Editor @firstthingsmag, Em Prof of English Emory U; author The Dumbest Generation; Literary Criticism: An Autopsy; Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906
Joined November 2014
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While touring St. Peter's with my son two years ago, our guide stood before the Pieta and said, "For 400 years it stood without barrier, and now we have to block it off to keep the vandals away."
When people speak of saving the humanities, do they mean the humanities circa 1965 (Western Civ, Great American Novel...) or circa 2026 (diversity, identity, globalism, focus on the present)?
Mark Bauerlein retweeted
Mark your calendars!
God and Man at Yale Turns 75: Answering Its Still-Burning Questions about the American University
igc.fsu.edu/events/god-and-m…
A very important election in Virginia, Father Scalia says:
firstthings.com/virginias-ba…
"My teacher was a short fellow with moustache and shoulder-length hair, usually wearing jeans. . . He didn’t want to be our friend and I can’t imagine him saying to colleagues a word about how interesting and insightful his students were." classicaled.substack.com/p/y…
Reminder that "viewpoint" is not to be understood in large political terms (eg. more Repubs), but within the context of a discipline, as when an English dept and its identity focus neglects other visions of literary history and gives kids an impoverished education in the field.
The problem with Bloom's Taxonomy is that too many people inferred that the object being judged is less important than the type of judgment applied to it. Pop culture stuff is just as good as classics if we ask kids to operate at the top of the pyramid.
Professor Steven Smith, on a very timely matter of statesmanship, on today's podcast:
firstthings.com/the-last-sta…
Dr. Leonard Sax on the unhappy fate of boys, on the podcast:
firstthings.com/the-boys-on-…
Gioia: "American poetry now belongs to a subculture. No longer part of the mainstream of artistic and intellectual life, it has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group."
Mark Bauerlein retweeted
If you are interested in asking fundamental human questions, and in doing more than critiquing, this may be the year for you.
Ralston’s MA in the Humanities is an invitation to rediscover, rebuild, and pursue what is true, good, and worth preserving in a community that values friendship and freedom of thought.
It is demanding. It is difficult. It is also the adventure of a lifetime.
Applications are now open for Ralston College’s One-Year MA in the Humanities.
Priority deadline: December 18, 2026. Full and partial scholarships are available.
Some of the very best humanities classes were giant lectures by the likes of Vincent Scully and Paul Tanner.
As Professor Wagstaff explains,
youtube.com/watch?v=xHash5ta…
On mandated Bible passages in schools: the left is wrong on educational grounds ("cultural literacy"), but they are right to be worried: firstthings.com/the-left-is-…
Mark Bauerlein retweeted
Watch the full episode of The Close Read Podcast: claremontreviewofbooks.com/p…
Mark Bauerlein retweeted
The university has no bookshop; the library eschews physical books; the learning designers condemn lectures; the managers forbid exams; the LLMs do the writing for students. Do we really need to ask why the bell tolls for the humanities?
Mark Bauerlein retweeted
It was great having @mark_bauerlein visit last week. His talk was titled "How the humanities lost its way," but I think it could have more accurately been called "The Humanities is AWESOME!...here's why"
Photo credit to @hadleyonfire because I failed to take one.
The Hannah-Jones acknowledgment shows how far a mix of ideology + moral fervor can obscure the facts right before an intellectual's eyes. Now, we await her renunciation of the 1619 Project, whose curriculum is still in use in hundreds of schools.
Cell phones . . .
The PISA 2025 results are out today. Some quick insights.
- The major story is very significant global decline. The last PISA study was in 2022, and saw big declines in reading and maths scores from 2018. Obviously the pandemic played a part.
- But this 2025 round has seen further falls even from the 2022 lows!
Things haven't gone back to normal post-pandemic - they've got worse.
Every generation thinks the generation below is less smart - but this time they might be right!
In 1970, English took 1-in-13 of all bachelor's degrees conferred.
The decline in #humanities bachelor's degrees slowed substantially in 2025 (bit.ly/4yh0sgK), but a separate analysis of enrolled majors (pictured below) indicates further losses ahead, with the pace of decline accelerating since the pandemic (bit.ly/3UtRqyC).
