D.G. Myers, a 61 year-old Ohio State English professor whose contract won't be renewed next year because that would qualify him for tenure, wrote quite the open letter regarding his last semester in Inside Higher Ed today.

Kind of like the high school student who refuses to put his or her name to pointless extracurricular activities for resume purposes, Myers hasn't recently put his name to many or the right type of published work (which he refers to as his "hard-to-credit publication record") that would have made him more indispensable in the college's eyes, among other offenses, like "not trying to fit in." Presumably, Myers, who taught at Texas A&M for 21 years (and had tenure) before taking the same position at Ohio State, used to do the sort of work expected of to-be tenured professors. Based on his letter, he doesn't seem to care much for that side of the profession anymore, instead allocating his passions to teaching the way he wants to teach.

Besides worrying about the end of his time at Ohio State, Myers worries about English as a subject and its larger categorization, the Humanities. Citing common (to literary professors like him) criticisms of the subject -- primarily that it lacks no system for analysis like the sciences -- Myers provides further support by citing the University of Minnesota's archaic course list.

"The Minnesota course list does not indicate a whole world of knowledge," Myers wrote. "It indicates a miscellany of short-lived faculty enthusiasms."

He concludes by building a case, his own firing included, against English, as it is currently being taught, as a necessary college course.

Probably, there are more layers at play here than I can interpret from a man of significantly more physical and mental layers than myself, but I'll take an interpretive stab: Myers obviously doesn't believe in the purposeless of English but is instead using his impending leave as both a way to criticize how the subject is taught and how college English departments are managed.

"I fill no gap in the department, because there is no shimmering and comprehensive surface of knowledge in which any gaps might appear," he wrote in reference to his being seen as an "extra" by the university.

But what would such a department look like? How would it be run? More courses on Shakespeare? Myers doesn't actually provide any solutions.