Russian Language / Literature vs. Russian Studies?

Sun Dec 19 00:16:12 UTC 2010

I think low enrollments are a symptom, not a cause.

Are the social sciences and cultural studies really going to save us?  
Even they are not in line with the current (apparent) shift toward 
non-intellectual, vocational programs, even if they are more 
"marketable" (by the way, why do we use the terminology of slavery to 
discuss education?) than hard-core humanities.

One alarming trend I've noticed (just by casual observation, not 
research, so maybe I'm off base here) is the boom in "Hospitality 
Management" programs at universities, while foreign languages are 
downsized or cut altogether.  This is part of what I think to be a 
movement toward transforming our universities into vo-tech institutions 
(i.e. trade schools).  I suppose the powers that be want ignorant 
servants rather than a well-educated citizenry.

Thus I propose that, in order to insure the survival of our field(s), 
not to mention our own job security (for those of us who actually have 
job security), we offer the following types of courses:

"Polish for Plumbers" (this would appeal to students looking to move to 
the EU after graduating and realizing that there are no viable career 
opportunities in the US)

"French for the Kitchen Help" (this could be a required course for 
anyone majoring in the culinary arts; the Italian department could offer 
a similar course, which could be taken in lieu of French; at Ivy League 
schools, such as Cornell, which reputedly has the best Hospitality 
Management program in the country, this could be "French for Restaurant 
Managers")

"Russian for Hotel Maids" (one could offer such a course in any Slavic 
language; again, elite schools could offer "Russian for Custodial 
Management").  Another option would be "Russian for Computer 
Programmers," but only at institutions with strong computer science 
programs, such as MIT.

"Spanish for Customer Service Reps" (all oral exams to be conducted over 
the telephone)

"Chinese for ToEFL Instructors" (a one-semester course, since the ToEFL 
instructors will have the opportunity to learn most of their Chinese 
on-site in China, after graduating and finding that there are no viable 
career opportunities in the US)

"Latin for Welfare Recipients" (could be substituted for the same course 
in Ancient Greek; these courses would be quite rigorous and would 
involve literary studies, since they are designed for people destined to 
end up unemployed anyway)

"German for..."  well, I guess we could scrap German altogether, let the 
Germanists take one for the team, so to speak, or we could offer "German 
for Classicists," and then make all the Classics majors study German 
while reading Ovid and Homer in English translation; this would, of 
course, require us to give the axe to the Classical languages, but 
that's happening anyway, so no harm no foul.

I think it best not to even imagine the types of courses that would be 
offered in Arabic.

Meanwhile, English departments will continue to take the lion's share of 
humanities funding, and the "World Lit. in Translation" classes they 
have already monopolized will be the only non-Anglophone literary 
courses taught (except for the precious Classics taught in the German 
dept., if we decide not to give the Germanists the axe after all).

Ivan S. Eubanks
/Pushkin Review / Пушкинский вестник/ <http://www.pushkiniana.org>

On 12/18/2010 5:34 PM, Lewis B. Sckolnick wrote:
>  Or maybe it is the alphabets.
>
> Lewis
>
>
>
>>   Populations differ in what appeals. To look at the lowest common
>> denominator: Some graduate students at Youngstown State University did
>> a study of incoming freshman and their attitudes toward learning a
>> Foreign Language and presented their results at an in-house conference.
>> When asked what language they would NEVER consider studying, 21%
>> indicated Russian (the only lower-rated language was Arabic). One of
>> the reasons cited: "B/c Russia is so far away&  isolated. 3/4 of the
>> country is so cold that no one can live there. I don't see much value
>> in learning Russian."
>>
>> In other words, public institutions have a hard sell.
>>
>> Melissa Smith
>>
>> On 12/18/10 2:48 PM, Benjamin Rifkin wrote:
>>> Dear SEELANGers:
>>>
>>>
>>> I will be discussing this and related matters in my talk at the
>> upcoming AATSEEL Conference, from a dean's office perspective.
>>>
>>> Best wishes to all,
>>>
>>>
>>> Ben Rifkin
>>> The College of New Jersey
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "David Graber"<david_graber2 at YAHOO.COM>
>>> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 2:15:35 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada
>> Eastern
>>> Subject: [SEELANGS] Russian Language / Literature vs. Russian Studies?
>>>
>>> Dear Seelangs Subscribers,
>>>
>>> As I hear of departments being cut or eliminated, I wonder if it
>> matters how we present the *purpose* of our course material--on the one
>> hand, as language learning leading to the study of
>> literature/linguistics or, on the other, as part of a more general
>> humanities/social sciences-based Russian Studies.
>>> Does it make a difference if we package our classes as ways of
>> understanding "civilization", "culture", "cultural history", "cultural
>> studies", "area studies", "history of ideas", etc, as opposed to
>> classes that suggest that our ultimate goal is understanding
>> "literariness" (e.g., "Russian literature", "19th Century Russian
>> Literature", "Romanticism", "Pushkin/Dostoevsky/Tolstoy", "Russian
>> Poetry", etc) and linguistics?
>>> I'd be curious to know whether anyone on the list has any experience
>> with reworking the departmental offerings into a Russian Studies
>> program, what is gained/lost in doing so, and whether that seems to
>> affect how students, administrators, and the public view the department
>> and its usefulness to the institution and society.
>>> Dave Graber
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Melissa T. Smith, Professor
>> Department of Foreign Languages and
>> Literatures
>> Youngstown State University
>> Youngstown, OH 44555
>> Tel: (330)941-3462
>>
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>
>

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