The Valve

Rich Puchalsky on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

The distinction between critical statements and trolling sort of depends on approximate length and justification of statement vs. sweeping nature of claims. In this case the characterization “the trend recently is toward” seems to ignore a whole lot of posts on Great Books. And sci-fi as a whole may not be literature, but some individual work of sci-fi are literature, just as some individual work of poetry are literature. For that matter, some comic books may be literature. Rejecting a sociological view of works does not mean that the low-culture genres have to be rejected wholesale.

Luther Blissett on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

Rich, it’s odd that any critical statement on a blog can get labeled “trolling,” but hey, that’s part of the fun of blogs. In any case, of course The Valve is interested at some level in literature. But the trend recently is toward animated films, television shows, films in general, and comic books. And the unspoken assumption is that these media are far more relevant than Great Books—which is, in my mind, an unspoken claim that the humanities as traditionally understood are no longer relevant. And no, sci-fi as a whole is not literature, any more than historical fiction or poetry or drama is literature. This is not about popularity but about depth of ideas, depth of emotions, intensity and seriousness of purpose, and rigorous perfection of craft. The humanities’ study of culture should be different than the social science study of culture precisely according to those sorts of standards. So to defend the humanities passionately would seem to necessitate a passionate stand in the name of the greatness and beauty of a very limited set of cultural achievements. Otherwise, why not passionately let the humanities die and take up arms in the name of the sociology of written works, movies, comics, etc.?

Andrew Seal on: Sister Carrie and Television

Huh, I think The Valve sucked down my comment. I haven’t read the Rechy, but for Delillo and Coover, I guess I don’t see television functioning as a plot hinge/epiphany in the same way as theatrical performances do in Sister Carrie or Revolutionary Road. But maybe I’m just missing your point--would you mind elaborating a little?

Rich Puchalsky on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

Luther is a long-time Valve commenter and has earned the right to troll. But that doesn’t mean that each individual trolling comment should be taken seriously. What were we doing when we read Adam Bede? Watching it on YouTube? Or when we read Villette, were we discussing which actors were suited to their roles? When we discuss SF—wait a minute. That’s not literature, right?

Rohan Amanda Maitzen on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

The Valve is far more interested in... The Valve is many things and many people with many interests, yours and mine included. It does seem to be the case that there is more shared knowledge / experience / potential for discussion around films and TV shows than around literature--perhaps because (as others have pointed out to me) it’s just less likely that any two people are currently reading the same book at any given time than that some number of people have seen the same newly released film or are watching the same season of an ongoing show. So more “literary” posts can (feel as if they) fall a bit flat. But there have been quite a few of them lately, I thought, including Adam’s on Bolano, mine on Vikram Seth,etc. For impassioned defenses of the humanities, there’s this. Not on YouTube, mind you. But you can find all kinds of humanistic treasures on YouTube including poetry readings, film clips, and so on...much of the actual content there seems to me a kind of implicit defense of or acknowledgment of the value people place on the arts and humanities.

Jessica Lewis-Turner on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

I’ve seen impassioned defenses of the humanities, but they’re usually in a textual medium, or in the classroom. Even more often, they’re discipline-specific. (Marjorie Garber’s Manifesto for Literary Studies springs to mind.) I do have to admit that I would love to see a professor in the humanities passionately defending the broad span of humanities scholarship on youtube, but something tells me that it wouldn’t get as many hits as the actor who plays Jack Donaghy.

ajay on: The Hurt Locker’s Addiction to Detachment, and Ours

I’m still not convinced that ‘the reality of the war in Iraq’ is actually the best criterion against which to judge this movie But there’s still some value to verisimilitude, surely? And also, if “the film is interested in the extent to which war does not involve slotting yourself neatly into a ‘band of brothers’; the extent to which it is isolating, alienating, solitary—existentially” - and if this isolation really exists in war - then it should be possible to depict it in a realistic war film! If the only way for you to depict the isolation of war is to make a film full of things that don’t really happen in real wars, then maybe you should revisit your assumption that war is isolating.

Luther Blissett on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

Oy, talk about apples and oranges. It’s like saying, “This cancer doctor can justify his work. Why can’t scholars of Victorian woodcraft?” Actors have *always* been more popular than critics—more popular, probably, than writers, too. So it’s quite easy to defend one’s craft qua craft when it’s assumed that billions of people in the world appreciate one’s craft and are willing to spend craploads of money to see it in action. And then, of course, The Valve is far more interested in actors, films, and TV shows than in, say, literature. If I were someone who strongly believes in the study of the humanities, I’d be coy around here too. OK, maybe not me, but others perhaps.

Tony Christini on: Disciplinary Tension? Or, Holbo Meet Hillis

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.

Bill Benzon on: Disciplinary Tension? Or, Holbo Meet Hillis

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.

StevenAugustine on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

Unfortunately, he wasn’t being sincere… he was just acting.

Athena Andreadis on: Bad Books

Berubé hit the nail squarely on the head. Pithy, witty and deadly accurate—for all of Lawrence’s “romantic” interactions and depictions of women.

Rohan Amanda Maitzen on: "what-have-you intriguing subject"

@Bill: Ha. Maybe the thing to do is start a thread and get some suggestions for new blogs to include and other recommended updates. We’d need an editor to actually do them, but it might be a good conversation to have.

Tony Christini on: Disciplinary Tension? Or, Holbo Meet Hillis

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.

Bill Benzon on: "what-have-you intriguing subject"

i>...anyone with editorial privileges... Deus otiosus or deus absconditus?

Rohan Amanda Maitzen on: "what-have-you intriguing subject"

As a side note, thanks for alerting me to the Arcade site and blogs--which seem like good candidates for the blogroll here at The Valve. Actually, the blogroll could use a whole lot of updating...anyone with editorial privileges listening?

Ray Davis on: Graphs, Maps, Trees and Breeding

Yes, I raised that objection in earlier comments, and Christopher Prendergast raised it more formally in New Left Review. Unfortunately, Prendergast ill-advisedly used the word “gentleman” rather than “signature character,” to which Moretti responded that Holmes and other serial detectives are not literally “gentlemen.” Of course the stereotypical hero of a classic puzzle mystery is a gentleman, in order to justify the detachment with which they sashay into and out of social traumas; Holmes (and some earlier and later heroes) instead achieve this dreamlike (reader-like) state through a sort of consumed-by-the-Muse pathology. In contrast, writers and readers who insist that detectives must suffer some level of emotional or moral scuffing from their experiences are notoriously less interested in clues that “play fair.” But since no commercially successful clue-driven series has existed without a more-or-less impervious identification figure, leaving that out of the research is like mapping the incidence of dysentery without considering water supplies.

Sisyphus on: Sister Carrie and Television

What about the scene with the television at the end of Delillo’s _White Noise_? What about Robert Coover’s marvelous and disturbing short story “The Babysitter”? What about John Rechy’s _The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez,_ which, if you haven’t read, you should go out and read immediately?

Jonathan Goodwin on: Disciplinary Tension? Or, Holbo Meet Hillis

I just taught the Odyssey, as it turns out, and I was surprised how many folks thought the killing of the maids was justified.

Jonathan Goodwin on: A Defense of Literary Studies Anyone?

I just want to note that I have considered “coffee is for closure!” and found it wanting.