Last month, the number of lines for graduate admissions in humanities departments here at Emory University were cut way back, some to the low single digits. I imagine the same thing is happening at universities all across the country, and people wonder what condition the humanities will be in once the belt-tightening has concluded.

This statement by incoming president of the MLA, Catherine Porter, acknowledges the dim outlook, along with the added pressure it puts on humanities teachers and scholars and administrators. She writes, “we are being asked yet again — by parents, legislators, journalists, ‘the public’ — to defend what we do and the way we do it.” True, and it seems that many in the literature and language fields recognize that former justifications and the attitudes that go with them won’t serve this time. I mean some of the...

Much speculation here at Brainstorm and elsewhere about the new heads of the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities has taken place, but one part of the record seems under-emphasized in many accounts of the previous years: funding levels. Or rather, when funding issues do appear, the authors choose distant years in order to rate current funding levels. In this story in The Chronicle, for instance, David Glenn cites fellow-Brainstormer Stanley Katz’s 2001 Chronicle piece that observes that NEH funding “peaked in 1979.” (Stan’s piece is here, and it’s well worth reading to set the pre-Bush II situation at the agencies in proper context.) And in this New York Times article entitled “Arts...

Today in The Wall Street Journal we have two sharply contrasting images reflecting on illegal drug use. First is Michael Phelps offering his apologies to the Chinese people for his now world-famous bong hit (see here). Among Phelps’s pleadings:

“‘To all my Chinese friends, I made a mistake and did something which I deeply regret. However, I am deeply comforted by all the messages of support and encouragement posted on the Chinese Internet,’ Mr. Phelps was quoted as saying by the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper. ‘This incident has taught me an important lesson and I vow to swiftly change my attitude, train in the best athletic spirit, and make you all proud of me once again.’”

How many apologies does that make so far?

He lost his Kellogg’s sponsorship, but kept Swiss watchmaker Omega, which considered the ...

Help! My ‘A’ is melting!

One of the periodic embarrassments for the public schools comes every few years when state tests are administered, scores are tabulated, and officials trumpet the good news.

“The average went up!” they proclaim.

“XX percent of our kids are proficient in math, and YY percent in reading.”

“Program Z is working!”

But then come the NAEP scores for the state, and the gains go down, and sometimes disappear.

A couple of years ago, Diane Ravitch summarized the problem:

“Almost all states report that, based on their own tests, incredibly large proportions of their students meet high standards. Yet the scores on the federal test . . . were far lower. Basically, the states have embraced low standards and grade inflation.”

Some of the discrepancies Ravitch cited were ludicrous....

Gerald Graff just completed a year as president of the Modern Language Association, and with several much-noticed publications (some with Cathy Birkenstein-Graff) in recent times — here and here, for instance, and here) — he might appear to occupy the higher circles of the elite humanities professors. He has also come in for frequent criticism lately (I think he undervalues Great Books and Great Books curricula, for instance), and part of it may be due to his apparent perch at the top of the profession.

It wasn’t always that way, though. Back in the mid-1980s, when I started...

Awhile back in a meeting of diverse experts in books and reading, a researcher who tracks revenue and unit sales for the industry offered a stunning observation. Of the 175,000 or so new titles published annually, more than 100,000 of them could produce no record of any sales. It was a quick remark and the discussion moved on. But a story last month in the New York Times by Motoko Rich helps explain the situation. It didn’t cover the staffing cuts at Cambridge and Oxford University Press, or the other miserable news in publishing in the last three months. It sounded the opposite, even with the word “fluorish” in the title: “Self-Publishers Fluorish as Writers Pay the Tab” (see

A notice appeared the other day at Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors, about another closing of a book review section in a newspapers. (See here.) The Washington Post plans to close Book World, its 16-page weekly. From now on, book content in the print version will disperse into other sections: Outlook and Style & Arts. This will retain 12 pages of reviews, including Michael Dirda’s and Jonathan Yardley’s pieces, and the online edition will retain the section, at least for now.

The New York Times reported on the change with the summary, “In another sign that literary criticism is losing its profile in newspapers . . .” (see here), and several voices in ...

(Photo at Spence Publishing’s Web site)

Richard John Neuhaus passed away earlier this month, a victim of cancer. Obituaries may be found here and here and here. Most of the commentary focuses on Neuhaus’ background in civil rights work and his shift toward the Right through the Eighties. His best-known book, “The Naked Public Square,” argued that secularism was aggressively, and wrongly, pushing religious thought out of public life.

Apart from his theological and social-political writings, Neuhaus issued a wonderful, multi-page column of scattered observation every month in First Things, entitled “The...

When people discuss the meaning and impact and value of the Web, they often refer only to the things to be found there, the repositories of learning and art and information and opinion. These are, indeed, wondrous, and the Web’s ability to deliver materials at little or no cost to people far from the centers of power and culture is a step forward in access and equality.

But the materials at hand are one thing. The consumption of them is another. If you receive Google Alerts on topics such as “history civics knowledge,” several blog posts come through each day. Many of them are thoughtful and informed, but it is striking how many of them have zero comments. The writers are intelligent and the opinions worth sharing, but what is the impact if nobody responds?

A related problem with the abundance of materials offered and the actual materials that get used is signalled

Here’s a depressing and blunt comment from Larry McMurtry, speaking not only as a novelist but as a bookstore owner (it’s an interview):

The end of the culture of the book. I’m pessimistic. Mainly it’s the flow of people into my bookshop in Archer City. They’re almost always people over 40.

I don’t see kids, and I don’t see kids reading. I think little kids love to have stories read to them, but when they get to 10 or 11 or 12, they run into this tsunami of technology: iPod, iPhone, Blackberries.

They don’t resist it, and it’s normal that they wouldn’t; it’s their culture. I’m not so sure they ever come back to reading. Some will, but most won’t.

The tsunami metaphor is apt, and it points out the relationship between books and other media in kids’ lives. The list of options has grown, with books...