Harry Dobbs

There was news this month about Canterbury University axing English literature degrees from 2025.

According to the BBC, Canterbury said that it “…constantly evaluated the subjects it offered to ensure it was able to meet the needs of future students and employers.”

The mention of employers is interesting.

I learned this month as well that UEA no longer offers Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies, the master’s course I did part-time. I was in the first cohort back in 2020.

These things made me think about Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916). One of Japan’s most popular and respected writers (his face was on the 1,000 yen note), he was a scholar of English and Chinese literature, and studied at Tokyo Imperial University and UCL.

He wrote novels that are disparaging of arts degrees, and the people that pursue them.

His protagonists spend their days studying miscellaneous bits of knowledge, and then contemplating what they’re going to do with their lives.

In one scene in Sanshirō, the eponymous hero skips a lecture. His friend Yojirō scolds him:

“You should have come to class today. It was a lecture on how Italians eat macaroni.”

In Sorekara, the protagonist is a thirty-year-old unemployed university graduate called Daisuke. His arts education makes him think he’s better than everyone else, and he sneers at people who work. He has learned to view his own country with contempt. Eventually, he attempts a romance with a married woman. His family disowns him.

And in Kokoro, the narrator travels from Tokyo back to his hometown in the countryside. As a fresh graduate, he should have a bright future ahead.

His parents are proud of him, but he clashes with his traditional father, who concludes:

“The trouble with education… is that it makes a man argumentative.”

The parents like the kudos attached to their son’s degree, but they don’t like what it’s done to his character. And the narrator isn’t sure what he’s qualified to do as a career.

Alone in his room, he sees his diploma as a “meaningless scrap of paper.”

Sōseki confronted the limitations of arts degrees when they were in their infancy in his home country.

He was writing about Japan in 1910. His concerns are relevant to the UK in 2024.

Especially the question:

“Is there demand for this knowledge?”