Until recently, an undergraduate majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, one in Milton, and two more in Shakespeare.  No more.  Now, their department simply requires four courses in different historical periods plus three of the following (copied from their website): Breadth (one course is required in three of the four areas below) Courses offered in Winter 2014: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies  Genre Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, Critical Theory Creative Writing (enrollment in any creative writing course is by application only) As an academic myself, I can say that UCLA's requirements don't surprise me. The University of Chicago's "common core" in the social sciences recently instituted a sequence in gender studies that allows students who choose it to avoid reading the Federalist Papers, Adam Smith, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, etc....(Read Full Post)