No, Shakespeare Is Not Mandatory—And That’s the Point!

What if the real crisis in English Studies isn’t its irrelevance, but the outdated questions we keep asking about it? Instead of worrying whether students can quote Milton or clear an exam, what if we asked: Can they read a deepfake? Decode a meme? Challenge a biased algorithm? This isn’t just a blog about saving a discipline—it’s an invitation to reimagine its future. Read on, and ask not what English Studies was, but what it can become.

We live in an era where buzzwords like skills, outcomes, and employability dominate the academic conversation. Neoliberalism has recast education into a marketplace where degrees are sold as investments and students are treated as future workers in training. Within this landscape, English Studies is being nudged—if not shoved—toward obsolescence. More and more universities, both in India and abroad, are questioning its relevance. Often, its only perceived value lies in its capacity to turn students into global English users. But if this is all the discipline is reduced to, then we’re looking at the most uninspired version of it.

Yet, it is precisely in this moment of crisis that English Studies must ask itself the radical questions. What are we doing here? Why does this course exist? And how can we turn its so-called irrelevance into its greatest strength—especially in the age of AI?

Let’s begin with a loaded question: Is it mandatory to prescribe Shakespeare in an M.A. English syllabus today? My answer—without flinching—is no. And this comes from both personal experience and academic logic.

When I joined the Institute of English in 2003, our syllabus was strikingly different. There was no Chaucer. No Shakespeare. Not even Milton. The focus was entirely on 20th-century thinkers, writers, and texts. The course itself was often criticised—sometimes even ridiculed—for what many perceived as a “distorted” or incomplete approach. Critics argued that students like us would never clear the UGC-NET or state PSC exams, for post of Assistant Professors, that included canonical literature from the medieval period onwards.

But guess what? Many of us cleared these exams—in our very first attempts. Why? Because the syllabus, though unconventional, trained us in something far more vital: the ability to read critically and think independently. As Prof. G.S. Jayasree,  one of the key faculty members involved in designing that syllabus, once said: “No one can teach everything under the sun. But if you can train students to read anything critically, they can handle any exam—and more importantly, any idea.”

That vision, hatched two decades ago, now feels prophetic. In 2025, as the Humanities are being steadily pushed aside by techno-colonisation and vocational mandates, I am reminded of something Prof. Ashley N.P. from St. Stephen’s College recently said: “We don’t teach Shakespeare or Amitav Ghosh, but how to read them. How to read history and culture.” (https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/ba-english-to-be-or-not-to-be-13-madras-colleges-push-to-drop-course-amid-low-enrolment/ar-AA1FYgkF)

That’s the crux. English Studies is not about memorising a canon—it’s about learning how to read the world. And in a world governed by algorithms, deepfakes, and disinformation, these skills are more urgent than ever.

So where do we go from here?

Prof. Ashley makes a compelling case for a shift—not just in curriculum, but in the very nomenclature of the course. What we call “English Language and Literature” today is already bursting at the seams. With Translation Studies, Media Theory, and Cultural Studies becoming central to what we teach, it’s high time we embraced the term “English Studies.” And with that name must come a sharper, more future-facing vision.

Saving English Studies in this AI age doesn’t mean stuffing it with coding electives or business communication modules. It means:

1. Reimagining its relevance beyond grammar drills and spoken English classes. (Let’s be honest—AI tools are already better at that than most humans.)

2. Sharpening its focus on critical reading, analytical reasoning, and cultural interpretation. These are the very sensibilities AI cannot replicate.

3. Letting go of syllabus bloat that tries to cover every literary era just for the sake of coverage. Why not create space for courses on gaming narratives, AI ethics in literature, or indigenous storytelling on digital platforms?

4. Training students as independent learners—able to decode any kind of text, past or future, literary or algorithmic.

Reading Shakespeare or Milton will always be a valuable intellectual experience—but not because they are mandatory. Rather, it’s the capacity to read them critically, to situate them historically and culturally, that gives them relevance.

English Studies doesn’t need to fade into redundancy. It needs to evolve, boldly and intelligently. In an era where machines are learning how to write, the task of the Humanities is not to compete—but to teach us how to read differently, deeply, and ethically.