Hope you didn't rack up too much debt at college

[mrswdk]

Fun fact: when the first engineering course started at a British university, the other professors hate it so much that every time the lecturer teaching the course needed rooms for it they'd block book everything so that he was forced to use stairwells, halls, go outside or whatever. They though that such a subject was too vocational and therefore not worthy of being taught alongside their courses.

[Symmetry]

Fun fact: when the first engineering course started at a British university, the other professors hate it so much that every time the lecturer teaching the course needed rooms for it they'd block book everything so that he was forced to use stairwells, halls, go outside or whatever. They though that such a subject was too vocational and therefore not worthy of being taught alongside their courses.

Similar story with English Lit, and even then, arguably the greatest novel in English- Joyce's Ulysses.

That's the thing about history, it's just one damn thing after another.

[mrswdk]

I doubt anyone has ever considered English Lit 'vocational' tbh.

[Symmetry]

I doubt anyone has ever considered English Lit 'vocational' tbh.

I did, but then I did well at it and became an English teacher, both with language and lit. Plus a few sidelines.

But you're mostly right in your scepticism. It's mostly useful nowadays because it shows literacy.

[saxitoxin]

Americans also looked down on English literature, apparently -

In the mid-19th century, English literature within the United States was generally seen, within academia, as inferior to classical literature and its study generally limited to secondary schools. The gradual legitimization of the English language within American academia was accompanied by the introduction of a limited number of university courses devoted to the study of American literature. The first university-level course in American literature was introduced at Princeton University in 1872 by John Seely Hart. By the 1880s, several universities offered undergraduate classes in the subject, including Dartmouth College, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Iowa. The first graduate-level course in American literature was taught at the University of Virginia in 1891.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ ... discipline)

[Symmetry]

Americans also looked down on English literature, apparently -

In the mid-19th century, English literature within the United States was generally seen, within academia, as inferior to classical literature and its study generally limited to secondary schools. The gradual legitimization of the English language within American academia was accompanied by the introduction of a limited number of university courses devoted to the study of American literature. The first university-level course in American literature was introduced at Princeton University in 1872 by John Seely Hart. By the 1880s, several universities offered undergraduate classes in the subject, including Dartmouth College, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Iowa. The first graduate-level course in American literature was taught at the University of Virginia in 1891.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ ... discipline)

Very much so, the US Postal Service destroyed copies of Ulysses as obscene. Doesn't quite beat the Brits for prudishness though. Look up the case against DH Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover.