Friday, February 7, 1997
EDUCATION:
Current requirements neglect minority, women’s textsBy Yvonne
Champana
Daily Bruin Contributor
William Wordsworth, the poet who penned the masterpiece "Ode:
Intimations of Immortality" is remembered in the Norton Anthology
of English Literature as finding at Cambridge, "very little in the
limited curriculum of that time to appeal to him. He took his
degree in 1791 without distinction."
Now, more than 200 years later, the landscape of American
colleges’ curriculums has changed dramatically. A recent study in
the Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that only about one
third of America’s top colleges require English majors to take a
course in Shakespeare. Of the Ivy League schools, only Harvard
University requires a course in Shakespeare.
The study has rekindled the age-old debate on the fate of the
English canon, a group of authors that the literary world feels
everyone must read in order to be well read.
Some UCLA students and faculty feel that the English curriculum
may be too constricting. The English department requires not only
two classes in Shakespeare, but also classes in Milton, Chaucer and
the three introductory classes known as the 10 series, but requires
none in multicultural or women’s literature.
"UCLA is very retrogressive, because a lot of schools don’t even
have a 10 series — Stanford dropped it 15 years ago," said UCLA
English Professor Anne Mellor. More women and minorities would be
represented if UCLA took a more historical approach to teaching
literature, she added.
A main belief at UCLA, said Director of Undergraduate Studies
Thomas Wortham, is that if a student is taught to read literature
well, the particular texts are less important.
Other professors, such as Mellor, maintain that what students
read is important because they tend to imitate what they read. If
students are only required to read white male authors, they
graduate with the understanding that they are the most important,
she said.
"It should be required to take at least one ethnic class," said
Alicia Dunams, a third-year English student. "The required
literature is mainly white males and we’re not required to take any
African-American or Chicano literature, so some people graduate
without ever experiencing that entity."
The traditional canon is defended by many however, as being a
necessary background to understanding other literature.
Rather than attacking the old system, however, particularly
Shakespeare, some people feel that there are more inclusive ways of
looking at literature today that are just as important.
The required readings "don’t take into account any other
influences other than the dominant white male patriarchal
influences. That’s why I don’t want to be an English major. I don’t
necessarily find that Milton and Chaucer are the most important for
me to study as a woman," said Amy Ford, a fourth-year history
student.
Other cultural canons such as Spanish and African American are
being revived by academics while the British canon is changing. The
rise in women’s and multicultural canons is changing the focus of
those groups’ literary priorities.
The UCLA English department requires traditional courses in part
because they enable students to perform better on the broad based
graduate exams, said UCLA Professor Lynn Batten.
"The UCLA curriculum dates from 1967," Batten said. "What people
don’t realize is the canon has constantly been revised."
There are more women in the 10 series syllabus now, said English
graduate student Michelle Mimlitsch. "In 1987, I know there were no
women on the 10B syllabus when I took it, for example."
Although Batten feels that other voices such as women’s must be
heard in the canon, "we do a disservice when we drag someone into
the syllabus simply for political correctness," he said.
But according to Mimlitsch, "there are books in every tradition
that are good and bad. If that tradition hasn’t been paid attention
to, it’s worth changing. I think it is valuable to people to study
whatever is in their background that is meaningful to them."
It was for this reason that The Norton Anthology of African
American Literature was written. The book’s introduction states
"the Anglo-African literary tradition was created to prove that
African Americans … could, indeed, write."
While UCLA faculty see the importance of other works, change is
slow. For example, it took several years for the American
literature department to dispense with their Chaucer requirement,
said Wortham. And this action is still debated by certain
professors.
"The ‘party line,’ or the goal of the English curriculum, is to
make UCLA students adept at reading difficult texts and to give
them a breadth that other schools don’t have," Batten said. "But it
does not work for everyone. Ultimately, the 10 series is going to
have to change."
Mellor sees the system as changing as more women become
teachers, and include more women and multicultural writers. But
Mimlitsch feels that just because more women enter the field does
not indicate appropriate representation in the curriculum.
"In 1971, there were three women professors out of about 60
something faculty," said Karen Rowe, professor of English at
UCLA.
Today, more than twice as many males as females are English
professors at UCLA, according to the department of English faculty
list.
Among students, the reverse is true  women outnumber men
more than two to one as undergraduate English students; and the
graduate level is approximately the same, according to UCLA
Academic Affairs Office.
Mellor has written a textbook now being taught at UCLA which
represents female and male writings equally.
As for the future of literature, Mellor said, "It is likely that
there will be no required texts and there will be more discussion
about what is good.
"It is changing right now and this is an exciting time to be
teaching English," Mellor added.
Not all students and faculty have seen those changes made that
they feel are important, however.
"The institution always runs slowly behind. Institutions resist
change," said Fred Burwick, UCLA professor of English, "but
literature is alive and it will continue to change. If it quits
changing, it’s dead."