language must concern themselves with the acquisition of language itself” (7–8). Advanced literary studies must often take a back seat even to the most basic language courses and are on occasion treated as barely tolerated appendages to other more glamorous and financially alluring parts of the curriculum.
Faculty members who no longer possess an abiding interest in literature probably constitute only a minority in our profession, but it is a significant minority that cannot be ignored. In the last quarter century we have been exposed to a very generous dosage of research and publication on language teaching while very little has been put out (and, presumably, thought out) on the teaching of literature. This situation is not unique to foreign language departments. Among professors of English one can also hear a familiar litany of complaints that current professional attention seems to center on language—that is, composition—and that there are fewer courses, fewer majors, and lessened interest in literature, particularly in the once standard American and British sequences.
The roots of our present situation lie largely within ourselves, although we are also subject to current vagaries and uncertainties of American education such as widely divergent admissions and graduation requirements. More deplorable, however, is the fact that many faculty members teaching languages today have rarely thought seriously about why or how we study a language. At least cursory attention has been paid to the question of why we study literature and to the corollary question of why fewer students today are choosing to study literature. After all, to neglect the teaching of literature is to neglect the transmission of a central aspect of our culture (Rippley). My views on these matters, here greatly simplified, revolve largely around the concepts that language learning is basically a nonintellectual skill-building process, 1 that we study literature because it is the most significant and interesting compendium of human experience we have, and that vocationalism has muddled the once more crystalline waters of cultural awareness and inquisitiveness.
Recognizing that the world is imperfect, most of us live by doing as best we can with the possibilities available to us at a given time. Currently I work at the University of Mississippi, a small state university that has many doctoral programs but only master's-degree programs in modern and classical languages. Our MA programs are in French, German, and Spanish and have surprisingly close numbers of graduate students and degree recipients, although through the years we have awarded more degrees in French than in any other language We have modest but well-subscribed undergraduate programs in Arabic, Italian, Portuguese, and Russian, with strong elementary and intermediate sequences and one advanced course in each language (the content of each advanced course is listed under a special-topics rubric that allows us to meet the needs of interested students in a given year). Some of the graduate students in our department, as well as those in other departments, take courses in these less commonly taught languages; in fact, they were instrumental in gaining initial support and administrative recognition for Arabic and Italian. I suspect that at least part of this enrollment has come at the expense of student numbers in advanced literature courses in other languages. Advanced students in a department such as ours tend to have a natural bent toward languages, and thus it should not be surprising that they may want to take additional languages as part of their degree program.
My department has been saddled with a curriculum rich in course numbers, although notably poorer in courses actually offered. We are the recent recipients of a grant from the NEH to study our undergraduate curriculum. Wisely or unwisely, I elected not to make changes in the graduate curriculum until we had plugged several gaps, eliminated specious duplications, and added seminar possibilities that allow us to combine advanced undergraduates with graduate students.
Academic program reviews in all three of our MA programs during the last five years have pointed out a number of deficiencies in our offerings and in the manner in which we present them. Although some faculty members often question the academic review process, I feel that we have learned a great deal from these reviews. What they cannot do, of course, is to provide the financial resources and the increased numbers of students that are necessary if we are to make our offerings more attractive and effective.
The format of our courses in French, German, and Spanish has been the same for a generation—a mix of survey courses, century courses, a few specific topics germane to a particular language, and a sizable dosage of esoteric offerings dearly beloved by particular professors and enrolled in by dwindling numbers of students. The department has attempted to keep the offerings in the three languages comparable and generally equal over the years. While this policy has produced little to help us meet changing student needs, it has virtually eliminated interlanguage rivalry. No one in the department, I think, feels that his or her language interest is threatened or unsupported in any way, except to the extent that as one MA language suffers or is exalted, the other two have an essentially similar fate. Truly, it is a fortunate chairperson who heads a department in which almost every member professes a view of languages as a whole and not merely his or her individual predilection among languages.
It has been interesting for me to note that during the three years I have been chair, no students have come forward to complain or make suggestions about curricular improvement. Although one colleague in another department—of course!—has suggested that the lack of complaint points to a lack of interest, I cannot believe that our students are less inquisitive or less disputacious than students in other departments. At the same time, some faculty members would be reasonably content were I to leave them alone to teach the same courses in the same ways they have taught them for decades.
Some faculty members may resist curricular innovation because they fear the cancellation of favorite courses that they have developed and that they want to continue teaching despite declining student interest. While a few such courses might be dropped, most areas of academic and intellectual interest, no matter how narrow, could be accommodated by seminars, special-topics courses, or other means.
My own department has entered untried waters by offering courses on literature in translation. Students in the language read the materials in French, German, or Spanish, although discussion and papers are in English. Most successful has been a course in postwar German literature called Literature from the Ruins. A course on German women writers through the centuries has also been well subscribed. The German section of the department has led in this type of offering, principally because the French section is understaffed and because the Spanish section, also somewhat understaffed, must spend most of its time with large lower-division language classes.
What I regret above all else regarding these courses in literature in translation is that they have not had broad appeal to majors in the English department. Although there are good feelings and intellectual rapport between our departments of English and modern languages, pressing necessities of student credit-hour production mean that few English colleagues are willing to encourage their majors to take part of their literature course work in another department. It is sadly true that a lack of generosity and an unwillingness to relinquish hegemony in a student's academic program seem to be endemic in our profession. Nor can we blame only our colleagues in English; how often is a foreign language major advised to take a course in American or British literature? We have much to gain from each other; few professors of English consider us to be solely purveyors of nouns and verbs and even fewer of us believe that English teachers are principally graders of one-page themes reluctantly produced by legions of captive students in freshman composition classes. I attempt in every possible way to build bridges with my colleagues in the English department, believing that these efforts will ultimately benefit the department, its faculty, and its students.
A singular disadvantage of a small department—we seldom have more than ten graduate students in a given semester—is that students have so few other student brains to pick. My own graduate education at the University of Illinois was a joy in that for the first time in my intellectual life I was in daily contact with people my own age having similar interests and seriousness of purpose. Since my work was concentrated in Spanish and Portuguese, the major deficiency I felt was a lack of contact with graduate students in French, German, and other languages. On a large campus, this problem almost defies solution, but within the smaller arena of the University of Mississippi I am attempting to develop several multiliterature courses modeled on the suggestions of Peter Richardson in his presentation at the ADFL Seminar West in 1983 (subsequently published in ADFL Bulletin ).
The courses Richardson described are fully as applicable to a small advanced undergraduate and graduate literature program as they are to a small program that is wholly undergraduate. Strengths lie mostly in the area of greater participation by more students from several fields and the ideas and substance that can thereby be exchanged. The courses also provide for something more than a brief glimpse of the literatures of another tradition—something that many MA students at fine graduate institutions can never obtain. Furthermore, they allow advanced undergraduate students to gain familiarity with an often previously unsuspected array of great literature. With something like a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule of lectures and readings in English, followed by a Tuesday-Thursday schedule of readings and discussion within the basic language interest of the individual student, it seems to me that everyone wins.
The idea is so sensible for small and medium-sized departments that some of its disadvantages are less than readily apparent. Problems involve faculty hegemony, teaching loads, and varying approaches to literature. Most of the difficulties are relatively minor if professors keep in mind the advantages accruing to students.
The greatest resistance to teaching as part of a team in such a course probably derives from the desire of some professors to teach the same advanced courses they have taught for years. Many of us are slow to change, and we can easily argue against the existence of any demand for new approaches or for new courses. But teachers in the humanities should be in the business not of satisfying demands but rather of creating them. Few students, perhaps, will read Don Quijote or A la recherche du temps perdu because they suspect that those volumes contain interpretations of human experience that might be valuable to them; instead, it is our responsibility to make students aware of the discoveries they can make by reading, studying, and pondering ideas in the literatures we teach.
As for specifics, I envision a three-year sequence of advanced courses combining graduate students and advanced undergraduates and consisting of one course for drama, one for the novel, and perhaps a period course in Romanticism, early twentieth-century literature in Europe, contemporary European literature, and something that would include at least a bit of poetry. 2 It is essential to commence any sequence with a clear outline, a straight-forward mode of approach, and a feeling of equity among the faculty participants, even though one of them may have to be in charge. Faculty members would be expected to participate in the entire course (except for those parts taught in the individual languages), and the course would count as part of a full load for each faculty participant. A chairperson may have to do some “selling,” but the potential rewards are great and student acceptance will be significant enough to enhance the self-worth of the department. I envision the occasional participation of members of other departments (English, history, philosophy, and theater arts, e.g.), although this would largely be on a courtesy basis by those willing to expend their time and intellectual energies for the common good.
Even though I am placing considerable faith in curricular change and innovation, I am convinced that advanced literary study in foreign language departments will also benefit from (or sometimes be restricted by) forces such as the birth rate, the attitude of the school of education on a particular campus, and the capriciousness of institutional financing. It does seem to me, however, that the curriculum is the central concern over which we as faculty members have some legitimate and viable control for the benefit of our students, and exercising this control enables us to become better masters of our professional destinies.
We as literature professionals could also profit from attention to ideas such as those of Donald Dietz, which emphasize student experience, greater attention to ideas and values, and less time devoted to the historical, sociological, and biographical elements so dear to so many of us. 3 In an article reinforcing Dietz's ideas, Gerald Giauque laments our self-assumed primary role as teachers and commentators with only secondary interest in writing. He deplores our failure to develop creativity in our students and argues compellingly for a recognition of both the historical and creative components of our discipline. Indeed, would not the creation of some literature in a foreign language be as instructive to students as the study of literature created by others? Literature represents the summit of our language activity, and the need for creativity in both thought and action seems obvious. As humanists we should feel obligated to enhance the creative aspects of our literature courses.
Since a negative example can have a positive effect, let me describe the curricular offerings of a department like mine that I studied in some depth. Largely because of “traditional” problems of querulous faculty, narrow interests, exalted notions of faculty rank (in which instructors and assistant professors were expected to be seen and not heard), and an unwillingness to think in terms of the common good, the curriculum was a mishmash of offerings reminiscent of the 1950s or earlier. It had no unusual offerings, nor had the faculty attempted to draw on any of the singular advantages offered by geographical location and campus financial strength. Although some teachers wondered why third- and fourth-year enrollments were abysmal, others did not seem to care. A few were putting considerable faith in an attractive brochure aimed at recruiting students for the tiny graduate program. Although one cannot build a sound superstructure on a weak or nonexistent foundation, the department had paid little attention to the undergraduate curriculum. Had the same energies expended on the brochure been channeled instead into an in-depth analysis of the entire language program, from the elementary courses through the graduate offerings, a greater measure of success would have been likely. The symptom of the problem was being attacked, not the problem itself. Truly forward-looking programs in both language and literature investigate and deal with problems head-on and let the symptoms die a natural death. The areas needing positive and creative attention seem obvious.
One wonders what the future holds for advanced literary study in colleges and universities both large and small. Americans live in an era of zero population growth, a time of questioning and of nonacceptance of traditional hierarchical structures. As students, most of us—at least those of us headed into our forties—were accustomed to accepting the recommendations for undergraduate and graduate courses so paternalistically laid before us by our academic mentors. Our subconscious attempts to perpetuate this system into the next century have met largely with apathy, indifference, and a declining market for the precious wares we struggle to sell; a more positive approach, taking into account our natural advantages and strengths, is essential.
There are a number of encouraging signs on the horizon. Efforts of the federal government to fund research and programs in languages along with mathematics and science should bear some practical fruit in the coming years. Americans appear increasingly receptive to the theoretical and practical dimensions of internationalism—and languages are an integral part of that spirit. In Mississippi, a state not notably in the vanguard of educational or cultural progress, the Board of Education has recently encouraged (although not mandated) the study of languages by providing curricular options that, for funding purposes, equate languages with advanced courses in chemistry and physics.
Within specific departments, curricular reform and streamlining are long overdue. It is imperative that overhauling start at the foundation of the curriculum, the undergraduate level. Departments must improve their positions within their institutions through the establishment of adequately financed, cooperative environments in which creative planning can occur and problems can be attacked in logical order and with beneficial results.
The teaching of literature as most of us knew it in our student days is neither dead nor moribund. Nevertheless, it has changed so radically that at times it is hard to recognize. Far easier to observe are the statistics that indicate a significant loss of devotees over the last two decades. To reclaim and strengthen our traditional place in the transmission of literary culture to succeeding generations, we had best put our own house in order, attempt to meet the real and legitimate needs and aspirations of our students, and look within ourselves for the most reliable clues about how to proceed.
We cannot be altogether certain what form literary study will take in the future, but we can have a valid and abiding faith that, just as there will always be poetry, there will also be literature in a more general sense; literature is, after all, a living and enduring link to the minds of the past (see Rippley). And what endures will always need someone to interpret it, to appreciate it, to foment and to challenge it.
The author is Professor of Spanish and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Mississippi. He is also a member of the ADFL Executive Committee. This article is based on a paper presented at ADFL Seminar East, 2–5 June 1985, in Louisville, Kentucky.
1 Although the language learning process of an adult has a greater intellectual component than that of a child, it remains largely a skill-building process; it is not intellectual in the sense that a course in contemporary French poetry is intellectual.
2 Teaching poetry in translation presents special and almost insurmountable problems. But students need to have at least a cursory idea of themes, philosophies, and various externals that can be covered in translation. Although such coverage is somewhat superficial, some familiarity with poetry is better than none at all.
3 Dietz's unorthodox ideas regarding the teaching of literature could profit from further discussion and amplification.
Dietz, Donald T. “An Alternative Approach to the Teaching of Literature.” ADFL Bulletin 10.1 (1978): 39–42. [Show Article]
Duffey, Joseph. “Literature and Literacy.” ADFL Bulletin 10.4 (1979): 7–9. [Show Article]
Giauque, Gerald S. “Creativity and Foreign Language Learning.” Hispania 68 (1985): 425–27.
Richardson, Peter N. “Modular Courses in Foreign Language and Literature.” ADFL Bulletin 15.3 (1984): 15–17. [Show Article]
Rippley, LaVern J. “Why Do We Teach Literature?” ADFL Bulletin 14.2 (1982): 17. [Show Article]
© 1987 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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