August 4, 2006

The New Anglophilia

By JAY PARINI

Anglophilia is a disease that afflicts any number of American academics. It always has done so. I've been a sufferer myself for several decades, with bouts of varying intensity. The fact that I've spent nine of my adult years in Britain has had a tempering effect on my illness, though only to a degree. It has also allowed me to study the shifting contours of the disease.

One used to see more Anglophilia in the academy. In my own undergraduate days, in the 60s, the ivy-covered buildings