| This thesis seeks to examine the ways in which the contemporary American campus novel exposes the demise of the humanities in American institutions of higher education around the turn of the twenty-first century. Using satire and what Kathryn Hume labels as "modalities of complaint", the contemporary campus novel reveals a looming threat to the humanities, specifically fields of literary study and construction. The three novels that I focus on -- The Marriage Plot (2011), Galate a 2.2 (1995), and Erasure (2001) -- each respond to the emotional and psychological toll taken on students and faculties of English study. I also consider the history of the campus novel and the ways in which the contemporary model deviates from earlier, fonder, and more nostalgic representations of higher education. Questions of purpose and privilege thread themselves through each novel, comparing study in the humanities with the growing fields of science, medicine, and technology.;Valuing the humanities means creating pathways for all students, not just those with the resources, faculties, and demographics to succeed. Current career rhetoric suggests that there is a chance for fruitful re-integration of the humanities into a career minded university; the campus novel warns the consequences of continuing on the current trajectory. |
