Old Email Archive

digest 1997-03-03 #001


11:26 PM 3/2/97 -0800
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 

Daily SLS Email Digest
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Mar 1997 06:27:54 -0800
From: amato@charlie.cns.iit.edu
Subject: Re: Literature and Science?
wayne, i like that you've glossed the distinction twixt those who
practice
critique and those who are interested in more traditional humanist
inquiry... as you have it, between those who are more
theoretically-inclined and those who are practitioners...
but these categories, again, work to obscure actual practices...
just for the record:  anybody who thinks, when i raise the spectre of
"the
arts," that i mean something akin to traditional humanism -- well,
just
doesn't understand the arts in their current manifestations... of
course
there are "creative writers" who resist theory, for example...
i have mself
written on the unfortunate nature of this split institutionally (and it
has
a long history)... but i'm offering up "the arts" in general,
and poetry in
particular, as a contested site (to be a bit agonistic about it)...
for example:  i mentioned jed rasula's _the american poetry wax
museum_...
now clearly rasula's is a "critical" book---a hefty one, at
something like
637 pp (with nearly a hundred pages of appendices)---it's steeped in
cultural theory (jed did his phud at uc/santa cruz's renowed 'history
of
consciousness' program, but he was well-published long before he
pursued
his grad degrees)... if i may be permitted a pun, one thing the book is
critical of is the way poetry, specifically, has been treated by those
in
english studies presuming to do cultural critique, who have used
methods
that owe much to mid-century poetries, while at the same time not having
a
heck of a lot to say about poetry per se, finally... at least, this is
the
core of rasula's argument, which is put forth with theoretical acumen
to
spare...
in short:  the critical-creative split is highly problematic, even de
facto... and while this *is* a matter of "theory," it may not
be the same
theory that most folks practice, or think they practice...
so there are alternatives to the humanist-practitioner vs. theorist
split... in fact, there are alternatives to the way "theory"
is generally
practiced or conceived, and for that matter, *aesthetic* issues
themselves
have in fact "[held] a self-reflective field of inquiry,"
though one w/o
any clear consensus... how could this NOT be the case, wayne?...
artists,
even the most anti-theoretical artists, are part of a larger domain of
social practices -- and they reflect on what they do (though they might
not
want to admit it at times!)... i assume you don't mean to suggest that
to
"hold" a "self-reflective fields of inquiry" is not
to sidestep dispute,
right?...
finally:  i hang around a LOT these days over at the suny/buffalo
listserv,
poetics... and if any of you folks want to see what current discussions
of
poetry and poetics might look like, why then i recommend a trip over
there... something like 475 folks at the moment, on several continents
(LOTS of mail, of course)... and imho, that group constitutes one
theoretically adept collective, sometimes contentious, who would
probably
take GREAT exception, whatever the individual differences, to any
characterization of aesthetic practice as unable to sustain
self-reflection...
but even if we may disagree here, wayne, i appreciate your having
raised
these issues to the surface of deliberations...
best,
joe
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Mar 1997 07:17:23 -0800
From: Wayne Miller 
Subject: Re: Literature and Science?
At 8:23 AM 3/2/97, amato@charlie.cns.iit.edu wrote:
>so there are alternatives to the humanist-practitioner vs. theorist
>split... in fact, there are alternatives to the way
"theory" is generally
>practiced or conceived, and for that matter, *aesthetic* issues
themselves
>have in fact "[held] a self-reflective field of inquiry,"
though one w/o
>any clear consensus... how could this NOT be the case, wayne?...
Hi,
I just want to clarify this distinction:
My point is that "aesthetic interpretation" (not aesthetic
issues per se)
could not sustain the field of literary studies as an intellectual
endeavor. I would not argue that art itself is necessarily
untheoretical.
Aesthetic interpretation rests upon a hermeneutic -- or, in my opinion,
vicious -- circle: We read literature to find the good literature, then
interpret it in order to understand what makes it good. Does the
initial
aesthetic evaluation hold the key, or the post facto interpretation? Is
Shakespeare illegitimately the height of English literature until the
lit
crit crowd has interpreted his works? Is he appreciated naively, then
sophisticatedly? Does someone trained in lit criticism have unique
access
to valid (read: sophisticated) aesthetic experience, or does this
person
have unique access to the reasons for (naive) aesthetic experience? In
either case, I believe literary criticism arose from an illegitimate
claim
to the aesthetic object -- not because it attempted to analyze or judge
the
object, but because it attempted to judge the value *and* analyze it at
the
same time. Call it a literary uncertainty principle. The result of
violating this principle is a field fraught with ideology and truth
claims
that it cannot maintain.
Wayne
/-----------------------------------------------/
Wayne Miller           
Germanic Languages             2326 Murphy Hall
Humanities Computing Facility   343 Kinsey Hall
University of California, Los Angeles     90095
(310) 206-2004              Fax: (310) 825-7428
/-----------------------------------------------/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Mar 1997 07:31:48 -0800
From: amato@charlie.cns.iit.edu
Subject: Re: Literature and Science?
it occurs to me that i might spend a bit more time, constructively, on
this
question of practitioner knowledge as well... but i'm bound to get a
bit
cranky, i can feel it in me, coming up from my gut...
there have been persistent rumors for some time now that
"knowledge" can
take multiple forms... one of the advantages of shoshana zuboff's _in
the
age of the smart machine_ is that zuboff, while showing how information
age
technologies push us further and further into textualization, is
careful
not to privilege in any inherent way textual knowledge vis-a-vis, say,
bodily knowledge (what she calls "action-centered"
knowledge)...
(i might mention as an aside, btw, that numerous poetries and poetics
have
had much to say about the body... i'm thinking at the moment of robert
creeley's work, and the way creeley's correspondence with charles olson
interrogates such poetics, the way this correlates, say, with
merleau-ponty's ideas about the body... see stephen fredman's _poet's
prose:  the crisis in american verse_ (cambridge, 1990)... this latter
is
out of print, sadly...)
over in composition pedagogy, it was probably stephen north who, in
_the
making of knowledge in composition:  portrait of an emerging field_
(boynton/cook, 1987), first fully theorized practitioner knowledge, what
he
called "lore"... now north was clearly objecting, in his way,
to the
hierarchy within most english depts that not only placed writing at the
bottom of the departmental barrel, but regarded the lore of writing
communities as an inferior form of knowledge...
i have had arguments, btw, with those who have insisted that there is
no
"theory" as such in composition studies, b/c there is nothing
that one
might identify as theory in a popperian sense... i.e., with due regard
for
"falsifiability" and the like... needless to say, these
arguments have at
times been heated, b/c i tend to foam at the mouth when repeatedly
faced
with such disciplinary high-handedness... most in sls will recognize
immediately the particular sort of theory bias at work here, but i
wonder
how many of you are aware of the extent to which this bias plays itself
out
in other, related fields?... one might take a peek at the final chapter
of
john g. gunnell's _between philosophy and politics:  the alienation of
political theory_ (u of mass p, 1986)... gunnell does a great job of
pulling apart the theoretical from the practical, whatever my
reservations...
now consider for a moment the question of engineering practice:  there
are
a number of books out there that presume to give some insight into what
such practice is all about... rather than list those books of which i'm
not
particularly fond, i'll mention one of my favorites:  edwin layton's
_the
revolt of the engineers:  social responsibility and the american
engineering profession_ (johns hopkins, 1986 (1971))... a sort of
sociological history, but not without some speculation as to what it is
constitutes the engineering professional... first sentence:  "the
engineer
is both a scientist and a businessman"... i wouldn't quite say
that
layton's approach is a theoretical one, and certainly he will not
satisfy
the jamesonians out there, but understanding the historical gradients
that
layton draws into detailed relief is of great use in understanding the
nature of engineering work (to this day)... at least, for me it was, it
was
a real eye-opener, coming to it as i did AFTER my years as an
engineer...
now whether this sort of history is useful is another matter -- depends
on
what you're about, what you're trying to get at in your work,
theoretical
and otherwise... there is, too, (the late) sally hacker's _'doing it
the
hard way':  investigations of gender and technology_ (unwin hyman,
1990)...
hacker's approach is to actually go and DO something -- say design --
and
then write about it... participant-observer stuff... and of course,
like
anything else, not for all tastes (though of course "taste"
itself here is
precisely what is up for theoretical grabs---and no i don't like
bourdieu's
work either!)... in fact i find most of what hacker sez on the mark...
and of course:  there are numerous narrative-experiential writings that
many would not find 'properly' theoretical... many of these latter are
either (1) owing to what ihab hassan some time ago called 'the
postmodern
turn' (and much of what i do of late falls into this category) or (2)
owing
to a more identity-based politics, say... i don't wish to create yet
another dichotomy, but the point here is that one can glean all sorts
of
insights, theoretical and otherwise, from other than the Top 40 list of
theory players or publications...
i might mention in this latter regard the actual material basis of the
presses and publications that i read:  i spend a good deal of my time
in
the small press world... are you folks, most of you, aware of what's
happening thereabouts?... do you realize that, thanx to pressure from
major
chains such as barnes & noble and border's, there is pretty much
ONE
remaining small press distributor in the us?... spd---small press
distribution, in berkeley... there are a few fledgling organizations,
and a
few that handle other than trade publications, but if you're a small
press
publisher, spd is about IT (since the collapse of inland on the east
coast)... do you folks given any thought at all to the relative lack of
access to the absolutely *incredible* range of materials available in
the
small presses?... doesn't this speak volumes as to the relatively
exclusive
state of "theory" at the moment, given that so much actual
writing is not
seeing the light of academic day?... i can't even get my first book of
poetry stocked down the street from me, at u of chicago's seminary
co-op
(one of the best academic bookstores in the nation), simply b/c my
publisher has to date been unable to get her inventory into spd... and
i've
tried on two occasions, short of just bringing a couple of my books in
and
sandwiching them on the shelves...
but is poetry, again, somehow not to the point?... am i just another
wacky
poet pissing and moaning about not being "famous" enough?...
i've been
'advised' by one of my colleagues on my campus that my poetry
"doesn't
count" toward tenure... is this true, and if so, why?... can just
anybody
write a book of poetry, is this it?... problem with this view is that
i'm
not just talking about poetry---i'm talking about all sorts of writing,
of
which poetry happens to provide one of the best examples of
exclusionary
politics from within english studies...
i haven't mentioned, too, the many recent discussions of the
institutional
status of "theory" as such... in the books, say, of paul bove,
and (easier
to sample) a recent _college english_ piece by kurt spellmeyer (of
course,
when spellmeyer gets to the arts, his chief objective by way of curing
us
of too much theory, he waxes in trad. humanist terms)...
sorry to be a bit smartass, and apologies for my pedantic use of
citation... but i'm trying to give some indication of where i'm coming
from, and perhaps in the process shed some light on why this question
of
cultural theorizing is far more complicated than we may be led to
believe... if you already know what i'm saying, apologies for the
condescension... i'm assuming my audience is comprised of multitudes...
best,
joe
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Mar 1997 07:38:41 -0800
From: amato@charlie.cns.iit.edu
Subject: Re: Literature and Science?
wayne, thanx for your clarification...
and only to say that you're touching on issues of reception and
canonicity... that the process of selecting a work to ask what sort of
cultural work it does already includes, yes, a judgment of sorts...
this
has been theorized of late in such terms---by those critics who have
challenged the nature of canonicity on this basis (maria damon, for one,
in
poetry studies)... of course this complicates aesthetic issues per
se---but
they don't thereby go away!... there are artists of course who find all
of
this an ex post facto matter...
but speaking as a teacher who is also a poet, and who teaches both
poetry
and creative writing (when i'm lucky!):  as i see it, having an
aesthetic
does in fact include --- nay, turns on --- asking such questions... part
of
what i'm about in the classroom is getting my students to consider the
nature of their 'truth' claims... at a basic level, this is an exercise
in
awareness... and i don't see this as fundamentally different from what
science and technology can (if not SHOULD) do...
best,
joe
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Mar 1997 11:57:45 -0800
From: amato@charlie.cns.iit.edu
Subject: Re: Literature and Science?
and finally (as i wonder whether the pork roast and sauerkraut i have
in
the oven at the moment is contributing to my tone):
not to understand that the sorts of exclusions i'm busy elucidating are
part of larger social structures that exclude on the basis of
race/gender/class/ethnicity/sexual orientation/disability and so forth
is
to miss a vital point:  that everybody is in complicity (yes---to
varying
degrees) and that what we require most perhaps is a greater capacity
for
listening, hence structures, fora and networks that provide for same...
not a shaggy dog ending to my rant, in any case---i surely don't wish
to
wish away differences (in motivation, power, interest, etc.) on the
basis
of difference... hardly---and i'm none too good at listening mself, so
mea
culpa...
best,
joe
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Mar 1997 13:43:37 -0800
From: e027@lehigh.edu (Dave Leight)
Subject: Re: question and comment
Mike, I think you're right, and I should have made the distinction, too.
 In
MLA style, the e-mail citation resembles a letter.  The listserve
citation
might resemble that of the proceedings of a conference, which are
sometimes
bound and published in the same way a listserve can be saved and kept on
file.
That begs the question, though: is a listserve more "citable"
than an e-mail
message?  If the personal letter and the proceedings of a conference are
so
obviously different, do we still consider the e-mail message and the
listserve
entry more similar to each other in kind?
>I think I see a distinction between an email message and discussion
>over a listserve.  The latter begins to approach something like a
>refereed forum: it's more "public" than personal
correspondence, and
>thus others can correct and cajole.
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>Michael Merrill
>Dept. of English, UCLA
>310-825-6326
>
Dave Leight
Lehigh and Lafayette