A number of publications have appeared in the last several years lamenting the rise of identity politics in the contemporary academy and its seemingly deleterious effects on conceptions of cultural literacy and civic values (See MacDonald, Bawers, D’Souza, Kimball, Haidt/Lukianoff, Lila, and Peterson). The promotion of identity politics and related concepts such as safe spaces and microaggressions, which are fundamentally about protecting identities, have been correlated with the general decline and corruption of the humanities and academic critical thinking. Identities are to be respected and protected at all costs. One might even posit a relationship between the rise in identity-politics promotion within the university and the fragmentation of the disciplines within the humanities. This fragmentation has been heralded as a positive development, a renunciation of Eurocentrism, its cultural norms, heteronormativity, and a colonial past. The heavy academic focus on racial, ethnic, and gender identities necessitated a drift away from disciplinary foundations, particularly as new methods of focusing on identity—such as those espoused within sexuality and gender studies—required supposedly inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches and more theoretically robust and more complex methodologies. For example, the emphasis on racial and sexual identities in English Departments led to the forwarding of political demands that sought to replace literary and philosophical canons and specific curricular requirements of the past with political imperatives seeking to disrupt a hegemonic status quo associated with the traditions promoted by white, cisgender, men. Such efforts led to what Lindsey Shepherd calls “identity grifting,” that is the pursuit of empty diversity initiatives for the promotion of an identity politics. In other words, the study of ethnic and sexual identities emerged as being worthwhile in themselves even though ethnic and sexual identities do not necessarily get at the essentials of the self: one is more than her race and gender.

There is a palpable sense within some quarters of English Studies that the heavy and predictable emphasis on identity is placing the field in a precarious position in relation to key stakeholders such as administrators, state legislators, parents, and students (see Bauerlein, Lila, and MacDonald). As the number of English majors in universities continue to decline nationally and as the market for PhDs becomes increasingly tight, one might question how the seemingly obsessive focus on identity as a disciplinary fetish serves the profession, especially as critiques from the Right suggest we have lost touch with the kinds of skills we should be imparting to students. While one might simply reply that this critique is simply being issued by those who are threatened by the academic focus on marginalized identities, we should keep in mind the rather visible public hoaxes that have called into doubt whether we are producing knowledge or required shibboleths signaling political alignments (see Boghossian, Pluckrose, and Lindsay). The National Association of Scholars (NAS) puts out regular publications suggesting that a more conservative approach within the humanities is in order, a seeming call to return to classical literature and its timeless themes related to heroism and the universal human condition. The NAS seeks to illustrate how the Academic Left's identity-politics' excesses necessitate a wholesale re-evaluation of how the humanities and social sciences are being taught and often taken up as part of rather problematic political projects. Speakers will examine these issues and the implications of continued identity-politics promotion for the future of English Studies and the academic profession at large.

Speaker #1 will explore how continuing to think about scholarly authority in relation to positionality/subjectivity has the potential to imperil the future of the humanities in the eyes of key stakeholders. The willingness within progressive circles to grant perspectives political legitimacy based on identity claims ends up undermining those worthwhile progressive projects and their very laudatory aspirations. The speaker will offer an alternative to such an identity politics by drawing upon the magisterial work of the late Edward W. Said, who always believed in advancing criticism before embracing solidarity.

Speaker #2 will describe his involvement and motivations in creating seven hoax articles that were published in top academic journals to illustrate how the espousal of ideologically congenial conclusions that have no grounding in sustainable and reproducible data were embraced by journals editors eager to advance a political agenda. One of the articles argued that dog-park culture has much to teach us about how to curb human rape culture and cultural misogyny based on the researchers' observations of a handful of dogs in one dog park. Other published articles advanced equally absurd conclusions to the plaudits of progressive journal editors who believed they were publishing cutting-edge scholarship.

Respondent will respond to the remarks of Speakers 1 and 2.

Each speaker will speak for approximately twenty minutes.