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Saturday, March 13, 2010
Disciplinary Tension? Or, Holbo Meet Hillis
We need to make every effort to defend, in changed circumstances, the tradition that makes the humanities in the university the place especially charged with the combination of Bildung and Wissenschaft, ethical education and pure knowledge.
Curiosity about a pendant one Joshua Landy hung on a 2009 post by John Holbo led me, first to Landy’s comment (about Moretti on Sherlock Holmes) and then back to Holbo’s post. And that reminded me that I had intended to bounce a post off of Holbo’s. So here it is.
John is discussing a panel discussion he’d attended once upon a time not all that long ago. He remarks:
I was struck, in particular, by one panel discussion I attended at which it was more or less agreed by various participants that scholarship and pedagogy of literary history are, at present, mutually ill-suited. . . . On the one hand, you need a set of texts that will provide you with sufficient evidence to pronounce intelligently—justifiably—on such subjects as ‘the nineteenth century American novel’. On the other hand, you need a set of texts to fill out a 12-week syllabus for an undergraduate course of that title. There isn’t any one set of texts that can do both jobs.
Of course it isn’t so surprising that the most sophisticated scholarship goes beyond what can be crammed into an undergraduate semester. But there is more to the point, it seems to me. There seems to be a tendency for good undergraduate pedagogy to recapitulate bad (as opposed to merely incomplete or preliminary) historiography. The teacher finds him or herself proceeding as if ‘the nineteenth century novel’ (pick your suitably broad subject) is the sort of thing that is at all likely to show up through the lens of, say, eight novels to be read. Reading a small number of novels and writing a few interpretive essays can be a fine and enriching way to spend a few months. But it’s not the same kind of enriching activity as studying the novel historically, with scholarly rigor. In a sense no one really thinks otherwise. So tension between pedagogy and historiography is not just tension between for-students simplification and for-scholars sophistication. It is tension between certain notions of value and certain standards of validity.
Let me offer a brief interpretive gloss on this tension between value and validity, which may only have emerged into view recently but has been latent for a somewhat longer time.
Though I could be wrong in this, I don’t think it was felt at Johns Hopkins when I was there in the mid-late 60s and early 70s. Every once in awhile I’d overhear a remark about reading 3rd rate novels in graduate courses for sake of completeness or background, but undergraduate courses were happily populated with canonical texts. The texts that were taught were the best and the brightest, and that was all you needed to know. That is to say, the discipline’s dual commitment to Bildung and Wissenschaft led to the same body of texts.
And then things changed. All hell broke loose. What happened, I believe, is that the demands of Wissenschaft slipped the reins of Bildung. We ask undergraduates to read canonical texts because they are ethically important. We read and study all the rest, not for the sake of ethics, but because that are an important facet of the historical milieu in which the canonical texts arose. We cannot understand that milieu on the basis of the canonical texts alone.
Nor is the undergraduate curriculum the only domain in which this tension between Wissenschaft and Bildung is in play. It is also in play in our anxiety about the profession’s relationship to the educated public. Traditionally, what we have offered to the public is what we offered to the undergraduate, guidance through the canon. But if the traditional canon represents the interests of a privileged few, then it is no longer ethical to make the offer, at least not in the old way, is it?
What, then, do we do? Do we attempt somehow to resolve this tension between Wissenschaft and Bildung? Do we jettison one or the other? Do we split in two?
Comments
Exactly WHAT does reading works from the old canon contribute to the development of one’s character? I don’t see that exposure to “great works” is ipso facto good. Often, all it means is that we can recognize allusions and quotations when we hear them. If someone calls someone else a Mrs. Jellyby, we edumacated folks know what that means.
The “it’s good for you” defense of English lit is stolen wholesale from the classics, now down on their luck. Where once you were nekulturny if you hadn’t read Horace in the original Latin, now you are nekulturny if you haven’t read Dickens, or Austen, or Chaucer, or whatever your teachers regarded as canon.
IMHO, the justifications for reading the literature of the past are that 1) it’s fun, and 2) you learn something about the past by doing so.
For me, fun is not just the canon, it’s Charlotte Yonge and Mrs. Craik. Learning something about the past isn’t just the canon, it’s proofing badly-written, third-rate Victorian novels at Distributed Proofreaders. Or proofing Punch, or George Eliot’s letters.
If I want my moral character developed, I don’t read English lit. I read Simone Weil or Joko Beck. If I wanted to expose undergraduates to ethical thought, I’d have them read sacred texts (from all over the world, not just texts from the Western tradition) and moral philosophers.
I’m with Zora on the *content* of the Great Works. I mean, who in their right mind teaches *The Odyssey* as a model of ethical thought? Or *Hamlet*? Or *Wuthering Heights*? Or Alexander “Know Your Place in the Great Chain of Being and Stay the Fuck There” Pope?
Where I’d disagree is on the Martha Nussbaum territory: great literature is often literature that poses difficult ethical or existential questions and presents enduring models for the consequences of action and images and symbolic forms for continuing to think through those questions.
So even when we disagree with the content of a work, we can still use the symbolic terms they offer to pursue new ethical or existential positions. For example, as I teach *The Odyssey* to my high school sophomores, we examine the models of behavior held up for us: Odysseus as a man of cunning; Telemakhos as the dutiful son; Nausikaa as the ideal young woman; Penelope as the ideal wife; Alkinoos and Arete as the ideal leaders; etc. By posing those questions, Homer helps us to think them through with images today, often concluding that there *are* no images in today’s culture of the model son or daughter or the model leader. This week we concluded in a Socratic seminar that Homer stresses what we need to restrain or leave behind in order to restore social order, while contemporary culture stresses that we need to leave behind social order in order not to retrain ourselves or leave anything behind.
On Holbo’s concern about being able to generalize about “18th century fiction,” I’d simply say that before 1970, no one did such a thing. When those scholars talked about “18th century fiction,” they meant the few great works of 18th century fiction. It’s more a historicist dream to be able to generalize about everything produced by a culture in a given period.
This is more germane to the comment thread than to the post, but (given the coincidence of Miller and Landy) I can’t resist a self-link to my essay on the ethical turn in academic criticism. As I lamented to Scott and John, I had originally intended to cross-post to the Valve, but even after cutting two-thirds of my draft it was just much, much too long.
I just taught the Odyssey, as it turns out, and I was surprised how many folks thought the killing of the maids was justified.
As far as is humanly possible, Holbo’s type problem is solved by teaching a text like Terry Eagleton’s The English Novel: An Introduction, especially useful too for its opening chapter “What is a Novel?”. Teach such an Intro (if available), which is far more than an intro, teach some of the novels, and supplement with notes and additional readings as desired. That gives you:
“On the one hand...a set of texts that will provide you with sufficient evidence to pronounce intelligently—justifiably—on such subjects as ‘the nineteenth century American novel’ [and] on the other hand...a set of texts to fill out a 12-week syllabus for an undergraduate course of that title.” [Substitute “a couple centuries of the English novel” for “the nineteenth century American novel."]
If no one has written the intro that is more than an intro, then you have to provide it yourself via notes and supplementary readings.
That is what is humanly possible, and it is plenty. It is a tremendous amount. It is also a basic amount. It is plenty and appropriately thorough enough.
As for this:
“And then things changed. All hell broke loose. What happened, I believe, is that the demands of Wissenschaft slipped the reins of Bildung. We ask undergraduates to read canonical texts because they are ethically important. We read and study all the rest, not for the sake of ethics, but because that are an important facet of the historical milieu in which the canonical texts arose.”
That’s only part of the story. Educators teach lit and people read lit for all sorts of normative/aesthetic reasons beyond ethics. (Ethics is a part of the larger normative/aesthetic whole.) Further, on and around the time you refer to, not only did “theory"/Wissenschaft/science expand in exciting ways in lit realms, so to did normative/aesthetic achievement and production in lit explode excitingly, largely due to the multicultural expansion, riding a progressive opening of culture and society, a function of the series of civil rights/human rights movements, ongoing.
A larger issue “in play” than “the profession’s relationship to the educated public” is literature’s relationship to the public, because the profession in a sense must answer to that. That is, What is literature for in a democracy? And how can professional teachers and researchers best facilitate what it is for?
Both of the developments referred to above (the normative and the theoretical) seem beneficial to me, and should be pushed and advanced to the extent possible, toward further breakthroughs.
That said, it seems to me that the humanities have inherently far more to contribute in their informational/analytic and normative/aesthetic capacities than in any especially theoretical capacity. I think much of the same regarding the social sciences even. Sure there are hard science or theoretical elements to literature and the humanities worth exploration, but given the enormous value of the normative/aesthetic and the informational/analytic elements of literature, of the humanities, it seems to me self evident where priorities and resources should be placed, and naturally so. Art is not science, despite overlaps. For the study and teaching of art (and non-art lit), what is of orders of magnitude greater benefit to the public? First, the production of the primary texts. Second, the dissemination and the “introduction” and understanding of valuable works (through time). Third, the science behind it all. And I think that third is a distant third, because the humanities are not spawn of the sciences, are not valuable in the same way, and cannot be converted to a hard science, except perhaps minimally, as far as anyone knows.
Creative writing has boomed in recent decades and continues to grow either within traditional lit departments or as a department unto itself, because there is both a demand for it, and I think also a very great and widespread need for it. Can the same be said of “theory” and on the same scale? At least not on the same scale. So it’s space and place is going to be smaller. In any event, it seems like there is and should be some room for “theory” in any number of traditional departments like English, Literature, Psychology, Linguistics, American Studies, Philosophy. Largely a matter of trial and error, no?
But maybe the underlying question you are driving at you broach more directly in you subsequent post here, “A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?” a question that in my view circles back to “What is literature for in a democracy? And how can professional teachers and researchers best facilitate what it is for?” Literature itself and the study of literature are inseparably linked. A study like Eagleton’s The English Novel, needs no defense; it is its own defense, just as are other books of evident significant utility in the humanities. Baldwin’s notion of “role in society” is key. That the term “academic” has come to mean no role in society or minimal role or useless role is telling about where the study of literature, and other disciplines, have too much gone, and where instead it needs to go. In this regard, lots of crucial normative/aesthetic possibilities for intellectual study and intellectual action go wanting, which is institutionally irresponsible. To the point where it’s a joke, one that Bolano certainly rides. To the point where it’s an object of public contempt, reasonably so. And that’s leaving aside the wingnuts, the neonazis and planet Neptuners in the US and elsewhere who think the academy is too publicly engaged, and is so in nefarious leftwing ways. That insanity needs to be dealt with, but meanwhile, the real problems and neglect loom large. This is inseparable from the production and appreciation of primary literature, and is very much part of the broader cultural, political, intellectual bankruptcies of the society, and needs to be met as such.
A crucial book by a crucial academic filled with “passion and conviction” on the value of the “academic study of literature” and much else is Edward Said’s Representations of the Intellectual.
Further, on and around the time you refer to, not only did “theory"/Wissenschaft/science expand in exciting ways in lit realms, so to did normative/aesthetic achievement and production in lit explode excitingly, largely due to the multicultural expansion, riding a progressive opening of culture and society, a function of the series of civil rights/human rights movements, ongoing.
I think that’s more or less correct.
Art is not science, despite overlaps.
Well, sure.
For the study and teaching of art (and non-art lit), what is of orders of magnitude greater benefit to the public? First, the production of the primary texts. Second, the dissemination and the “introduction” and understanding of valuable works (through time). Third, the science behind it all. And I think that third is a distant third, because the humanities are not spawn of the sciences, are not valuable in the same way, and cannot be converted to a hard science, except perhaps minimally, as far as anyone knows.
Your third proposition is utterly traditional and, in the current world of intellectual possibilities, wrong. You are assuming that the only reason to study literature and literary culture is to serve literature, to advance whatever project literature itself engenders, but in a different mode. You are, in effect, assuming that literary Wissenschaft is necessarily subservient to and subsumed by literary Bildung. You don’t recognize the possibility separating the two and of standing outside literary culture and attempting to examine it in the same way biologists examine the biological world. There’s a lot of good work to be done from such a stance (for that matter, much work has already been done from that stance, which is hardly new literary study), and arguably where the most interesting current possibilities exist. The notion that the study of literature is necessarily subservient to literature strikes me as anti-intellectual.
No, Bill, I neither state nor assume any of that, any of this:
“You are assuming that the only reason to study literature and literary culture is to serve literature”
Not at all. I state that in a university setting the study of literature must primarily be carried out in regard to the public, not to literature. Also, note that I state that this should include the “theoretical” study of literature.
“to advance whatever project literature itself engenders, but in a different mode.”
Again, no. Oftentimes, study of literature must attempt to check, by way of careful study and critique, the negative effects that literature “engenders” - in any mode it wishes.
“You are, in effect, assuming that literary Wissenschaft is necessarily subservient to and subsumed by literary Bildung.”
No, I state that the vast bulk of knowledge of literature that is derived from study of it and interaction with it does not rise to the level of science but is of a more garden variety analysis, and that, do what you will in higher labs, this is what is going to remain of greatest utility in the classrooms. Yes, of course, the cognitive or biological study of mirror neurons in the human mind and their applicability to the capacity of the creation of fiction and the effects of reading fiction can generate or further knowledge about literature and humans that is useful to the public. Great, carry on! Seems more like such study belongs to the study of biology, but, as I said in my comment, I’m willing to make room for it in the humanities. Who cares where such valuable work is undertaken? My point remains that just as a flood of novels should not - and will not - preponderate in biology courses and study, so should a flood of scientific research not preponderate in the great bulk of literature courses and study. Nor will it.
“You don’t recognize the possibility separating the two and of standing outside literary culture and attempting to examine it in the same way biologists examine the biological world.”
No, I do, and I said I do in affirming a role for science in the study of lit (and in every other field of study as well). In fact, I should have left in my previous comment that I thought the type of work you speak to should be more likely carried out in the field of psychology and in its master field of biology, but I did not want to give the impression that I wished to utterly push scientists out of literature departments. I don’t care where they do their work. It’s good to have scientists in lit departments, and why not novelists and lit scholars in biology departments. It’s odd but seems to me beneficial, healthy. Necessary? Maybe, maybe not. It does give one pause when one considers how many novelists and lit scholars there are in biology departments. Still, let the lit departments be ahead of the curve, break new grounds by being more inclusive. It’s not as if they are going to be swamped, or should be swamped by any great shift to the scientific. Nor biology departments by novelists and lit scholars.
“There’s a lot of good work to be done from such a stance (for that matter, much work has already been done from that stance, which is hardly new literary study),”
Yes, of course, as I said.
“and arguably where the most interesting current possibilities exist.”
Arguably, but not at issue, because literature offers orders of magnitude more of public benefit and use along normative/aesthetic/ideological/informational lines than what a biologist might ever make of it. A biologist might learn something of unparalleled depth in the scientific study of literature (thus so exciting) but despite its unparalleled depth it’s going to be of relatively narrow scope compared to what people face in any given day, in living the full human condition, given the magnitude of what the production and study of literature can offer in that regard. Of course, that’s an arguable point, but the time to actually take up such argument would be when the novelists and lit scholars start swamping out the scientists in the biology department, and not before.
Still, if the lit scholars can live with the creative writers, they can live with the scientists. Nevertheless, the scholars and creative writers are going to continue to be the bulk of the field because of how much more teachers and researchers and writers can offer the public via literature as an art and artifact and experience as compared to what they can offer the public via literature as an arena of scientific inquiry.
“The notion that the study of literature is necessarily subservient to literature strikes me as anti-intellectual.”
Yes, me too, which is why I never remotely said such a thing and never would.
You know, Tony, it’s pretty clear to me that we disagree. But it’s not so clear to me just where and how. Some of the disagreement is probably substantial, but some of it is mere semantics. Teasing the two apart is something I find to be enormously difficult, more than I want to attempt at the moment.
That’s fine, and that’s fair. That said, I don’t see any confusion. Our views seem to me rather clear, both where we agree and where we differ. I don’t know what could be said at this point that would not be mere restatement. But maybe something will occur. Actually, something does occur. I can’t tell, but it may be that you are privileging scientific research into literature over analysis of literature, such as, say, The Philosophy of Literary Form by Kenneth Burke. Whether or not you do, I don’t.
Scientific research into literature, discursive or philosophic analysis of literature, and literature as art...I don’t think any of these modes of inquiry and expression are subservient to one or another. They all demand an equivalent degree of intellectual and creative effort at their best. They all demand a rigorous development of their own ideas and experience. And they are all of great consequence and use. I don’t think my long essay of research and analysis “Fiction Gutted” is superior to or subservient to my novels, or to any scientific work I might undertake.
That said it makes sense to me to leave the scientific work to the sciences and to leave the humanistic work (the analysis and art) to the humanities, these different types of knowledge and experience, of equivalent value. One should not override the other. So if biological science of literature is going to be housed in literature departments, then novelists and lit scholars should be housed in biology departments. This might well be a beneficial thing to do. But the road has to run both ways. Scientific work has no greater value than humanistic work, so to the degree that humanistic space is given up to the sciences, the sciences must give up space to the humanities. The work of each is too valuable. How many times can I say it? To push for biological scientists to reside in literature departments is to push for particular types of novelists and lit scholars to reside in biology departments. Which sounds intriguing, as long as the road goes both ways.
So, I hear you saying that scientific work should replace some amount of humanistic work in literature departments. In my view, that would be entirely inappropriate, as I’ve explained. I never hear any indication that the replaced humanistic work should be carried out somewhere in and among the laboratories of the biological sciences.
Tony, you haven’t got the foggiest idea of what I’m up to. Biological science of literature? Not at all not at all not at all. I don’t do that & I haven’t proposed such a thing.
"You don’t recognize the possibility separating the two and of standing outside literary culture and attempting to examine it in the same way biologists examine the biological world.”
That was the example of science that you used. What you do? The issue is not what you do. The issue is science, the use of “hard science” in lit realms, in whatever vein. Are you saying I don’t have the foggiest idea of what science is? Or that I misrepresented your thoughts on how “to somehow resolve this tension between Wissenschaft and Bildung?”
At this point, these questions are probably best if left as rhetorical, because the fruitfulness of this discussion appears to have ended.
Um, er, to say that that sentence is arguing for a biology of literature is a rather willful misreading. It’s just saying that we need to stand outside literary culture and examine it from the outside.
"stand outside literary culture and examine it from the outside” “in the same way biologists examine the biological world”
Let’s see now, how do “biologists examine the biological world”?
A) Artistically?
B) Analytically?
Or, wait for it, C) Scientifically!
Both B and C are the most correct, though the fundamental work of biologists is C) science.
But of course there is no problem with “standing outside literary culture and examining it from the outside” in whatever way one wants too, whether as a biologist studying biology or as a musicologist studying music or as a plumber studying plumbing. As you mention, it has been going on for quite awhile, but it’s not going to solve the problems you raise in the original post here, nor any fundamental disciplinary tension, nor main problems in both literature departments and, as far as anyone knows, in literature itself. That’s my view and I’ve explained why. And I haven’t seen an argument that is convincing otherwise. So, to the extent that our views differ, so it is. People ought to differ in their views of course.
I find it peculiar that you choose to contrast analysis to both art and science. Both artists and scientists engage in analytic activity while doing their work; it’s not a category of activity separate from either.
As for solving the problems I raised in the post, I’ve not proposed a solution. Nor do I have one to offer. I do think it’s an issue that needs to be explicitly faced.
Yes, it’s an open ended post.
I love analysis in art, and of course science is chock full of it. Art and science are intermixed as well. Still one can to significant degrees separate the three modes in various intellectual endeavors, particularly in emphasis.