"...is accepting only applicants interested in..."
Telling prospective grad students what argument they're supposed to make, before they even apply.
Second paragraph, below. Telling graduate prospectives that they’ll only be accepted if they make one particular type of argument seems…extremely narrow; fanatically prescriptive. The freedom to find one’s own voice, to chose one’s own journey towards a big Thesis all of one’s own, articulated in the dissertation and beyond, is the whole point of such a career-path. There is no other coherent objective in academia.
Is something happening where the academic humanities are trying to become something different? Something more…seminary-like? (I.E. a setting where novices are taught how to propagate a particular belief system which has been thought up well in advance of their arrival?). Is this just English Lit trying to find relevance for itself after a brutal 12-year long collapse in its job market, following the 2008 crash?