Academic blogging and literary studies

Ignore themoabird, John. Your remarks are right on the money. Blogging really is a big deal when it comes to substantive intellectual exchange. I strongly suspect that as blogging (or whatever eventually replaces it) becomes more common, what happens at conferences will only improve–because it’ll be more and more likely that participants will have seen the papers presented in more than one form, will have had time to think and rethink their disagreements, and authors will have already been exposed to thought and critique. While I’m sure there are probably some downsides to blogging in terms of its effects on academia, I can’t think of any way in which blogging about my papers prior to giving them at APSA won’t improve things over all.

Sorry I’m not a lit-crit guy, so I can’t help you out there. But thanks for all the recommendations and links; I’ll have fun checking them out.

And, also, your remark about the relative sophistication of non-academic blogs versus the professional journals of the field would be comically ignorant if you actually meant it, which of course you do not.

Contrary to Holbo, I’m coming to believe that blogs are a cancer upon the internet and public discourse in general. Most should be shut down immediately. I’d even favor punitive taxation to make this happen.

I clicked on themoabird’s sig in hopes that it would take me to the really first rate stuff found lacking at CT. Alas, I got an e-mail address rather than the wisdom site I was in search of. I didn’t bother.

“I clicked on themoabird’s sig in hopes that it would take me to the really first rate stuff found lacking at CT.”

A perfect example of the mediocrity of this place. Why on earth would you think that I was capable of anything more than mediocrity? I’m not – in fact, I don’t even reach mediocrity – but at least I know it.

Harry —

Why do you think that I put “notwithstanding that that might not make sense” in the brackets, if it wasn’t to make that precise point?

The trouble is, though, this place oozes a kind of smugness which suggests that really for most of the time people don’t get it.

And, actually, I think that’s also the case with academia. Sure, if you push people, they’ll own up to mediocrity, but then the next minute off they’ll go to a publisher begging them to publish a monograph that really nobody wants to read (except maybe their pet).

Isn’t the statement “Most work in (field X, academic or otherwise) is mediocre” actually true by definition? Substantively if not technically.

I agree that the quality here and elsewhere can be better than seminars and conferences. I suspect part of the reason might be taht everyone who participates wants to–seminars and conferences are often things people participate in becuase they have to or should for their career, but don’t directly interest them. Here, we get no credit but we do it anyway.

Holbo, Chun, anyone else:

Can you give a relatively simple, precise and concise (I’m looking at you, Holbo :)) elaboration of the technical differences between bookchat and serious literary criticism? It would help me, and no doubt others, follow this conversation. And of course you may mean different things by them, which might be part of the problem.

Themoabird strikes me as a man with issues. But who doesn’t?

John, I second djw’s request for a definition of “bookchat” vs. “literary criticism.” Your association of the latter with “critical philosophy” is intriguing. Actually, I’m fairly certain I know exactly what you mean, in an I-know-it-when-I-see-it sort of way, but I’d like to hear your more nuanced definitions nonetheless.

I admire high-handed opinions–the more extravagant and presumptuous, the better. Thus, I found Holbo’s assessment of the quality of current literary scholarship above quite enjoyable. I’m not bothered in particular, as I imagine some might be, by Professor Holbo, on the evidence of a previous blogpost and of his undoubtably representative reading, stating that half of the journal articles published (which range, I should remind you, over thousands of years and hundreds of national literary traditions) were non-starters but for the low standards of the field. I’m no more bothered by this than I would be by a literary academic blogger making similar pronouncements about the state of academic philosophy, which I may in fact do myself–with greater warrant–if the notion strikes me. No readers, this troubles me not at all.

What does trouble me is the repressive tolerance of bookchat Holbo endorses. I, Vidal, and all freedom-loving peoples use the term contemptuously. Like the masturbation it is, I often find reading 4500 empty words about the eternal verities of Henry Green pleasurable. A forty-five word blog-post pointing me to it is even appreciated. The idea, however, that it’s a catalyst for textual and historical scholarship on this novelist is astonishing. Rather, inane, evaluative bookchat is parasitic on scholarship–generally low-level, biographical scholarship–but scholarship all the same. It does not advance knowledge; it uses an appeal to taste and kulchur to sell a certain class of audience to advertisers.

Like all good educators, I’m an obscurantist. The circulatory function of bookchat that Holbo mentions is very real and dangerous. The blog can exercise chat. If there is a problem with literary studies, it’s that it isn’t sufficently phlegmatic. Consider Pinker’s parable about the elephant’s trunk, for example.

On the circulation problem as a problem, you get no argument from me, at least in theory. In my current dissertation research I’m discovering all sorts of ways in which circulation difficulties in my (entirely different and largely unrelated) field lead to serious wheel reinvention problems.

On chat: I think I get what you’re saying, but I still wonder if you’re not thinking about chat in a couple of different ways.

WARNING: what follows is quite long, self indulgent, and quite possibly evidence that I’m not getting the point.

You say:

Chat: saying what you like, what you are enthusiastic about, trying to be smart about it, trying to interest others, but not really worrying about the Big Picture right this second.

This raises several different ways you might be asserting that chat differs from literary criticism/serious scholarship/whatever the other of chat is properly termed. I’m not sure which it is. Here are three interpretations that suggest themselves.

1) Chat is about, as you say, what you like and why. Whereas scholarship could simply be about something, with no particular interest in whether it’s good or praiseworthly or not. An argument about the deployment of a literary device, an argument about thematic connections between two authors or texts, etc. might be agnostic regarding likes and dislikes. Ergo not chat. Chat’s other (let’s call her not chat, or NC, for the purposes of the rest of this post) is officially agnostic re: likes and dislikes.

2) Chat is less rigorous than NC. It doesn’t purport to be systematic, it’s cautiously adventurous and eclectic in method, and doesn’t justify its methodology, etc. Whereas NC is more careful, cautious, systematic and perhaps boring, but more conclusory.

3) Chat is narrower than NC. Whereas NC purports to tell us something important about the big picture (possibly a contribution to ‘critical philosophy,’ possibly the trajectory of the history of the novel, or some other big important thing), chat simply purports to tell us why we ought to give Little Dorrit a closer look, take P.G. Wodehouse seriously, or whatever.

Now, I’ve read about 1/100 as much contemporary literary scholarship as you have, quite possibly less, so I’m not qualified to speculate as to whether there is a problem, what the possibly non-existent problem is, and what ought to be done about it. So what follows is a response to the application of each of the three possible conceptions of chat distilled above, applied to academic work in the humanities and social sciences more broadly, primarily if fields I’ve encountered, coz, well, that’s what I can talk about.

On 1) I think being clear about what you ‘like’ is a fine suggestion for academics in the social sciences. Preferences often lurk pretty close to the surfaces, implausibly hidden behind a wall of scholarly dispassion, erected for reasons of scholarly convention and fooling exactly none of the readers. Work on women’s studies, multiculturalism, and markets (from both sides, depending on the field and fits this bill). A recognition that the goal of objectivity is really a goal of fairness and openmindedness, and needn’t require a literal commitment to an impossible objectivity is an appropriate place for scholarship in lots of fields to go. But I don’t see this as particularly relavent to the circulation problem.

On 2) I’m fairly convinced good scholarship is going to run the gamut. Methodological rigor is important and good and necessary for the advancement of scholarship, including literary scholarship. On the other hand, some quite worthwhile ideas simply don’t fit in this form, at least not in their initial stages, but the scholarly community would still benefit from getting those ideas out there before they’re worked into a more rigorous and methodologically clear form. And trying to cram them into the trappings of rigor and consistent methodology before they belong there becuase of the conventions of scholarly publishing is unfortunate, and perhaps obscurantist. So you may have a point here, if this is what you mean by chat.

On 3), almost all work in just about any field is actually quite narrow in scope. Couching it in the big picture narrative about Theory, the good life, the history of the novel and whatnot is a standard hand-waving gesture (look at me! I’m important! Hire and promote me! Pay attention!) And when done in the way that goes beyond credibility and reason, it can quickly become a turn-off. I’d say it potentially remains valuable, though, for authors to at least speculate about the larger significance of their work is–it’s a great invitation to continue the conversation. It should be done modestly and not entirely permeate the work, but asking our academic writers to be modest in this regard is likely a non-starter, for professional and temperamental reasons.

I haven’t considered the accessibility issue as a possible distinction between chat and NC. If that’s what you mean, I just don’t buy it. chat, under all three above definitions, can be profoundly inaccessible, and NC can be entirely accessible. Not always, of course; all fields will have some segments of the literature that just won’t be accessible to those who aren’t familiar with a bit of the language. But in general, I don’t see much to say here, except that we should be as accessible as possible without unduly sacrificing nuance.

BUT, the accessibility understanding of chat vs. NC might go the furthest to explain the circulation problems. It’s a bit more tangential under chat 1, 2, and 3.

Has anyone mentioned Sturgeon’s Law yet?

I thank John for the link, and aplogize for Pseudopodium’s current sluggishness, brought on by day-job crunch and my finishing an online edition of T. H. Mallock’s The New Republic (wherein a proto-Young-Republican rips the veil off fashionable PC nonsense in 1876 Oxford).

For whatever it’s worth, I would describe what I do as “criticism” and “reprinting” rather than “scholarship”. I rarely delve into closed archives, decipher manuscripts, or interview primary sources, and when I do it tends to be in the service of a critical piece.

But then I wouldn’t describe everything that goes on in English and Comp Lit departments as “scholarship” either. I somehow remain stuck in the old-fashioned notion that one’s relationship to the art of one’s own culture is better viewed as a personal matter than as an academic one.

Not that I want to wipe out English and Comp Lit departments. It’s nice for non-commercial writers who can’t program computers to have some other hope of making a living, and, for good or for ill, we’ve become culturally dependent on university libraries and presses. I merely and humbly want to wipe out the notion that access to cultural material “for scholarly reasons” is somehow more legitimate and important than access “for pleasure” or access “for knowledge.”

Otherwise, and speaking as an academic outsider, John’s suggestions seem enticing and sound. I think it’s been proven already that online self-publishing can lead to a more engaged community, easier access (whether for scholarship, pleasure, or knowledge), and less insular backbiting. Given the costs of traditional journal publishing and the frustrating limitations of tradtional peer review, I also (like John) anticipate greater integration of gen-u-ine 100% scholarship with online self-publishing–not a replacement but a natural synthesis. It’s easy enough to imagine “Behavioral & Brain Studies” responses implemented as a trackback list, for example.

“My point is that you can keep the standards just as high as they are now, or actually raise them, while producing something much more accessible and engaging.”

Hmm. I must admit that I’ve often lamented the lack of excellent literature/arts weblogs. My conclusion has been that is that the problem originates with the subjectivity of the field. It’s perfectly possible for two advocates of differing works to disgree, not just on their respective merits but on the grounds for advancing those merits. One person’s merit can quite easily be another’s flaw, and such discussions typically tend to degenerate into one person shouting black while the other shouts white. While I’m sure this occurs in other humanities subjects I nonetheless suspect it is especially acute for arts subjects; and, frankly, is usually extremely tedious to read. This lack of a common ground is absolutely ideal for the kind of the balkanisation of literary studies that you seem concerned with.

With that in mind, I’m not especially convinced that literary studies influenced criticism is as much a cause (assuming I have interpreted John’s comments correctly) of these problems as a symptom. (Which isn’t to say that I don’t have considerable reservations about theory.) From my perspective at least, the criticism that preceded the current theory vogue, though probably more accessible, was frankly even less engaging…

I should also mention a point that Lawrence L. White likes to make: Not all scholarship easily expands into a published paper any more than all critical thoughts easily fit into a publishable review. The weblog and related forms are particularly well-suited for publication of such scholarship and criticism–not quite “chat,” but easily coexistant with it.

I’m a literature professor, and I’ve been doing a blog for about a month.

I think Holbo is absolutely right, both about the possibly productive nature of literary blogging, and about the currently moribund status of journals of literary criticism.

I’m currently on sabbatical from my university, trying to write a book. One thing I’ve experienced this spring since starting my blog is that the sense of complete discursive isolation is less — I can talk about my ideas in bits and pieces, in progress. I can start discussions on things that might be tangential to my main research (still relevant), but which other people might be interested in nonetheless. I can communicate with non-academics, including friends and family all over the world, and give them a sense of what exactly it is I do everyday.

I enjoy it, and I think it has been beneficial to my scholarly progress. If more people did it, it might potentially be beneficial to all of us.

I should point out that Michael Berube first made the Paglia comparison, but I agree that, when the most-read blog in the field aspires to her condition, then things are very bad indeed.

“If Camille Paglia, taken pairwise or singly, is the type specimen of the literary academic, the whole discipline is doomed and I won’t shed a tear at its obliteration.”

Difficult to answer without knowing precisely the nature of your objection to Paglia, but to the best of my knowledge, she is far from representative. Most academics in the humanities that I know have always spoken of Paglia with visceral loathing, while she has always gloried in her status as self-appointed pariah.

“by this definition Leavis and Brooks and Frye and Burke and Fish and most other great literary scholars were also engaged in book chat.”

Bleh. That was exactly what I was complaining about above; how anyone can feel nostalgia for that dreary, boring old nonsense I’ll never understand. As for Frye, he makes Lacan and Kristeva look sane.

I agree — this morning I felt compelled to do a short defense of Northrop Frye on my blog. Not that he really needs it.

As a non academic, non–literary studies guy, I wonder if I could attempt to translate the above conversation into something resembling English:
1) One form of discourse is light, but pleasant. Think of cocktail party conversations.
2) A second form of discourse is more rigorous, but still pleasant. Think of book reviews, or critism in the form of articles in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Review of Books, etc.
3) A third form is theoretical, extremely rigorous, and extremely difficult: academic literary studies.

The current problem in the field is that while respected work has to be of form 3), above, nobody wants to read it-you all went into the field to engage in 1) and 2). Thus, you are all professionally obligated to engage in 3) in spite of the fact that it (with a few brilliant exceptions) bores you.

Perhaps blogs will fill in the gap, and open the field up to more 1) and 2), and due to more enthusiastic discourse, coincidently improve the quality of 3).

If the above characterization is correct, then I can suggest one problem: very few of you can write very well-by that, I mean, very clearly. Lots of name dropping, lots of weird allusions, lots of strange indirect argumentation which makes it difficult to follow your argument. Your habits of writing in the style of 3) has poisoned your discourse on this blog (i.e. your activity in writing 1), and perhaps light 2)) enough that it is difficult to follow your (collective) point.

If I have mischaracterized the conversation, then a thousand pardons-I am just an engineer ;)! On the other hand, if I am incorrect, doesn’t that support my thesis? I.e. if I am incorrect, then what exactly is the (collective) argument?