Comments on: Waiting for the barbarians http://crookedtimber.org/2005/01/04/waiting-for-the-barbarians/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:15:54 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: CR http://crookedtimber.org/2005/01/04/waiting-for-the-barbarians/comment-page-1/#comment-56126 CR Wed, 05 Jan 2005 04:04:01 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2718#comment-56126 g zombie, Exactly, exactly, right. I'm an MLA attendee, job candidate this year actually, and the field that folks are talking about, here and on Holbo's blog, is one that I can't for the life of me recognize. Nobody gets a job doing "high theory" anymore. Seriously. There's not more than one or two listings for that out of hundreds of jobs. We work on books. Sometimes we apply to those books the ideas, frames, concepts of other people that have written about books - or about the stuff that books refer to. We should start restricting access to the MLA program. It's like a season pass for the uninitiated to offer advice, criticism, disdain that we never asked for. g zombie, Exactly, exactly, right. I’m an MLA attendee, job candidate this year actually, and the field that folks are talking about, here and on Holbo’s blog, is one that I can’t for the life of me recognize. Nobody gets a job doing “high theory” anymore. Seriously. There’s not more than one or two listings for that out of hundreds of jobs. We work on books. Sometimes we apply to those books the ideas, frames, concepts of other people that have written about books – or about the stuff that books refer to. We should start restricting access to the MLA program. It’s like a season pass for the uninitiated to offer advice, criticism, disdain that we never asked for.

]]> By: G Zombie http://crookedtimber.org/2005/01/04/waiting-for-the-barbarians/comment-page-1/#comment-56125 G Zombie Wed, 05 Jan 2005 03:29:28 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2718#comment-56125 Sometimes I wonder if I'm just completely out of touch with my own discipline or if people outside of it have no clue what's going on inside of it. I read people complaining about high theory, about overly politicized scholarship, about unsupported claims...and then I read the work being done in my field (Book History and eighteenth-century British lit). There is no correlation whatsoever between the complaints and reality. And as far as I know there is no call for rigidly formal approaches to literature or for "quasi-scientific theories." Maybe I didn't get the memo. Most work that I read, and I don't have to hunt high and low to find it, is historically grounded, and not even so much <a href="http://www.sou.edu/English/Hedges/Sodashop/RCenter/Theory/Explaind/nhistexp.htm">New Historicism</a> as just historicism. Do you want to find out what the really influential scholarly approaches to literature are? Here are a few methodological suggestions:<ol><li>Identify the major professional associations that are not the MLA, such as the Renaissance Society of America, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, or the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing.</li><li>Look at the programs for <i>their</i> annual conferences and take note of paper titles and <i>keynote speeches</i>.</li><li>Find out what kinds of awards and grants they give out. What are the stated criteria for those awards and grants?</li><li>What papers, articles, and books have won that association's awards for that year's best?</li></ol><p>And call me old-fashioned, but how about some actual empirical work on how often particular scholars/theorists/critics are cited by others? Sure, it's always fun to laugh at the 1 or 2 percent of MLA paper titles that are ridiculous. But to conclude from this small sample that <i>all</i> MLA paper titles are ridiculous, and thus that all MLA <i>papers</i> are ridiculous, and thus that all scholarly work being done on literature is ridiculous...well, that's just ridiculous.</p> Sometimes I wonder if I’m just completely out of touch with my own discipline or if people outside of it have no clue what’s going on inside of it. I read people complaining about high theory, about overly politicized scholarship, about unsupported claims…and then I read the work being done in my field (Book History and eighteenth-century British lit). There is no correlation whatsoever between the complaints and reality. And as far as I know there is no call for rigidly formal approaches to literature or for “quasi-scientific theories.” Maybe I didn’t get the memo. Most work that I read, and I don’t have to hunt high and low to find it, is historically grounded, and not even so much New Historicism as just historicism. Do you want to find out what the really influential scholarly approaches to literature are? Here are a few methodological suggestions:
  1. Identify the major professional associations that are not the MLA, such as the Renaissance Society of America, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, or the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing.
  2. Look at the programs for their annual conferences and take note of paper titles and keynote speeches.
  3. Find out what kinds of awards and grants they give out. What are the stated criteria for those awards and grants?
  4. What papers, articles, and books have won that association’s awards for that year’s best?

And call me old-fashioned, but how about some actual empirical work on how often particular scholars/theorists/critics are cited by others? Sure, it’s always fun to laugh at the 1 or 2 percent of MLA paper titles that are ridiculous. But to conclude from this small sample that all MLA paper titles are ridiculous, and thus that all MLA papers are ridiculous, and thus that all scholarly work being done on literature is ridiculous…well, that’s just ridiculous.

]]> By: James C. Hess http://crookedtimber.org/2005/01/04/waiting-for-the-barbarians/comment-page-1/#comment-56124 James C. Hess Wed, 05 Jan 2005 01:21:18 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2718#comment-56124 If I understand the debate at hand correctly: Back to the basics? If I understand the debate at hand correctly: Back to the basics?

]]> By: wufnik http://crookedtimber.org/2005/01/04/waiting-for-the-barbarians/comment-page-1/#comment-56123 wufnik Wed, 05 Jan 2005 00:14:33 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2718#comment-56123 I haven't paid much attention recently, but wasn't Scholes real big in the near-takover of English departments by semiotics? I haven’t paid much attention recently, but wasn’t Scholes real big in the near-takover of English departments by semiotics?

]]> By: Amardeep http://crookedtimber.org/2005/01/04/waiting-for-the-barbarians/comment-page-1/#comment-56122 Amardeep Tue, 04 Jan 2005 19:54:31 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2718#comment-56122 Proposed provocative paper title for next year's MLA: "'I have nothing to renounce but my claims!' Making the MLA a Pillar of Reasonableness and Accountability" Proposed provocative paper title for next year’s MLA: “’I have nothing to renounce but my claims!’ Making the MLA a Pillar of Reasonableness and Accountability”

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