Journal 5

One debate among academics is “What exactly is English studies?” Some people were fine not having an answer to this question. Peter Elbow said, “Cannot define what it is.” Other scholars decided that English is in crisis. Ian Small and Josephine Guy say that, “English departments have always contained within them the potential for crisis simply because there has always been dissent over the nature of the subject.” Bruce McComiskey is concerned about how discipline incoherence affects English studies. He argues that, “We must know where we’ve been in order to understand where we are and plan for a better future.”