be me. Phil major

> be me. Phil major
> Unknowingly take English course which is cross listed in philosophy.
> Class ignores the authors' intent even though its clear. Prof just reads a collection of political topics into the text, like pure sophistry.
> Class makes no attempt to discover the objective content or actually understand arguments.
> Other students love to connect up hot topics. "muh music", "muh trump", "muh big business", "muh unemployment". No attempts are made to reason about whether their assertions are true.

Veeky Forums Is this what an English degree is? Can anyone explain what is happening and what I am supposed to be getting out of this?

this is what phil classes are like at my school.

> have to take English as part of a film degree
> go to lecture
> it's all boring buzzwords about minorities and asserting a new standard of normalcy in literary circles with regards to ethnicity and gender

>authors intent
>objective content
nice jokes op

>le make shit up to get to talk about kikes, niggers, and feminism on Veeky Forums

xD

>take English class
>be only black guy in the room
>dont care about SJW/pol shit and just want to talk about books

Oh wait that's Veeky Forums

here's something shocking

you can hate /pol/ for the shithole it is and simultaneously hate modern academia for its obsession with race and sex-based approaches to media and literature

Fuck off you jedi

There is no question that we have subjective readings, and can't reach into the past for their intent. But attempting to, and capturing just a piece, is far more valuable that talking about WTF you want.

shut up idiot if you say something even remotely anti-feminist then you should go back to /pol/

>he thinks the frog doesn't give it away

Also, it's blatant bait

But it's not, it's entirely possible for readings that may not have been what the author intended to be better and make the work much more meaningful when interpreted in that way. There's not some mystical quality to what the author may have actually meant that makes it the most valuable interpretation possible.

I took my bachelors degree in philosophy and minored in English at a relatively conservative university. Because muh career prospects and muh love of Veeky Forums (poetry and modernist novels), when I got accepted into both the philosophy and English MA programs at a different university, I went with the English program. The disheartening experience you're describing slapped me square in the face within the first few minutes of my first class, and I've had no reprieve from it in classes/when interacting with my profs/cohort since. Blue haired harpies shrieking about racism in Joyce and African students reducing every syllable of every text to "eet the function of global capitalison. Plato? Ha. Plato you know set ay ground for dissemination of capitalison and hegemonic discourse. All language in English a hegemonic discourse for disseminating global capitalison."

And Abayomi was one of the more insightful students...

"But language! But beauty! But the subtle moral message of this canonical author! Don't you think this passage captures something so essential about..."

"Essential!" scoffs the beta, interrupting you. "Next thing we know, you'll start talking about human nature."

The class collapses into a fit of laughter.

"Or," rejoins another, "you'll say that some authors have their place in the so-called canon due to "objective" merit!"

Literally half the class pisses themselves; they cannot fathom such backwards, absurd and untenable beliefs still being advocated (though they have trouble articulating what, exactly, makes radical historicism intrinsically correct). The professor proudly nods, and then smiles benevolently upon his acolytes, who are also, paradoxically, his instructors, for they never fail to reprimand him for his problematic behaviours.

"Let us find some homeless Indians to micturate on me and on my matriculation!" he cries.

All but the most conservative English departments are doomed.

>have to take american literature as a subject
>first unit
>"what is an american? diversity and the concept of melting pot"
>starts talking about how evil white colonizers destroyed native american people and nature by industrializacion
>our first readings are about books made by a female semi-native american and a female african-merican
>stopped going after that

Should i give up bros?

Great read. The irony is that somehow students think they are becoming "free thinkers" while simultaneously being fed only comfortable, soft, emotionally satisfying ideas, that already conform with their world views.

Then you must have a (((Continental))) Philosophy department. Real philosophy is based on rigorous argumentation.

Do you hate history?

Do you hate objectively good literature? One does not enroll in a physics degree to spend ones time learning about the historical impact of anaxiamander's proto-physics. One would not expect a physics student to do so, or to be okay with being made to do so. Why should English students have to read trash for its historical value instead of literature for its literary value?

You picked an American literature class, naturally you'll get a discussion on various aspects of American culture.

Sounds dry, if you want the history of American lit from the beginning you can read the wiki article. There is such a wealth of good literature from that country that it seems like a waste of time, personally I would rather work with a prof/class to get a thorough reading out of books that deserve it. I would drop it, I'm signed up for the same course next term and we're doing Toni Morrisson (sp?) and contemporary stuff.

Doesn't sound like you want to start from the very beginning (seems fair to me) don't get trapped

native american literature fucking sucks. you'd think it'd be substantially more interesting considering that nomadic lifestyles are dope, but no, it's so fucking stupid.