MLA - Utopia

“O brave new world that has such people in it.”

Somehow this quote seemed to me to capture the spirit of the entire article; it describes a vision of language instruction that would be (by all conventional standards) idyllic. By setting the stage as this new changed world with different requirements, the MLA committee convincingly appeals to our current need for cooperation, expansion and, above all, change. On page 2, we read “Americans need to be open to the world; we need to be able to see the world through the eyes of others if we are going to understand how to resolve the complex problems we face.” The committee claims this to no longer be a cliché, and they make a convincing case.

Perhaps the most challenging hurdle to overcome is not in implementing new systems (like courses that appeal across departments and require extensive collaboration among faculty), but in paying the “price” that would come with such a great leap towards holistic education in foreign language departments.

“This configuration defines both the curriculum and the governance structure of language departments and creates a division between the language curriculum and the literature curriculum and between tenure-track literature professors and language instructors in nontenure- track positions. At doctorate-granting institutions, cooperation or even exchange between the two groups is usually minimal or nonexistent.” (p. 2)

It is this traditional structure that must be compromised in order to move forward as the MLA suggests. Even from my own limited experience as a graduate student in a foreign language literature program, I can say with no scruples that some aspects of this traditional structure can be cold, pedantic and self-serving: qualities that do not mix well with the kind of radical cooperation suggested here. Not only does this attitude present itself in elements already present within departments, but it perpetuates itself and engenders more of the same in graduate students, giving longevity to these attitudes. Perhaps a bit more focus should have been given to this aspect, as these are the people that will fill the tenure-track positions of tomorrow.