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4
She expressed regret about how little an English department's offerings today resemble those from the past.
This reminds me of baby boomers saying "well back in my day, we used to walk up the hill both ways in the snow without any shoes..."
13
Actually Baby Boomers would just tell you how great it was to be in college in the 70's and how cheap it was. They'd pat you on the back and say that times change and while it sucks that college is more expensive, we can't change a system they run. Then they'd send you an article from Yahoo News about some asshole 13-year old kid who made some dumb app and they would say "See! That's what America is about!"
6
I have some friends who fall into the boomer category and I always love it when they say things like "I could afford tuition by working as a bartender". Granted, I graduated college a long time ago, but I think it's fairly obvious that tuition is growing way past inflation.
You also forgot to add "I had my own apartment after college and the rent was $600 a month and I made $25,000 a year". Never mind the fact that beer was like $.75, and during happy hour it was $.25.
5
And the "walk-on-the-job" stories. Nothing feels better than having them tell you that back then you could just start at a job with no interest or qualifications (including a degree) and get a livable wage.
3
I was just going to say that. "Well in my day, I was able to start in the mail room and now I'm the COO". Nice for you sir, but try getting someone these days to even look at your resume without a certain degree or at least a minimum years of experience, which no one will give you because you don't have a degree.
4
I had no idea she became a college professor. I guess David had more of an influence over her than Alvy did.
I thought the same damn thing. Get out of my head!!!
7
Things were different when I was in college. There was none of this "things were different when I was in college" bullshit.
3
As a humanities scholar...I appreciate that these conversations are being held in public forums especially since in most normal states taxpayers and students actually do pay for a good percentage of university costs, even at private but accredited institutions. People who've gone to college for at least 12 years (and it takes an incredibly long time to get a legit humanities Phd in the U.S. system so for a lot of people even longer) should be able to explain their curriculum, to some extent, to those funding it.
But then, back off. You've got to trust at a certain point that someone coming from (for example) a medievalist coming from Harvard or MIT who gets a Fulbright and then on to Oxfor and sits in the Bodleian for eight hours a day for five years examining marginalia with a magnifying glass probably knows more about manuscripts than a Realtor in Burbank. That's how we assess expertise in medicine, physical science, etc.
There is no reason this has to be conversation of absolutes, pitting Harold Bloom's dictum about Shakespeare being THE canon against stuff that falls into "visual culture" such as Sex and the City. At some point though, especially on required reading lists, decisions have to be made on that line between subjective/objective criteria. Has The Color Purple and Alice Walker's oeuvre made the final cut? Sure. Will people be inscribing Precious onto the walls of our future pyramids? Likely not. Is there a way to construe Maya Angelou's body of work critically, against her extremely charismatic public persona? Yes definitely.
I use these examples to show that even in literature we think of as being "marginalized" by the man, it is a benefit, not a hazard, to keep the air fresh by constantly reassessing what's good and what lasts.
