The media are having a field day with the decision of the Princeton Classics department to allow undergraduates to major in the field without ever completing a course in the Greek or Latin languages. “Flexibility,” the department proclaims; “Sell-Out,” sneer the critics.
The decision comes at a time when the New York Times and other publications have been calling attention to the doubts of one of the department’s members whether the field of Classics is so infected with ”whiteness“ that it does not deserves to survive.
Seen in this light the department’s decision to abolish its language requirement looks like the first step toward dismantling the field as a whole. It would take a brave student to chose to major in a field so infected by its alleged “whiteness.”
Self-destruction is certainly not what the department intends, as one can see from its website ( https://classics.princeton.edu/department/news/statement-community-undergraduate-concentration ). It believes that persuasion can do more than compulsion can to bring students to the study of the ancient languages. Is this whistling in the dark? Or could it actually work? Yes! Says the Atlantic for June 8, 2021, where Graeme Wood suggests that this strategy is not so different from those used by drug peddlers, who start their clients off on light stuff before moving them on to the heavy stuff.
Time to step back and ask, “If ‘flexibility’ is the solution, what’s the problem? Not, it seems, large numbers of students needing more flexibility” to find their ways through the rich smorgasbord of departmental offerings– from Akkadian to contemporary Caribbean literature.. No, it’s Just the opposite, as an article in the Washington Free Beaco for June 8 2021 pointed out,. It points out that the number of Classics majors at Princeton has fallen significantly in recent years . Seen in that light the new “flexibility” looks like a desperate survival strategy.
What the Beacon doesn’t report, however, is that the numbers have fallen in almost all the university’s departments in the humanities. I no longer have any insider knowledge of Princeton’s affairs, but reports of humanities-wide decline seems to match a national trend. Although enrollment statistics are never up-to-date and always tricky to interpret, the National Center for Educational Statistics documents a steep decline in most humanistic fields during the decade ending in 2019. These statistics, however, do not provide a picture of shifts within the fields, for example, in English Literature between courses based on contemporary popular culture and social issues, and those based on traditional authors, e.g. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton. Melville, Yeats etc. In this respect Classics serves as a seismograph measuring the shift away from canonical authors and topics elsewhere in the humanities.
Why it matters: If a recent decline in majors is not restricted to Classics but is occurring throughout the humanities, then remedies specific to Classics, such as lowering language requirements, may not deal with the real problem. It’s a humanities-wide issue. In that case a department must either lock arms with other humanistic fields to develop a humanities-wide strategy, or decide to go it alone, emphasizing the difference between it and the others . The Princeton situation, in other words, raises the question whether Classics have something distinctive to offer, and if so, what is it?
Sound familiar? What’s the story on your campus?
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PS: Readers: I invite you to post your comments on these matters. I am especially interested whether the same pressures are being felt on other campuses and how Classics departments are responding.
June 17, 2021
The decision comes at a time when the New York Times and other publications have been calling attention to the doubts of one of the department’s members whether the field of Classics is so infected with ”whiteness“ that it does not deserves to survive.
Seen in this light the department’s decision to abolish its language requirement looks like the first step toward dismantling the field as a whole. It would take a brave student to chose to major in a field so infected by its alleged “whiteness.”
Self-destruction is certainly not what the department intends, as one can see from its website ( https://classics.princeton.edu/department/news/statement-community-undergraduate-concentration ). It believes that persuasion can do more than compulsion can to bring students to the study of the ancient languages. Is this whistling in the dark? Or could it actually work? Yes! Says the Atlantic for June 8, 2021, where Graeme Wood suggests that this strategy is not so different from those used by drug peddlers, who start their clients off on light stuff before moving them on to the heavy stuff.
Time to step back and ask, “If ‘flexibility’ is the solution, what’s the problem? Not, it seems, large numbers of students needing more flexibility” to find their ways through the rich smorgasbord of departmental offerings– from Akkadian to contemporary Caribbean literature.. No, it’s Just the opposite, as an article in the Washington Free Beaco for June 8 2021 pointed out,. It points out that the number of Classics majors at Princeton has fallen significantly in recent years . Seen in that light the new “flexibility” looks like a desperate survival strategy.
What the Beacon doesn’t report, however, is that the numbers have fallen in almost all the university’s departments in the humanities. I no longer have any insider knowledge of Princeton’s affairs, but reports of humanities-wide decline seems to match a national trend. Although enrollment statistics are never up-to-date and always tricky to interpret, the National Center for Educational Statistics documents a steep decline in most humanistic fields during the decade ending in 2019. These statistics, however, do not provide a picture of shifts within the fields, for example, in English Literature between courses based on contemporary popular culture and social issues, and those based on traditional authors, e.g. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton. Melville, Yeats etc. In this respect Classics serves as a seismograph measuring the shift away from canonical authors and topics elsewhere in the humanities.
Why it matters: If a recent decline in majors is not restricted to Classics but is occurring throughout the humanities, then remedies specific to Classics, such as lowering language requirements, may not deal with the real problem. It’s a humanities-wide issue. In that case a department must either lock arms with other humanistic fields to develop a humanities-wide strategy, or decide to go it alone, emphasizing the difference between it and the others . The Princeton situation, in other words, raises the question whether Classics have something distinctive to offer, and if so, what is it?
Sound familiar? What’s the story on your campus?
----
PS: Readers: I invite you to post your comments on these matters. I am especially interested whether the same pressures are being felt on other campuses and how Classics departments are responding.
June 17, 2021