Hey, university and college creative-writing faculty, students, and staff: Can you feel it? Can you hear the stitches ripping a little louder now? The building listing to starboard? Maybe it’s a key staff position eliminated here, or a major budget cut there. Maybe it’s more coldness between departments competing for the shrinking pie, or between people within your department; or people turning more towards their in-group and eager to blame outsiders for their problems, shunning or shaming them. Or maybe I’m just a pessimist.
Many writers work within universities, and it does seem like the dismantling of the US higher education system – esp. public higher education – is accelerating beyond the dreams of neoliberal pols or the self-serving, i’ve-got-mine-jack indifference of administrators. Grad students are taking medical leaves to care for themselves psychologically and emotionally; others are falling behind; others are just acting out (as are some faculty). Undergrads are working more hours for money, more hours at “extracurriculars,” trying to maintain their academic work, trying to stay awake long enough to imagine a life without debt. OK, OK – this is catastrophizing; there are good things happening, too. There are good people in colleges and universities. And none of this can be directly linked to climate change, except maybe at a couple of removes: part of the background noise, like weather-induced irritability or the economic drag of natural disasters. But both climate chaos and the growing anomie in the ivory tower have a common cause, which is neoliberal, globalized industrial capital. And that inevitably will affect the creative-writing industry. For the last few years, I’ve been active on campus trying to prevent academic freedom from being destroyed, esp. for non-tenure-track faculty, and trying to force the institution to maintain its intellectual and artistic integrity. And my allies and I have had some not-insignificant victories. But still I wonder what difference it will make in the long run. Resource depletion (water, esp.) is going to catch up with the economy at some point. The waves of people displaced by climate change are increasing in number all over the world. And of course, there is the quasi-fascist faux-populist xenophobic backlash in many nations, north and south. All of this suggests that colleges and universities in the global north will be very very different places ten (and maybe five) years from now than they are at present. It may be accellerated decay and inaction – the US university (for instance) looking more like eastern European universities under Soviet rule. But it may be cutting out departments or schools - or creative-writing programs. Or it may be the conversion of postsecondary institutions into ideological training camps for the children of the wealthy. If we lived in a rational society, we’d probably be making contingency plans for housing displaced persons in university buildings (including classrooms and offices) and using any open ground for growing food or drilling water wells. As it is, we go about our daily jobs as though everything were going to be the same - or at least, only decline incrementally. That's not how the scientists are depicting it - and the scientists' predictions always turn out to be wildly optimistic. If you are a writer working in a postsecondary institution, stop and think: 1. What do I think my on- and off-campus community will be like, ten years from now? 2. How will I try to shape it to my liking? 3. What role could literature and creative writing – and pedagogy – play, in a more stressed, diminished world? 4. Am I willing to move to China or Bahrain, maybe, to keep getting paid for leading workshops? 5. Should I be teaching workshops at all? Are there things that are important beyond all this fiddle? 5. What and how should I write? 6. Should I write?
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |