People outside of acaemia often have a distorted idea of what really goes on in English Departments. Look at Cornell's Graduate Course offerings here:Department of English at Cornell University.

Then answer the question: is the "aesthetic" per se non-existent in these courses? Are all of them given from the same perspective? Is there a single ideological agenda here?

To me, it seems like a nice mix of courses ranging from the traditional philological to the postmodern. Everything from Anglo-Saxon poetry to Harryette Mullen.