Romantic Circles Features & Events

The Fate of Our Field: An Expansion of the Original Survey

From: Susan Wolfson and Bill Galperin

This survey originally was posted to NASSR-L. In the interests of expanding its scope, we are re-posting it here at Romantic Circles.

A number of us talked at the business meeting at the last NASSR convention about the vanishing of our field per se from the recent job lists--poignantly, just at the moment that "Romanticism" or the field "Formerly Known as Romanticism" is being reconfigured, revitalized, expanded, recanonized. Although there are a number of positions for which Romanticists, or R-era specialists, might compete with Victorianists or 18th-c specialists, the field itself has made a scant appearance on the last two job lists at least: this year's list, for instance, had only 5 positions and one post-doc identified as "Romantic." What seems to be happening is that Romanticism is being tacked on to the end of the long 18th c. in job-descriptions (i.e. British literature 1700-1830) or at the front of 19th c positions. While we see the point in these downsizing times of having to be responsible for more than 40-50 years, we do not think it healthy for "Romanticism" either to be marginalized as a late emergence from the 18th c or, as Tilottama put it, "the adolescence of the Victorian age." If there has to be a century mandate, why not 1750-1850?

At this point, before calling for CPR, we would like to get a better informed sense of the state of the field as it exists in our institutions. To this end, we are asking you to answer a questionaire to the best of your knowledge. The results will be forwarded to Susan and then posted here at Romantic Circles.

The Survey

  1. What is the census of your current faculty, junior and senior, specializing in Romantic-era literature, 1780-1830?

  2. How many apppointments, and at what rank, have you made in the Romantic-era:
    • in the last 5 years?
    • in the last 10 years?
    • in the last 15 years?

  3. How often does your department offer courses in Romantic-era?
    • one/semester?
    • one/yr?
    • one every other year?

  4. Have lines in Romantic-era been lost, or are they in peril of being lost, as new fields (20th c., etc) have emerged?

  5. In terms of its curricular offerings, is your department thinking of folding or has it already started to fold Romantic-era into a long 18th c or a long 19th c course?

  6. In terms of its job searches, present and recent, is Romantic-era (1780-1830) being divided and/ or folded into long 18th c or a long 19th c positions?

  7. When and under what circumstances would your department anticipate hiring in Romantic/ 1780-1830 again?

  8. If relevant, how many graduate students in your department are writing, or preparing to write, dissertations in Romantic-era subjects/ texts/ writers?

Thanks for your help.
View the Responses.
View the NASSR-L debate of January 1997