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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Mark Bauerlein

The Critical Canon, 1985-2005

When I started graduate school in English back in the early-80s, certain essays of criticism written in the preceding 20 or so years were considered essential reading. I mean works that involved some degree of concrete analysis, not just theory and philosophy, and served as models for students hoping to enter the profession. Even if the essays covered works outside your field, you had to digest them. They charted the direction of interpretation, so to speak, and marked advances in critical thought. I’m sure every department in the country had its variations, but I bet that the following pieces were common to many of them:

E. D. Hirsch, “Objective Interpretation”

Paul de Man, “The Rhetoric of Temporality”

Stanley Fish, “Is There a Text in This Class?”

Shoshana Felman, “Turning the Screw of Interpretation”

Annette Kolodny, “Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of Feminist Literary Criticism”

Walter Benn Michaels and Steven Knapp, “Against Theory”

Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”

That runs up to 1984, and I wonder if commenters have thoughts about essays in criticism (not theory alone) written since then. What are the essays one has to study in order to count as a professional academic critic?

Posted at 02:35:17 PM on July 9, 2008 | All postings by Mark Bauerlein

Comments

  1. Hello Mark. I have quoted you in research on Washington and DuBois.

    I am from a “big on lit, weak on theory” master’s campus so books I have read on criticism were for specific texts or specific eras.

    I guess you’re the last guy standing, since one can’t be an African American lit scholar and not recognize your name.

    wish me luck upon pursuit of the PhD!

    — Drew · Jul 9, 03:53 PM · #

  2. As an outsider to “literary theory,” (a “hard” scientist, in fact a mathematician), I have made some attempt to try to understand the turn to “theory” and “philosophy” of literary studies in the last deces of the 20th century. Most bewildering was the use of the term “theory” to describe what the most prominent members of this school were up to. “Theory” has a rather narrow meaning in mathematics. It is used to denote a body of hard results in a particular specialty, for instance, Group Theory, Hilbert Space Theory, Lie Theory, Graph Theory, Gme Theory, Homotopy Theory, Morse Theory, and so forth. (It also has a rather more narrow technical meaning in terminology such as “Homology Theory, which I won’s try to explain here.) But in science, generally, “theory” refers to a body of reasonably certain knowledge tested by observation and experiment and answerable to subsequent empirical evidence.

    In lit-crit, however, it seems to designate mere speculation and pontification unsupported by anything except the fervor and superficial rhetorical skill of the practitioner. I have never heard of any scholarly work in the field that actually scrutinizes “theory” of this sort by appeal to evidence or even close examination of its internal logic or consistency. Nobody seems to ask what concrete evidence might bear on the validity of this stuff or to ask what tests of the theory might render it insupportable. Any challenge to a piece of literary theory seems to come from a counter-theory built, like its target, on mere assertion, backed up, perhaps, by an appeal to the presumed political sensibilities of the cloistered community of fellow lit-crits.

    As to whether any of this stuff is seriously engaged with “philosophy,” I can only observe that philosophers (meaning, to give a working definition, scholars who constitute the roster of philosophy departments) take a dim view of this notion. By their standards, John Searle and W.V.O. Quine are obviously philosphers (of great distinction); Jacques Derrida and Julia Kristeva certainly aren’t.

    The pretensions of lit-crit done in this vein to represent sophisticated theoretical thinking consequently strike me as essentially fraudulent, an imposition on the good will of universities and students alike, and an intellectual disaster that will take years to undo.

    — Fossil · Jul 9, 08:00 PM · #

  3. Good luck, Drew. And, Fossil, another epistemological confusion in literary studies has been the claim to produce new forms of “knowledge,” as if theories and interpretations amounted to such.

    — Mark Bauerlein · Jul 9, 08:16 PM · #

  4. Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies that Matter (1993), perhaps? They’re not essays, but they’ve certainly been required reading in all of the theory courses that I’ve had to take as I work toward my Ph.D. in English. I’d also nominate Gayatri Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988, reworked for 1998’s A Critique of Postcolonial Reason).

    — Anon. Grad Student · Jul 9, 08:39 PM · #

  5. Finding essays that are grounded in a text (rather than straight theory) that would be globally required might be tricky, in part due to the historical turn in a variety of fields.

    — Jason B. Jones · Jul 9, 08:45 PM · #

  6. Sorry, fossil, but your “observations” are far from new or novel. Thanks for adding nothing to the conversation.

    “Theory” in the literary sense is probably closer to a “hypothesis”[as defined in hard science circles], being based on interpretation and speculation. In that respect it’s more like philosophy than science (which, to my knowledge, it rarely claims to be).

    However, it is a conceit among many literary scholars that they have no “method” to their analyses, which of course leads the uninitiated to make claims like yours here:

    “ But in science, generally, ‘theory’ refers to a body of reasonably certain knowledge tested by observation and experiment and answerable to subsequent empirical evidence. […] In lit-crit, however, it seems to designate mere speculation and pontification unsupported by anything except the fervor and superficial rhetorical skill of the practitioner.”

    The method most often used for lit-crit is that of textual analysis [alternatively: rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis or poetic analysis, a collection of related yet different methods] using one text [or a group of related texts…or even disparate texts] as the empirical evidence to substantiate a claim [read: hypothesis].

    These methods lack the reliability offered by scientific methods [although many provide internal validity in their opening paragraphs despite never calling it that], but they do provide an empirical base for crafting an argument. The real power of these methods come in their use in a variety of situations. Thus, instead of using a data sample where all N are included in one study, a lit-crit article could potentially have N=1, with replicable methods used by that same scholar [or others] at later times to generate a larger N, thus providing a corpus of knowledge that either supports the overarching hypotheses [and establishing a “theory”], or ultimately tossed aside [often amidst accusations of being faddish] when evidence mounts to contradict it.

    — anon · Jul 9, 11:18 PM · #

  7. fossil 1, anon 0

    Play of the game: “However, it is a conceit among many literary scholars that they have no ‘method’ to their analyses, which of course leads the uninitiated to make claims like yours here…”

    Golly, think what would befall scientists who entertained the “conceit” that they had no method to their research.

    Hilarious highlight: “These methods lack the reliability offered by scientific methods [although many provide internal validity in their opening paragraphs despite never calling it that], but they do provide an empirical base for crafting an argument.”

    Oh, they do, do they? (And, of course, the “crafting” of an argument has no “method” to it.)

    — Just Passing Through · Jul 10, 05:18 AM · #

  8. anon writes:
    “The method most often used for lit-crit is that of textual analysis . . .”

    True, as is:
    “Textual analysis is rarely used as a method for lit-crit.”

    — Tnachtrab · Jul 10, 06:36 AM · #

  9. Fossil makes a transcending point, quite apart from the definitional snit over “theory” – namely, has latter-day criticism opened a new, capacious space for pretenders?

    — Abbott Katz · Jul 10, 07:37 AM · #

  10. Somehow this got labelled “textual criticism,” but that’s not what you’re writing about. Textual criticism is the establishment of what the text says, normally based on collation of manuscripts (for ancient texts; modern ones might use early printings or the author’s notes). Literary criticism is a different animal. Close reading or “explication de texte” is not textual criticism though it is certainly one kind of textual analysis.

    — AEM · Jul 10, 07:41 AM · #

  11. Whether Fossil is correct or not (I believe that he is), his view is that of an intelligent observer outside the theory bubble. If the long and the short of theory’s goals and methods were summarized for parents they would be nonplussed and tell their children to major in something else. On the other hand, if the goals and methods of postwar English studies were summarized for parents they would recognize those goals and methods as interesting, challenging, and worth pursuing. Using archival material, including holograph manuscripts, and foreign languages (ancient, medieval and modern) to understand and preserve (but also analyze and criticize) culture, makes sense. Tracing the history of ideas, the history of genres, evaluating the worth of periodization, etc. makes sense. And theory is ok, theory with regard to such issues as intentionality, contextualism, pure aestheticism and formalism, etc. That makes sense. But training young people to learn that men have oppressed women? That’s self-evident. Training young people to learn that empires have oppressed colonies? That’s self-evident. Training young people to learn that gender lines are fluid? That’s self-evident. Training young people to learn that language is ambiguous? That’s self-evident. Training young people to learn that America and the west are the principal oppressors of the world? That’s leftist politics. Training young people to focus on race, sex and class in all things? That’s overly-simple and leftist politics. I know, I know. This is a horrid exaggeration of what ‘theory’ sought to do, but it’s not a wildly implausible exaggeration and it’s not that distant from the take of an observer with no dog in the fight, looking in from the outside. If you can’t define and defend what you’re doing, to the satisfaction of the general public, you have a problem.

    — Parent · Jul 10, 08:02 AM · #

  12. 1. It is very rare that so-called High Theory is grounded in anything other than bald assertion (or cherry-picked texts), coupled with a cult of personality around the High Theorist. That cult of personality includes picking tendentious fights with the right people to establish academic street cred and wielding leftist politics as a cudgel to silence any critics.

    2. I believe that the academy, and students, have largely woken up to the bankrupt nature of High Theory and High Theorists.

    3. Developing and testing interpretative strategies and frameworks can be extremely useful and illuminating about what makes human beings human (and what differences that makes). However, High Theory and High Theorists have led to NOTHING useful other than a way to endlessly produce navel-gazing, echo-chamber, frankly masturbatory “critique.”

    4. Anon’s move above against Fossil is typical: when someone points out that Theory may not be so wonderful, the acolytes simply dismiss the critique as coming from an outsider who is naïve or old-school or whatever, or who has not read every word of [fill in the blank with name of favorite pontificator]. As if one had to read all of Butler or Bhaba to recognize serious argumentative problems…

    — Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living · Jul 10, 08:33 AM · #

  13. Clearly Parent has spent scant time in an undergraduate classroom, where I can tell you that none of the ideas which Parent terms “self-evident” are, in fact, anything close. Althusserian critical “theory,” so easily sniffed at here, has given us the important insight that primary and secondary education centers proceed from every bit as interested a position as your average “leftist” college department, resulting in an information- and perspective-poor population of American 18-year-olds. Would those who so easily dismiss the work of textual analysts as self-indulgent and lazy (that’s what I’m reading here) suggest that the investigation of those media (schools, literature…in a word, culture) which position the citizenry so often as docile, uninformed, and quiescent are unworthy of careful, rigorous, and yes, scientific (because empirical) investigation?

    — Robert Peaslee · Jul 10, 08:42 AM · #

  14. Fossil and Parent both seem to come from what some have characterized as a “western colonial” perspective. Whether looking from “mainstream science” (as though there is only one such thing — see Kuhn, Feyerabend, et al, to be disabused of this notion) or “the outside” (wherever that may be), the assumption is that there is one and only one way to skin theoretical cats, do serious empirical work, etc, as opposed to the multiplicity of views still evident in some academic circles (more so in the humanities, I think, than in the sciences, but I’m a scientist, so I may have this wrong). When we foreclose on our intellectual options in the academy (certainly one of the last, if not the last, bastion of semi-free thinking in our society), then we confront problems such as whose criteria to use, based on which arguments, kinds of authority, etc. Instead, we should promote the blooming of 1,000 flowers, of the widest variety possible, since we are not very good at predicting which ones will prove pragmatically useful. Each of the above critiques of humanists can just as easily be applied to scientists. Of course, that may be leftist, if not self-evident.

    — Rorty lives · Jul 10, 09:04 AM · #

  15. To paraphrase Bucky Fuller on Frank Lloyd Wright: “Would you want to ride in an airplane designed by Louis Althusser?”

    And the guy who said, “Let a thousand flowers bloom”—he sent how many people to mass graves?

    — Mr. Wiki · Jul 10, 09:44 AM · #

  16. I appreciate the attractiveness of the 1,000 blooming flowers analogy (one that Hillis Miller is also fond of), but there are some 60,000 books published each year in the U.S., approximately 800,000 worldwide. There are 15 weeks in a semester and someone must make a decision as to which books to require our students to read. Courses are part of curricula. Curricula determine areas of specialization. Areas of specialization determine graduate student admission policies and, then, hiring categories, journal foci and university press lists. In English we have indeed opted for the 1,000 flowers model (actually a 30-40 flowers model) but there have been unpleasant results. Graduate students have been forced to fabricate separate sets of interests and specialties for each job application. Departments have tried to cover multiple bases with shrinking budgets, paying special attention to new fads. The field has been balkanized with university presses befuddled by the fact that they cannot cover all of the potential fields of interest because there are not enough individuals in those fields to buy the books of their relatively small number of like-minded colleagues. Departments find themselves trying to cover too much with too few and student interest (in a world with far more options and far fewer requirements) is a crapshoot. A department which once covered a literary ‘period’ with 4-7 faculty now may cover it with 1 or 2. When these individuals go on leave there is a crisis. Adjunctification grows, etc. The point is that a set of unintended, unpleasant consequences can follow actions. In English studies, they have.

    — Observer · Jul 10, 09:46 AM · #

  17. Choices must be made within particular sets of circumstances, of course, preferably the most widely pro-social ones possible, something we have yet to practice consistently in our society. Which is one reason why we need to promote multiple viewpoints, so that we have bases for critique of those views that hold sway. This may produce problems of overabundance in English, but the lack of alternative perspectives in my field (psychology) has led to a narrowness and superficiality that is also not helpful.

    — Rorty lives · Jul 10, 10:34 AM · #

  18. To paraphrase George Orwell: “Only a member of the intelligentsia would believe this crap.”

    — Mark Koenig · Jul 10, 03:59 PM · #

  19. To clarify: I was referring to so-called High Theory in comment #18.

    — Mark Koenig · Jul 10, 04:05 PM · #

  20. Louis Althusser . . . hmmm, wasn’t he the mentally-ill Marxist who strangled his wife to death? Sounds like a great role model.

    — BeenThereDoneThat · Jul 10, 08:00 PM · #

  21. Mumm-Ra caught me…I am actually pro-theory…even though I never once took that exact position.

    What I did was try to explain the process in terms a “scientist” [who openly admitted to not being up-to-speed] might understand.

    Another aside: there is “theory” that exists outside the French white guys. Invoking them as an ignorant elide to denounce theory is a bit like pointing out the Emperer has no clothes on. Pretty much everyone [but you apparently] already knows. The agenda now is trying to select a proper outfit.

    But then that disallows outsiders from pounding on the lit-crits, and we all know the ignorant need their pound of flesh.

    Btw, I’m not even a lit-crit scholar…

    — anon · Jul 10, 09:46 PM · #

  22. Perhaps essays by Louis Montrose, Patricia Parker, and Stephen Greenblatt. Some of Montrose from 1983 and earlier, so going forward as you suggested, the collection edited by Parker and Quint in ’86.

    — NotBored · Jul 11, 07:47 AM · #

  23. Maybe I’m just irony-challenged, but isn’t the concept of a canon of [fill in the blank] sort of, ah, passe? Once upon a time I had quite a hefty shelf of books on books, but they turned out to be oh-so-sixties . . . and that comp lit minor hasn’t aged too well.

    The funny part is that, while I barely remember the critical works, the literature itself has stayed with me pretty well. The few critics that still seem to matter, after all these decades, stand out like little specks of bright light against the pitch-black sky.

    — dan · Jul 11, 08:06 AM · #

  24. Bravo, Dan. And often the critical works that endure are those written by writers, not academics. The critical comments of Horace, Sidney, Johnson, Coleridge (even quoted recently by Hillary Clinton), et al. will endure long beyond those of the academics.

    — Observer · Jul 11, 08:21 AM · #

  25. Here’s the deal:

    Liberal arts scholars’ work is usually once-removed, i.e., it’s about someone else who did something great. Scientists and artists, on the other hand, work directly with some kind of raw material—numbers, chemicals, rocks, cells, musical notation, paint on canvas, clay, words (as in poetry or fiction). If they’re really good at it, someday a liberal arts scholar will come along and write something about them.

    Bottom line: Most fairly sophisticated and discerning people will rather read a modern novel by just a decent writer or look at a painting by even a fair-to-middling painter than read Bauerlein’s interpretation of Jameson’s interpretation of Miller’s interpretation of Fiedler’s interpretation of Frye’s interpretation of Coleridge…or something like that.

    As the artist Alan Kaprow (who started “Happenings” in the early 1960s) once said to an art historian, “We dirty it up, you clean it up, we dirty it up again, you clean it up, we dirty it up, and so on.”

    — Just Passing Through · Jul 11, 09:15 AM · #

  26. Always the endless ad hominem attacks in these blogs. I’m no longer reading them after this.

    — PM · Jul 11, 11:49 AM · #

  27. Perhaps the canon notion is passe, Dan, so let me alter the question. What do teachers select for their syllabus when they teach courses with a training component? What do they consider the works graduate students must read if they are going to do well in interviews, write a timely dissertation, etc.?

    — Mark Bauerlein · Jul 11, 01:33 PM · #

  28. If I were to return to a classroom, which is to say if anyone were crazy enough to ask me to teach again after twenty years and change, I’d be seriously tempted to avoid any criticism less than fifty years old. Not that there hasn’t been a good deal of worthwhile stuff, along with the ephemera, just that I wouldn’t yet trust myself to distinguish wheat from chaff among newer material. It’s too hard.

    I remember being impressed as hell, on the strength of a rave from Arnold Gingrich, with a long story involving a reworking of a classical nonwestern story cycle. Then two years later I looked again, and it was like reading one’s own juvenalia, but worse, because that writer had previously written wonderful stories. This just wasn’t one of them. But I’d loved it. Moral: my judgment is very unreliable. Time is one fine sorter, but the problem there is the need to be patient.

    I’d certainly have an lit class read Mark Twain’s hilarious “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” and once they stopped laughing, we’d talk about how and in what ways Mark Twain is being truly unfair. Might at least give them a new perspective on Bill O’Reilly or whoever they watch.

    Swift. Johnson. Oh, and let us not forget the last words of Lope de Vega: “All right, then, I’ll say it: Dante makes me sick.”

    Mea culpa pro supra or whatever it should be. Amateurs should stay out of this sort of discussion, and it’s been too long for me ever to be anything else.

    — dan · Jul 11, 02:20 PM · #

  29. Largely retired, I once did a dissertation on lit “theory” and Pedagogy (the practicalities of Hirsch’s and Gadamer’s hermeneutics). I still retain affection and curiosity about the subject, but lament the increasing obtuseness of theory and the, however unintended, removal of primary text reading. (Yeah, yeah, I know: what’s primary? Yawn.)

    I would recommend that anyone seriously considering (I can’t guess why) a career in “English” read Wayne Booth’s THE VOCATION OF A TEACHER. Not a “critical” text, but students need to know about any worthy texts that address the meaning and experience of the vocation to which they feel called.

    Finally, as I’ve reiterated all too often, none of this high road theory has much teeth in the face of continually degrading hiring and steadily eroding of general working conditions in the humanities, especially for those dedicated to the ground floor courses (sufficiently uninfected by decons and others) meant to help students recognize the real possibilities of mastering different forms of language as both readers, writers, and, finally, as public citizens who might, one would hope, fund the humanistic disciplines according to their worth.

    — George T. Karnezis · Jul 26, 09:20 AM · #

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