Julie Schumacher’s “The Shakespeare Requirement”

August 20, 2018 – The New Republic

The New Campus Novel

Julie Schumacher’s “The Shakespeare Requirement” is a playful, sharp satire of the horrors of modern academia.

By JOSEPHINE LIVINGSTONE

“The Shakespeare Requirement takes on a department in a terrible state. English at Payne is not so much an intellectual nest of idiot vipers, as in The History Man, but rather a collection of people with very little energy left to give, trying in their semi-competent way to keep their subject alive in a hostile culture. Fitger is perhaps the least competent among them—he can barely use email, for example—but the travails of the novel end up testing his worth as a human being, not as an administrator.”

Ms. Mentor’s New Batch of Recommendations

June 21, 2015 – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Ms. Mentor’s Annual Guide to Academic Novels by Ms. Mentor

Winner: Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members

This Year’s Crop of Academic Novel Nominees

Allen, Shirley S. Academic Body
Barbour, John D. Renunciation: A Novel
Buckner, Bailey. The Well-Meaning Professor: A Novel
Cochran, Les. Costly Affair: Loves, Lies, and Liaisons
Crescent, Tara. The Professor’s Pet (A BDSM Romance Novel)
Curzon, Daniel. Among the Carnivores
Diehl, Lesley A. Murder Is Academic
Dolan, Lian. Elizabeth the First Wife
Edwards, Ruth Dudley. Murdering Americans
Fournet, Stephanie. Fall Semester
Games, Steve. The Naked Professor
Gold, Nora. Fields of Exile
Grossack, Victoria. Academic Assassination
Harrington, Rebecca. Penelope
Houck, C.K. The University
Johns, Isabella. My Hot Teacher (Volume 5)
Karlof, Duronimus. Critical Mass
Kirilenko, Shelley. ABD: An Academic Mystery
Krinsky, Natalie. Chloe Does Yale: A Novel
Lipsyte, Sam. The Ask: A Novel
Lukes, Steven. The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat
Markovic, Matthew. Book Thieves: a ‘college mystery’ novel
Martin, Jason. Voluptua: a novel
Meeks, Brian D. Underwood, Scotch, and Wry
Meeks, Christopher. Love at Absolute Zero
Noble, Robert C. Deception by Design: A Novel of Misconduct in Medical Research
Perkins, Ronald. Tenure to Die For: An Ivory Tower Murder Mystery
Philbrick-DeBrava, Valerie. The Gathering: An Academic Novel
Rader-Day, Lori. The Black Hour
Reardon, Kathleen Kelley. Shadow Campus
Rosenthal, D.W. Purely Academic
Urban, William. Why the Dean Is Dead
White, Lowell Mick. Professed
Woodson, Jon. Endowed: a comic novel

‘Samuel Taylor’s Last Night’ by Joe Amato

December 18, 2014 – insidehighered.com/blogs

‘Samuel Taylor’s Last Night,’ a Novel by Joe Amato by John Domini

“Academics, they tell you, offers a life of stability and quiet. So they tell you—a big lie that’s made an easy target for many an author. Just this year, Julie Schumacher achieved a fresh, barbed hilarity in Dear Committee Members. Now Joe Amato has come out with his own academic novel, Samuel Taylor’s Last Night. Within a very few pages, the text asserts itself as something else again[…]”

Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members

 

August 7, 2014 – Slate

Strongest Possible Endorsement by Rebecca Schuman

“For Dear Committee Members isn’t really an academic novel, or even an academic satire (since most of its depictions of Payne University barely count as hyperbole). It’s a sincere exploration of the depths and breadths of human selfishness, and the contemporary American academy is simply the backdrop, precisely because nowhere else could Fitger’s particular sort of self-obsession be given the autonomy to both metastasize and self-immolate. So in the end, it is exactly Fitger’s selfishness that destructs, rather than his life—and although his semi-redemption may not redeem the rank carcass of academic culture that continues to fester around him, it’s more than enough to recommend this mischievous novel.”

August 13, 2014 – NPR

In A Funny New Novel, A Weary Professor Writes To ‘Dear Committee Members’ by Maureen Corrigan

 

August 17, 2014 – Macleans

An academic treatise on passive-aggression by Brian Bethune

August 19, 2014 – Inside Higher Ed

“Dear Committee Members” by Serena Golden

August 25, 2014 – Chronicle of Higher Education

An Academic Novel with a Twist by Jeffrey J. Williams

November 6, 2014 – The Independent

Carry on campus: The satirical needling deflates the high-minded ideals of the groves of academy by Benjamin Poore

“But perhaps the challenge Schumacher and other writers face is that the university now is almost beyond parody.”