This piece contains a description, from one point of view, of a certain department of English in a British university. The institution is unnamed here because the piece is intended to be part of a wider debate, and the authors do not wish to give the impression of an ad hominem attack. In order to preserve the department's identity, the authors themselves are remaining anonymous. It should not be thought that the authors are unwilling to be identified for any other reason.

This letter was written in May 1994. We were then in our second year of doctoral research in the English department at ___University. Coming from different universities, we had chosen to do our PhDs at___English department, because of its size, and because of its national, even international, reputation. Yet after only a year, we felt obliged to protest at the department's intellectual culture. We thought that this culture was hostile to the ideals which had informed our own education. In less abstract terms, we thought that the students were missing out, and being misled by shoddy but fashionable thinking.

The first three people to read our letter were senior members of staff with important departmental responsibilities. We were anxious to be as open as possible in our comments, and asked them to forward the letter to the Academic Committee. In private, all three expressed a degree of sympathy. But understandably, they felt obliged to divorce this sympathy from their public roles. We certainly felt that ...