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I earned a masters in english from a R1 university last year. I didn't realize how much of my course work was badly misguided until I took a Victorian literature course with a professor who really loves books. I learned that semester what an english department is SUPPOSED to be. That said, a whole heck of a lot of what goes on in the english department is just pseudo social science. Yeah, I'm bitter. I wasted years studying trendy, feel-good "social theory" baloney. I'm just now going back and reading everything I should have read in undergrad/graduate school (this salon article has been a great help!).
Here's a true story. When I asked one of my tenured professors how she came up with my GRADUATE course reading list for gay and lesbian lit, she said she got it from looking at the top gay and lesbian book purchases on Amazon.com. Huh? What is this? How does a tenured professor not have a decent sense of what is worth reading and what is crap (I mean, what the heck are these people paid to do if not pick out some of the good stuff?). Turns out this professor has a masters in linguistics and a Ph.D in American Studies. She had never read much literature until she applied for a job in an english department. She's a *tenured* professor in an R1 english department! It's ludicrous.
