Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that all academics aren't interested in SF, or its their fault that it's not being taught more. I personally know a few who are myself! I should probably say that mainstream Academe doesn't appear to be. I also think that many academics who would probably be interested in further work in those areas would not be particularly encouraged in it by the Powers That Be. Publishing papers, fine; teaching, not so much, from what I can tell. I do hope that will change - after all, universities aren't just about reading Latin and Greek (with a bit of Hebrew) texts these days either.

As for Shakespeare being a "speciality" area, uh? Sure it is, at its more rarefied level. However, is there such a thing as an English 100 course that doesn't cover Shakespeare? There certainly isn't a university that doesn't offer at least one course in SS, where courses on SF and genre fiction of all kinds are comparatively rare. Or perhaps this is different in the US.

I don't know what point you were making about high school English teachers - as far as I'm aware, we weren't talking about them.