<p>You’ve named some of Harvard’s impressive “stars” in the English faculty, JHS, although I do note, when I look at Harvard’s English Dept. website, all of their office hours are listed “by appt” or “on leave.” The question of how to compare the relative strengths and Yale’s and Harvard’s English Depts would be a complex one, of course, but Yale’s clear and current evidence of an ongoing plan for hiring new faculty would be crucial in any evaluation of Yale’s strengths, in addition to the evidence of granting tenure to scholars who work in both “core” areas as well as at the “edges” of a discipline and thus create new areas and link with other areas. </p>
<p>Evident strengths in Yale’s English Dept. are American Studies (long an area of strength for Yale), where Michael Warner (brilliant in queer theory) and Wai-Chee Dimock are both outstanding in influencing how younger scholars are now redefining the field. While it’s true that Harvard has Jorie Graham, Yale’s J.D. McClatchey (also editor of the famed Yale Review, which publishes lots of young poets) is excellent. While Harvard does have Henry Louis Gates, Yale is taking a really “edgy” approach to African American Studies with the brilliant writer Caryl Phillips. </p>
<p>It’s really interesting to see that Yale is apparently doing searches for “emerging” areas such as Asian American Lit, and that with the terrific hire of Alastair Minnis in medieval, Yale appears to be building a strong program there, too. Both Medieval Studies and 18th century studies are really interesting fields within an English Dept. because that’s where you often find people doing deeply interdisciplinary work, extending out to Comp Lit, to other languages. Of course no English professor is going to dismiss Shakespeare, and an interesting thing about David Scott Kastan - another recent hire to Yale, from Columbia – is that he has a solid record training graduate students. </p>
<p>In sum, a quick look in comparing the two English Depts.: they’re about equal in 19th century Victorian, about equal MAYBE in creative writing (although Yale’s School of Drama adds considerably there, and Yale has a number of really good practicing critics), Harvard’s Greenblatt AND Barbara Lewalski get the edge for Shakespeare/Renaissance, but Yale is way ahead in American and Comparative/Ethnic Studies. </p>
<p>Were I to compare their strengths in literary and cultural theory – a field where Yale was way, way ahead of Harvard, which has never caught up – I’d argue that the “historicist” approach that Harvard’s Greenblatt represents is more than matched by Yale’s evident strengths in postcolonial, conceived in a broad way, through many excellent people trained and working in Comparative Literature, such as Pericles Lewis, Katie Trumpener, etc.</p>