Literary theory and the role of the university.

Literary theory and the role of the university. One goal of my title is to provoke a certain response. Don't youhave things turned around? Shouldn't it be the role of literarytheory in the university? I want to argue here that for complex reasonsliterary theory - not a unitary concept by any means, but a heuristic A method of problem solving using exploration and trial and error methods. Heuristic program design provides a framework for solving the problem in contrast with a fixed set of rules (algorithmic) that cannot vary. 1. term covering many different, and sometimes conflicting, criticalprojects - has become a discourse able to say some things about thepurpose of the university, what the role of the university in societyis, what the university can, does, and should look like. Most argumentstoday concerning the university utilize a positivist pos��i��tiv��ism?n.1. Philosophya. A doctrine contending that sense perceptions are the only admissible basis of human knowledge and precise thought.b. discourse, ofteneconomics- or business-oriented, talking about delivering services andtraining workers to compete in the global marketplace. Literary theory,by contrast, maintains important links with the intellectual andphilosophical reasonings associated with the creation of the modernuniversity. Far from occupying an isolated intellectual sphere, thesetheoretical issues continue to speak to the realities faced by theentire university community. The discourses of literary theory crossdisciplinary boundaries and are thus able to elicit the responses ofpeople engaged in other types of activity within the university. Theory,first under the guise of deconstruction and lately in association withgender and multicultural studies, has even entered into press and mediaaccounts of the university. Paradoxically, those writings on so-calledpolitical correctness politically correctadj. Abbr. PC1. Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. that identify literary theory as the enablingagent for change in the university community - always a negative changefor the professed enemies of P.C. - are right to some extent about therole of theory in creating a climate for change.(1) As the Americanuniversity of the late twentieth century increasingly changes torepresent the gendered and multicultural realities of its citizens, forexample, literary theory has something to say about why this should be.The modern university system is of relatively recent historicalformation. Though the European universities trace their origins backhundreds of years (12th century for Oxford and the Sorbonne, 11thcentury for Bologna), and American universities like Harvard and Williamand Mary Noun 1. William and Mary - joint monarchs of England; William III and Mary II date back to the seventeenth century, the modern universitythat is, at least in principle, both of democratic access and structuredaround a polyvalent polyvalent/poly��va��lent/ (-va��lent) multivalent. pol��y��va��lentadj.1. Acting against or interacting with more than one kind of antigen, antibody, toxin, or microorganism.2. curriculum is less than two hundred years old.(2)Jean-Francois Lyotard has discussed some of the founding arguments forthe modern university and their continuing influence, or lack thereof,in his provocative and controversial Postmodern Condition. Lyotard isconcerned to investigate what he calls the grands recits ormetanarratives that philosophers develop to give a coherent ideational i��de��ate?v. i��de��at��ed, i��de��at��ing, i��de��atesv.tr.To form an idea of; imagine or conceive: "Such characters represent a grotesquely blown-up aspect of an ideal man . . . structure to the way we should think about historical developments. Hetraces two metanarratives back to the German Romantics (Schiller andothers) in their arguments concerning the role of the modern university.On one side there is the high Romantic argument, with its roots inKant's theory of enlightenment, that each individual has an innatepotential and that university education should enable individuals toreach that potential.(3) On the other side, there is what we might callthe social progress argument, associated with Hegel and later with Marx,that democratic access to education helps eliminate local prejudices andignorance as a key element in promoting the progress of society as awhole. Lyotard argues that our "postmodern condition" ischaracterized by the "failure" of these two metanarratives,not as he is most commonly understood as saying because of theirinherent flaws, but because they no longer compel a working consensus atthe level of the larger social or political level that we call"society."(4) Given the breakdown at the level of socialconsensus of these explanations for the value of education to society,we are left with "empty" technocratic arguments concerning thenecessity of specialized knowledge and training, delivery of services,and competitiveness in the global marketplace.Lyotard's study takes as its point of departure the idea thatphilosophy has traditionally been the discipline that sees itself asproviding the rationale for the constitution of other fields ofdiscourse. This is clear in the omnipresent om��ni��pres��ent?adj.Present everywhere simultaneously.[Medieval Latin omnipres references to the GermanRomantic philosophers in the debate over the purpose of the university.Philosophy as the study of "pure" knowledge lends its prestigeto the other disciplines, which are then seen as applications ofphilosophical models. One need only think of Aristotle's inquiriesinto what we would now call physics, natural sciences, and ethics torecall a time when the realm of the philosopher was the whole of humanknowledge and endeavor. Philosophy, in Lyotard's terms, thusprovided the metanarratives for the other fields of inquiry, that is,the guiding ideas concerning why someone would pursue such an inquiry,how it related to "pure" knowledge, and in a less examinedway, how it was useful for practical applications. There are manyreasons for the declining role of philosophy in providing the guidingideas for the pursuit of knowledge in general. For example,philosophy's turn towards neo-Kantianism and positivism positivism(pŏ`zĭtĭvĭzəm), philosophical doctrine that denies any validity to speculation or metaphysics. Sometimes associated with empiricism, positivism maintains that metaphysical questions are unanswerable and that the only in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasized the"practical" dimension - previously the least importantrationale for deciding the validity of different kinds of inquiry. Thisallowed philosophy to be viewed as supporting both a scientific andsocial "can do" pragmatism.(5) The austere analyticalphilosophy of the Anglo-American tradition in the twentieth centuryleads into language and areas of inquiry that, for the most part, leaveaside real-world connections, even to other disciplines within theuniversity. The phenomenological tradition associated primarily withcontinental philosophy of the twentieth century, on the other hand, hasallowed for a continuation of those kinds of questions that make senseto other people in non-specialized language. The most usefulphilosophical approach to emerge recently in support of the kind ofargument I am making here might be the feminist epistemology representedin the works of Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Sandra Harding Sandra Harding (born 1935) is an American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology and philosophy of science. She has contributed to standpoint theory and to the multicultural study of science. , and others.Richard Rorty has offered what we might call a liberalassimilationist account for understanding how literary theory has cometo occupy the role previously played by philosophy in answering thelarger questions about the reasons for studying a particular field, howit relates to knowledge in general, and its practical applications. Assomeone hired in the 1980s, when English departments in Americanuniversities scrambled to hire people to teach "literarytheory," I feel somewhat chastened by this next step of addressingthe historical contingency by which literary theory became the name forstudying the theories of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, and Lyotard, inaddition to the latest critical work on Shakespeare, Jane Austen,Gustave Flaubert, Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gar��c����a M��r��quez? , Gabriel Born 1928.Colombian-born writer known especially for his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). He won the 1982 Nobel Prize for literature. , and Toni Morrison Noun 1. Toni Morrison - United States writer whose novels describe the lives of African-Americans (born in 1931)Chloe Anthony Wofford, Morrison , plus theemerging fields of structuralism structuralism,theory that uses culturally interconnected signs to reconstruct systems of relationships rather than studying isolated, material things in themselves. This method found wide use from the early 20th cent. , deconstruction, feminism, gay andlesbian literature Lesbian literature includes works by lesbian authors, as well as lesbian-themed works by heterosexual authors. Even works by lesbian writers that do not deal with lesbian themes are still often considered lesbian literature. , and postcolonial and multicultural studies. AlthoughRorty's liberalism prevents him from escaping a certainpaternalizing valuation of Western civilization Noun 1. Western civilization - the modern culture of western Europe and North America; "when Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western civilization he said he thought it would be a good idea"Western culture , I think his account ofliterary theory deserves recognition, if only because it was soinfluential in establishing the general understanding of the role of"theory" in the university. As he says:Once the range of literary criticism is stretched that far there is,of course, less and less point in calling it literary criticism. But foraccidental historical reasons, having to do with the way in whichintellectuals got jobs in universities by pretending to pursue academicspecialities, the name has stuck. So instead of changing the term"literary criticism" to something like "culturecriticism," we have instead stretched the word"literature" to cover whatever literary critics criticize.(81)Those with some training in philosophy will recognize this as aclassic nominalist nom��i��nal��ism?n. PhilosophyThe doctrine holding that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names. argument, that is, words and concepts have themeaning we assign them and not any kind of immanent im��ma��nent?adj.1. Existing or remaining within; inherent: believed in a God immanent in humans.2. Restricted entirely to the mind; subjective. truth.(6) Inteaching a Modern Literary Theory course this semester, I invoked aversion of this argument to try to explain why the range of material wewere studying this semester could just as easily be taught as ModernIntellectual History or Twentieth Century Philosophy. Moreover,Rorty's narrative - his story of how "literarycriticism," or what I am calling theory, became associated with arange of philosophical, cultural, and political ways of thinking - canbe pushed further than he himself might want to go in order to explainhow literary theory has become an enabling condition for the sudden riseof variously related disciplines in literary and cultural studies.(7) Infact, there are many scholars who are urging that we change thenomenclature as well, and recognize that literary studies should now bemore appropriately identified as cultural studies (see Easthope).To understand how literary theory has come to occupy this position,it may help to undertake a brief review of the role of literarycriticism in the social formation.(8) As Gerald Graff'sinstitutional history of teaching literature shows, English literature English literature,literature written in English since c.1450 by the inhabitants of the British Isles; it was during the 15th cent. that the English language acquired much of its modern form. was not even a field of study in American universities until the latenineteenth century, and separate attention to "American"literature, as such, had to await the early twentieth century. In theEnglish tradition, poets and writers historically were placed in adefensive posture of justifying their interest in literature rather thanmore active and heroic pursuits, at the same time as they learnedrhetoric and oratory from texts in the Classics rather than works intheir native language. So, we have famous essays with titles like"A Defence of Poetry" (Shelley) and Sir Philip Sidney's"An Apology for Poetry." Sidney's argument reliesprincipally on an invocation of the authority of classical modelscharacteristic of Renaissance humanism Renaissance humanism (often designated simply as humanism) was a European intellectual movement beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century. Initially a humanist was simply a teacher of Latin literature. . Finding his models in classicGreek and Roman verse and in the poetry of the Bible, Sidney praises theliterary qualities of the Psalms of David, for example, particularly"his notable prosopopeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see Godcoming in HiS majesty, his telling of the beasts' joyfulness, andhills' leaping" (112). While a footnote in my edition of the"Apology" says that prosopopeia pro��so��po��pe��iaalso pro��so��po��poe��ia ?n.1. A figure of speech in which an absent or imaginary person is represented as speaking.2. See personification. is a synonym for"personification personification,figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities, e.g., allegorical morality plays where characters include Good Deeds, Beauty, and Death. ," the primary meaning listed in the OED OEDabbr.Oxford English DictionaryNoun 1. OED - an unabridged dictionary constructed on historical principlesO.E.D., Oxford English Dictionary is,"A rhetorical figure by which an imaginary or absent person isrepresented as speaking or acting." This rhetorical figure providesa tantalizing tan��ta��lize?tr.v. tan��ta��lized, tan��ta��liz��ing, tan��ta��liz��esTo excite (another) by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach. link to current theory and the work of Paul de Man Paul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983) was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist.He completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in the late 1950s. , whohas called the figure of prosopopeia "the master trope trope?n.1. A figure of speech using words in nonliteral ways, such as a metaphor.2. A word or phrase interpolated as an embellishment in the sung parts of certain medieval liturgies. of poeticdiscourse" (48). De Man's interest in this figure isunderstandable in the context of the propensity within deconstruction -the style of criticism de Man was largely responsible for bringing to awider audience in the United States - to seek the absent center thatstructures or organizes a literary work or an argument. And before I amcharged with anachronism a��nach��ro��nism?n.1. The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.2. in comparing Sidney to Paul de Man, let merecall that Sidney's cleverest and most-often remembered move inhis defense of poetry is to claim that poetry can never be accused ofmisleading people by falsifying reality. As Sidney says, "Now, forthe poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth" (132).Sidney's stance on poetry and the role of criticism in thesocial formation is far from being the dominant mode, however. Thedominant mode of criticism in the English tradition was set in theeighteenth century, using antecedents in Aristotle, Longinus, andHorace, as what I will here be calling "normative"criticism.(9) Samuel Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare"may be taken as representative of this mode, particularly as it reliesfor its primary authority on the critical precepts of the ancientauthors just mentioned. Johnson sets the standards for what counts asliterary value in a way that is now recognizable in the debate over theliterary canon, saying in part: "What mankind have long possessedthey have often examined and compared; and if they persist to value thepossession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion inits favor" (221). Dr. Johnson's position here varies fromSidney's in not merely invoking but reifying its obeisance toreceived authority, reflecting the workings of eighteenth-centuryideology that encouraged strong obedience to church, monarch, and state.The ideological character of Johnson's position becomes clearerwhen he examines the critical grounds for valuing the work ofShakespeare. He particularly values Shakespeare's depictions ofnature, and when there are cases of doubt that arise concerning thevalidity of Shakespeare's work, Johnson urges "there is alwaysan appeal open from criticism to nature" (225). But as recentfeminist theory has emphasized, "nature" is likewise not aneutral term, but also encodes elements of the dominant ideology. My ownposition would be just opposite to that of Dr. Johnson: I would say,rather, that we need to move from "nature" to"criticism," in order to establish criticism as anoppositional discourse.The question is whether criticism need always be"normative" as Dr. Johnson implicitly urges, or whether thereis such a thing as a "non-normative" criticism.(10) Anon-normative poetics would lead to a role for criticism far differentfrom that envisioned by Dr. Johnson, what we might call literarycriticism as an oppositional discourse.(11) Within the social formation,criticism can either serve as a means of reproduction of what Italiantheorist Antonio Gramsci terms cultural hegemony or it can oppose thishegemony. There are still quite active critics who view the role forcriticism as the reproduction of others like themselves who will occupysimilar roles in the social formation. Bove quotes literary critic FrankKermode declaring, in an address to members of the profession: "Yetit must be obvious that the formation of rival canons, howevertransient, is very dangerous; that in allowing it to happen we risk thedeath of the institution. Its continuance depends wholly upon ourability to maintain the canon and replace ourselves, to inducesufficient numbers of young people to think as we do" (MasteringDiscourse 51). Kermode's major premise here is the place of thecanon within academic institutions, but the view he expresses of theeducator's role extends well beyond the field of literary criticismto raise important questions about the purpose and role of professionaleducators and the educational institution as a whole within our society.One issue raised by the concept of non-normative criticism as anoppositional discourse is whether literary studies and universityeducation generally can be seen as "cultural capital," in theterm proposed by Pierre Bourdieu. When I teach courses at the stateuniversity on the history of literary criticism and modern literarytheory, students often raise serious questions concerning the sheerdifficulty of the language in the material they are being required toread. I turn this question of specialized languages into a way ofaddressing "cultural capital," since a major part of what auniversity education has always been designed to accomplish is to teachstudents various specialized languages - no longer simply Greek andLatin. This is one of the ways that teachers of theory can allowstudents to use theory to conceptualize con��cep��tu��al��ize?v. con��cep��tu��al��ized, con��cep��tu��al��iz��ing, con��cep��tu��al��iz��esv.tr.To form a concept or concepts of, and especially to interpret in a conceptual way: their own experience asuniversity students and members of a class-based society. Students whocome from different geographical areas of the country are said to speakdifferent "dialects"; students who come from different socialclasses, which usually means different educational backgrounds, can besaid to speak different "sociolects." Clearly, somethingKermode and I have in common in our goals for teaching students aboutliterary criticism is to give them a certain training in the specializedlanguage of criticism that is one aspect of the sociolect In linguistics, a sociolect is the variety of language characteristic of a social background or status. It is a portmanteau term combining the morphemes "socio-," meaning social and "-lect," meaning a variety of language. ofuniversity-educated persons generally. Teachers defending the liberalarts curriculum have been saying for some time now that it doesn'tmatter so much what students major in, as long as they learn how tothink critically, while the more cynical view is that these students arebeing trained to make the right noises. One way to view this apparentcontradiction is to ask if training in the sociolect is aimed primarilyat passing on cultural capital in order to reproduce the social-classstructure as a part of university training generally; or, are studentsbeing trained in those "critical" skills necessary torecognize, analyze, and change those institutions responsible formaintaining the class structure and its corresponding cultural hegemony?Michel Foucault's work on mental health, prisons, and evensexuality, as what he calls "disciplinary" environments,offers critics ways of theorizing the role of educational institutionsin inculcating social values to reproduce both the social hierarchy andindividual social roles. Bove makes the connection betweenFoucault's theorizing on the university and Gramsci's idea ofhegemony in a way that leads to the following contradiction, one thatall of us who work in higher education must deal with sooner or later:The intellectual operation of the hegemonic organization requires abroad-based, humanistic education. But it also requires an elaboratestructure of testing and tracking to elaborate "top intellectualqualifications" to distribute workers and rewards. The effect ofthis structure is to deny in practice what is claimed in theory: namely,the illusion of democratic access to and control of technology and highculture. (Wake of Theory 35)These are strong words and may be seen to present a deterministicview of the university, the culture, and the larger social formation ofwhich they are a part. The power of this passage stems at least in partfrom the way Bove invokes the metanarratives Lyotard identifies asinforming the foundations of the modern university system. Indeed, allleft oppositional discourses rely in some measure on the metanarrativesof liberation and/or social progress: that's why they areoppositional.(12) The educational system embodying a "hegemonicorganization," which Bove sees as operative here, denies the"liberatory" aspect of individual enlightenment at the sametime as it seems to block any vision of social progress - and this iswhy such characterizations, like those following Bourdieu that invoke"cultural capital" in a limiting sense, are so threatening toour sense of what we think we do. Some of the questions might be posedas follows: do literary and cultural theorists propose any ways ofreinvigorating metanarratives of individual enlightenment and socialprogress? or do these models need to be replaced by something new? howdo we go about establishing either local or social consensus for thegoals of equality, empowerment, progress, and change? and are these theright goals?Bove claims that, "Were literary critics to take Gramsciseriously, they would carry out a thorough critique of the basicparadigms of literary education and especially its relation to theuniversity. They would, in addition, attempt to reconstruct thateducation along different lines" (Wake of Theory 37). This visionof the task of the contemporary critic, which Bove casts in theconditional mood, is what many of those engaged in the various andsometimes conflicting activities of literary and cultural theory areattempting to actualize. This is also the change that those who arelamenting the rise of "political correctness" and the declineof "cultural values" are engaged in fighting against.(13) Myown view is that such change is normal, desirable, and even inevitable,and that the stridency of multiculturalism's opponents on thecultural right is merely a sign of their failing rearguard rearguardNoun1. the troops who protect the rear of a military formation2. rearguard action an effort to prevent or postpone something that is unavoidableNoun 1. effort. Thisdoes not mean, however, that they are in no position to cause harm.Despite what high-minded defenders of cultural values across the wholepolitical spectrum may intend, it is surely no accident that the"culture wars" were making news during the same period as thewidespread defunding of higher education. This is the connection thatBerube makes when he argues that "what we miss, if we continue toconstrue construev. to determine the meaning of the words of a written document, statute or legal decision, based upon rules of legal interpretation as well as normal meanings. multiculturalism only as a set of intellectual options andcurricular imperatives, is the necessity to articulate multiculturalismto the economics of school funding and school policy" (235). As weneed to insist repeatedly, debates over the curriculum are also alwaysdebates about ethics, critical responsibility, and politicalaccountability. Berube makes this point to counter P.C. pundits whoclaim educators have abandoned "values": "It follows,therefore, that we are being attacked over these exigencies of value notbecause we have vacated the terrain on which critics interrogatecultural values, but precisely because we have not vacated thisterrain" (108). The radical relativism of Stanley Fish or thepolitical quietism quietism,a heretical form of religious mysticism founded by Miguel de Molinos, a 17th-century Spanish priest. Molinism, or quietism, developed within the Roman Catholic Church in Spain and spread especially to France, where its most influential exponent was Madame of Richard Rorty makes theory an easy target (forcritics on both the left and the right), but we need to maintain anawareness of the real-world context in which the critical debate isconducted and its all-too-real effects on our students' lives.The local scene of conflict where I encountered resistance to theproject of literary theory was a department curriculum committeemeeting, when I proposed a course in Contemporary Literary Theory that Ihad been led to believe was the main course I had been hired to teach.At this meeting one of my colleagues began by questioning whether acourse in recent theory, since it covered material from roughly the pastthirty years, was even deserving of being represented in the curriculumat all. Since the course in History of Literary Criticism covered aperiod of more than two thousand years, a course with only thirtyyears' material seemed relatively insignificant. Another colleaguewent on to say that recent experiences at academic conferences, and whatpeople were saying to her privately, led her to believe that literarytheory was being repudiated by members of the profession and that such acourse risked being outdated even by the time it was approved as part ofthe curriculum. The discussion then moved to the appropriateness ofteaching this material at a mid-level state institution such as ours.Would the students have enough preparation before they took this classto be able to distinguish between what was valid and what was not in thecurrent approaches? Perhaps, it was suggested, such a course would bebetter suited to a large research institution with an active graduateprogram. What possible use could "our" students have for thiskind of material, anyway?I was caught completely unprepared for this sustained attack on thelegitimacy of literary theory as a discipline. I had never encounteredthis kind of objection at my previous school, though it has a headyidentical profile as a metropolitan university with a high percentage offirst-generation college students. The most serious objection anyone hadever raised there was that I would have a hard time getting studentsinterested in the material. Since I knew from my previous experiencethat this was not true, I was prepared to argue this point and givesupporting examples. But I was not prepared to mount an impromptudefense of literary theory as material deserving college credit. I fellback on the weakest possible defense - that some of our students did goon to graduate school and the GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation) A tunneling protocol developed by Cisco that allows network layer packets to contain packets from a different protocol. It is widely used to tunnel protocols inside IP packets for virtual private networks (VPNs). in English had an increasing number ofquestions on theory and criticism. I also said that when and if ourstudents arrived in graduate school they would be expected to have somebackground in theory. I received some eleventh-hour support from mycolleague teaching the History of Literary Criticism course, who saidthat her course already contained too much material and she felt itentirely reasonable to introduce a new course to take some of the burdenoff this already overloaded course. The compromise that was eventuallyreached was to rename the course "Modem Literary Theory" andto include material on literary formalism on the syllabus so studentswould be able to see exactly what the newer approaches were"departing from." I did receive support from the departmentchairperson who told me that once the course had been approved on theuniversity level I should teach whatever I deemed appropriate.I am tempted to see this experience of local conflict along the linesof the newer form of censorship that Jacques Derrida sees as operativein the modern university. There is very little direct top-downcensorship of what one can actually teach, but there remains a varietyof methods by which such control can still be exerted. As Derrida says:Today, in the Western democracies, that [overt] form of censorshiphas almost entirely disappeared. The prohibiting limitations functionthrough multiple channels that are decentralized, difficult to bringtogether into a system. The unacceptability of a discourse, thenoncertification of a research project, the illegitimacy illegitimacy:see bastard. Illegitimacybend sinistersupposed stigma of illegitimate birth. [Heraldry: Misc.]Clinker, Humphryservant of Bramble family turns out to be illegitimate son of Mr. Bramble. [Br. Lit. of a courseoffering are declared by evaluative actions: studying such evaluationsis, it seems to me, one of the tasks most indispensable to the exerciseof academic responsibility, most urgent for the maintenance of itsdignity. Within the university itself, forces that are apparentlyexternal to it (presses, foundations, the mass media) are intervening inan ever more decisive way. ("The Principle of Reason" 13)Derrida's statement links the internal pressures on what one canteach and study to the external pressures that I have been identifyingwith the cultural right's recent attacks on multiculturalism. Thiswas certainly one of the features of my experience. Derrida also callsfor the study of these kinds of incidents as one of the tasks that wemust undertake in order to maintain the integrity of the academicinstitution, and here I agree as well. The question of literary theoryas a body of material deserving study at the university has specialpoignancy in the atmosphere of the "culture wars," in whichtheory has been widely demonized as a leading force behind ongoing(negative, politically-motivated) changes at the university, curricularand other. This idea of the pernicious effect of theory also underlies,I think, the curious suggestion that theory is in the process of beingrepudiated by the scholarly community. The more important question,which I think still bears asking, is why the mid-level state universitycurriculum should be any different from the private liberal arts college Liberal arts colleges are primarily colleges with an emphasis upon undergraduate study in the liberal arts. The Encyclop?dia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a, "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge or state research institution when it comes to teaching theory. Whom orwhat did my colleagues see themselves as protecting?My colleagues insisted fairly emphatically that "our"students simply did not have the necessary background to weigheffectively the approaches that would be presented in a course oncontemporary theory. But what does this mean? It could mean that"our" students are less intelligent than students at privatecolleges and larger (and better-funded) research institutions, but thisI have come to disbelieve dis��be��lieve?v. dis��be��lieved, dis��be��liev��ing, dis��be��lievesv.tr.To refuse to believe in; reject.v.intr.To withhold or reject belief. . It is true they often do not make the rightnoises, but I have argued that this reflects primarily lack of trainingin the sociolect. Once they become engaged with the texts, I have foundthat "our" students, because they are less reverent rev��er��ent?adj.Marked by, feeling, or expressing reverence.[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin rever ofauthority in general and of printed texts in particular, can often betougher and more insightful readers of theory texts than students atmore prestigious institutions, where a sense of entitlement can oftenlead to a kind of knowing superiority. It may be that we are stilldealing with a model wherein theory is seen as a kind of rarefied rar��e��fiedalso rar��i��fied ?adj.1. Belonging to or reserved for a small select group; esoteric.2. Elevated in character or style; lofty.rarefiedAdjective1. criticism that should ultimately be subservient to the primary text andstudents are thought not to have enough background in these primarysources. If the students lack this necessary background, they may alsobe overly swayed by trendy theories that are ultimately unfounded, inthe view of my colleagues. My sense is that this argument for the"tradition" usually serves rather as a way of enforcing thepractice of "normative" criticism.The prominent feature in all of these arguments for shielding stateuniversity students from theory is the question of authority. Studentsat the state university where I teach do have the potential to raisereal questions about the underlying metanarratives for universityeducation. For these students, as I have experienced repeatedly,questions of enlightenment and social progress are not simply pleasingnoises, background music to fast-track jobs or intriguing problems to beworked out by means of bloodless blood��less?adj.1. Deficient in or lacking blood.2. Pale and anemic in color: smiled with bloodless lips.3. abstractions. I think my colleagues whoare worried about the effects of teaching theory at my school are rightto be worried. Theory can have real-world effects. Importantly, it canaffect how one views the vested authority of texts, teachers, andinstitutions generally. I believe students at mid-level stateuniversities are actually more likely than their more privileged peersto welcome criticism as an oppositional discourse that legitimates manyof the progressive curricular changes they see as too long in coming.The tough time I had going through institutional channels to get acourse in literary theory approved had as one result that I wasreintroduced to some of the real stakes involved in the debate overtheory. I am more likely to see what I do as raising real questionsabout the institutional power structures within which academics operate.And when the students in Modern Literary Theory ask their toughquestions, I am more likely to see they not only don't need ourprotection, but that they are seeking to use theory as a means to engagein a process leading to the solidarity necessary to bring about changein their real-world communities.Whereas most members of earlier generations of literary scholarsmight have assented to R. P. Blackmur's dictum, "Criticism, Itake it, is the formal discourse of an amateur" ("ACritic's Job of Work," qtd. in Bove, Wake of Theory 72), thecurrent climate in literary studies is much closer to what Edward Saidhas urged under the heading of "secular criticism." InSaid's definition: "criticism must think of itself aslife-enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny,domination and abuse; its social goals are noncoercive knowledgeproduced in the interests of human freedom" (29). Here, inSaid's terms, is a definition of what I have been callingoppositional criticism, one that develops an aversive aversive/aver��sive/ (ah-ver��siv) characterized by or giving rise to avoidance; noxious. a��ver��siveadj. stance to thecultural hegemony through developing notions of what critical discourseterms subjectivity and empowerment. This is the kind of empowerment, forexample, that women and traditional minorities are seeking through thefurther democratized access to higher education. From the perspective Ihave been urging it should be clear that the only group for whom thepursuit of knowledge is "free and disinterested" is the onethat has the economic, social, and ideological power to control whatconstitutes knowledge in the first place. As Elizabeth Minnich argues:"it is precisely that which is claimed to be most inclusive becausemost general (that is, most abstract) that is most skewed by the olderrors. And that means that what is supposedly most neutral,disinterested, objective, is most, not least, reflective of pastexclusions and their rationalizations and mystifications" (172;italics in the text). These are not simply questions of "specialinterests," but a paradigm shift A dramatic change in methodology or practice. It often refers to a major change in thinking and planning, which ultimately changes the way projects are implemented. For example, accessing applications and data from the Web instead of from local servers is a paradigm shift. See paradigm. in what constitutes knowledge.Sandra Harding argues in her recent work in feminist epistemology andthe history of science that so-called objective viewpoints that embedtraditional white male prejudices produce tainted results, and thatfeminist science, for example, is demonstrably better science.The question becomes: what kind of pedagogical ped��a��gog��ic? also ped��a��gog��i��caladj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of pedagogy.2. Characterized by pedantic formality: a haughty, pedagogic manner. institution do wesupport and what are, or should be, the aims of the university? The roleof literary criticism in the social formation can take the form of a"normative" criticism, but normative criticism has as one ofits goals to reproduce structures of power and domination characteristicof a class-based society. The obedience to received authority thattraditional criticism implicitly urges underlies the argument in favorof a fixed canon reflecting immutable IMMUTABLE. What cannot be removed, what is unchangeable. The laws of God being perfect, are immutable, but no human law can be so considered. cultural values. When we raise thequestion of what should be, instead of seeking ways to justify what is,we are engaging in an imaginative activity that Sidney argued wastypical of the poetic figure of prosopopeia. The faculty for makingpresent what is absent can extend to reflecting on what kind of learningenvironment we would seek to have, rather than finding ways to make dowith what we have now. This positive orientation toward what is not (butshould be) relates to what Derrida, in his recent work on contemporaryEuropean politics, has claimed is the necessarily aporetic character of"a democracy that must have the structure of a promise" (TheOther Heading 78).(14) Instead of accepting the dominant technocraticethos for the university, literary theory insists on ideals ofenlightenment and social progress that are historically inextricable in��ex��tri��ca��ble?adj.1. a. So intricate or entangled as to make escape impossible: an inextricable maze; an inextricable web of deceit.b. from the founding arguments for the modern university and that remain aspowerful guiding ideals even when they are unfulfilled or no longerprovide the basis for a broad social consensus. Contemporary literarytheories present multiple possibilities for developing non-normative,oppositional approaches to criticism that are "life-enhancing"(Said) and carry the aporetic promise of "a democracy to come"(Derrida). This is one way to view the claim that literary theory is anenabling condition for the ongoing changes taking place within theuniversity community.(15)NOTES1 Michael Berube argues in Public Access that these P.C. pundits havebeen all too successful in setting the terms of the public debate, sorather than respond to them I urge that we develop the terms of thedebate within the discourses about the university that are no lesstraditional but that maintain the radical potential associated withterms like enlightenment and liberation.2 Gerald Graff, while restricting his purview The part of a statute or a law that delineates its purpose and scope.Purview refers to the enacting part of a statute. It generally begins with the words be it enacted and continues as far as the repealing clause. to literary studies,has described this history in the American university in his ProfessingLiterature. He also restricts his supposedly broad-based study to acompletely undemocratic, as well as unrepresentative Adj. 1. unrepresentative - not exemplifying a class; "I soon tumbled to the fact that my weekends were atypical"; "behavior quite unrepresentative (or atypical) of the profession" , study of eliteinstitutions - "research-oriented departments of English at majoruniversities" (2). Even if Graff's study is addressedprimarily to an academic audience, only seven percent of college-levelprofessors actually teach at the kind of institution his study surveys,although more than ninety percent received their training at suchinstitutions.3 One recalls the opening of Kant's "What isEnlightenment?": "Enlightenment is man's release from hisself-incurred tutelage TUTELAGE. State of guardianship; the condition of one who is subject to the control of a guardian. " (263). To correct the gender bias here istempting, but that would be to undertake a change in Kant'sthinking, which did not admit of the possibility of enlightenment forwomen, as a subsequent sentence in the opening goes on to stateexplicitly (cf. Minnich, Transforming Knowledge 76-77).4 That we have lost our faith in the value of every individual isconfirmed by the intractability of what gets called"homelessness." The demise of the social progress argument inthe United States is expressed in pithy pith��y?adj. pith��i��er, pith��i��est1. Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief: a pithy comment.2. Consisting of or resembling pith. form by Berube, as when he says,"No doubt, whatever else Reaganism has done to the nation, it hasleft us almost incapable of thinking about the 'common good,'whether in education, health care, housing, or taxation" (240n.16). Anyone concerned with democratic access to higher educationshould be very much aware of the "defunding" of public highereducation, specifically the massive shift in federal money fromfederally insured student loans to "research" grants - whichare often a form of crypto-military funding - that allowed George Bushto claim plausibly during his 1992 campaign that his administration hadactually increased funding for higher education.5 Cornel West argues against this practically-oriented appropriationof pragmatist philosophy in his Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times(31 ff.).6 Much of the divisive infighting in��fight��ing?n.1. Contentious rivalry or disagreement among members of a group or organization: infighting on the President's staff.2. Fighting or boxing at close range. among theorists could be eliminatedor at least productively channeled if we used some of the nominalistprecepts. Diana Fuss's important contribution to the debates overfeminism, which presents essentialism essentialismIn ontology, the view that some properties of objects are essential to them. The “essence” of a thing is conceived as the totality of its essential properties. and constructivism constructivism,Russian art movement founded c.1913 by Vladimir Tatlin, related to the movement known as suprematism. After 1916 the brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner gave new impetus to Tatlin's art of purely abstract (although politically intended) as necessarilyimplicated in each other's structuring arguments, is, from oneperspective, a nominalist argument.7 Edward Said has historicized this connection (the same connection,of course, that the cultural right bewails) in Culture and Imperialism:The newer currents in the academy, and the force of what is calledtheory (a rubric RUBRIC, civil law. The title or inscription of any law or statute, because the copyists formerly drew and painted the title of laws and statutes rubro colore, in red letters. Ayl. Pand. B. 1, t. 8; Diet. do Juris. h.t. under which were herded many new disciplines likepsychoanalysis, linguistics, and Nietzschean philosophy, unhoused fromthe traditional fields such as philology phi��lol��o��gy?n.1. Literary study or classical scholarship.2. See historical linguistics.[Middle English philologie, from Latin philologia, love of learning , moral philosophy, and thenatural sciences), acquired prestige and interest; they appeared toundermine the authority and the stability of established canons,well-capitalized fields, long-standing procedures of accreditation,research, and the division of intellectual labor. That all this occurredin the modest and circumscribed terrain of cultural-academic praxissimultaneously with the great wave of anti-war, anti-imperialist protestwas not fortuitous but, rather, a genuine political and intellectualconjuncture con��junc��ture?n.1. A combination, as of events or circumstances: "the power that lies in the conjuncture of faith and fatherland"Conor Cruise O'Brien.2. . (57)8 I agree with Jeffrey Williams when he says: ". . . the historyof criticism is not a neutral or innocent category, but has a polemicalsignificance and legitimates a certain line of criticism and aparticular direction of doing literary work" (282).9 For a recent example, see Altieri, who repeatedly cites a passagefrom Longinus' treatise On the Sublime in which the classicalphilosopher says we should learn how to act by comparing our acts to thegreat actions of those who cross the stage of the past. This relates toAltieri's claim that "The major influence of aesthetic theoryhere is on how we choose to specify what holds a community together sothat we internalize internalizeTo send a customer order from a brokerage firm to the firm's own specialist or market maker. Internalizing an order allows a broker to share in the profit (spread between the bid and ask) of executing the order. its role as a normative ground in our acts ofjudgment" (249).10 I locate a version of such a criticism in the work of thecontemporary poet, Charles Bernstein, as in his recent"defense" of poetry, A Poetics. Bernstein says, for example:"I'm advocating a poetics that is not adjudicating, notauthoritative for all other poetry, not legislating rules forcomposition. But rather a poetics that is both tropical andsocially-invested: in short, poetic rather than normative" (158).11 Paul Bove argues that "A counterhegemonic or oppositionalcriticism has certain minimal requirements: a historically specificresearch project oriented by autonomous developments elsewhere inculture and guided by a political program that avoids, as far aspossible, the suppression of memory and the division of labor that arethe hallmarks of the academy's general subservience to thehegemony. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , radical critical intellectuals must understandthe historical specificity of the cultural practices of their own periodwith an eye to bringing their own practice and discourse in line withother oppositional forces in a society struggling against hegemonicmanipulation and state violence" (Mastering Discourse 93).12 This includes even the most left-oriented or contestatorydiscourses, such as that of Mas'ud Zavarzadeh and Donald Morton,when they argue, for example, that "The ideological project of thehumanists is very similar to that of their neoconservative alliesoutside the academy, and their strategies have evolved around renewedemphasis on certain kinds of courses and the use of establishedinstitutional and bureaucratic channels to block radical change in theacademy" (15). The goal of "radical change," as it isexpressed here, owes at least some of its force to the metanarrative ofsocial progress.13 Michael Sprinker's analysis of the anti-P.C. right hasrelevance here, as in his claim that "The defense of Westernculture is characteristically, when one peels away the thin veneer about'maintaining standards,' a racist (and not infrequently sexistand class-biased) reaction to the democratization de��moc��ra��tize?tr.v. de��moc��ra��tized, de��moc��ra��tiz��ing, de��moc��ra��tiz��esTo make democratic.de��moc of American highereducation over the past quarter century" (109).14 This characteristic use of aporia a��po��ri��a?n.1. A figure of speech in which the speaker expresses or purports to be in doubt about a question.2. An insoluble contradiction or paradox in a text's meanings. in a catachrestic manner topoint to something which as yet has no name or cannot be defined withinour current thinking also relates to Derrida's recent writings onjustice in "Force of Law." I deal with these complicatedquestions in some depth in my forthcoming study, Deconstruction and theEthical Turn.15 This essay was delivered as a university lecture at Towson StateUniversity, sponsored by the Faculty Research Committee. I want toacknowledge here the crucial support from my colleagues at theuniversity - especially Sara Coulter, Elaine Hedges, and Dan Jones - andfrom other friends in the teaching community, including Henry Majewskiand Gene Miller.WORKS CITEDAltieri, Charles. Canons and Consequences: Reflections on the EthicalForce of Imaginative Ideals. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1990.Bernstein, Charles. A Poetics. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.Berube, Michael. Public Access: Literary Theory and American CulturalPolitics. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Verso ver��so?n. pl. ver��sos1. A left-hand page of a book or the reverse side of a leaf, as opposed to the recto.2. The back of a coin or medal. , 1994.Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. Reproduction inEducation, Society and Culture. Trans. Richard Nice. Beverly Hills:Sage, 1977.Bove, Paul. In the Wake of Theory. Hanover: Wesleyan UP/UP of NewEngland, 1992.-----. Mastering Discourse: The Politics of Intellectual Culture.Durham: Duke UP, 1992.De Man, Paul de Man, Paul(born Dec. 6, 1919, Antwerp, Belg.—died Dec. 21, 1983, New Haven, Conn., U.S.) Belgian-born U.S. literary critic. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1947, attended Harvard University, and in 1970 joined the faculty at Yale University, where he remained the rest . The Resistance to Theory. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P,1986.Derrida, Jacques. "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundationof Authority.'" Trans. Mary Quaintance. Deconstruction and thePossibility of Justice. Ed. Drucilla Cornell et al. New York: Routledge,1992. 3-67.-----. The Other Heading. Trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael B.Naas. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1992.-----. "The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes ofIts Pupils." Trans. Catherine Porter and Edward P. Morris.Diacritics 13 (1983): 3-20.Easthope, Antony. Literary into Cultural Studies. New York:Routledge, 1991.Fuss, Diana. Essentially Speaking: Nature, Feminism and Difference.New York: Routledge, 1990.Graff, Gerald. Professing Literature: An Institutional History.Chicago: U Chicago P, 1987.Harding, Sandra. "Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is'Strong Objectivity'?" The Centennial Review 36.3 (1992):437-70.Johnson, Samuel. "Preface to Shakespeare." 1765. Kaplan andAnderson 220-55.Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel(ĭmän`ĕl känt), 1724–1804, German metaphysician, one of the greatest figures in philosophy, b. Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). . "What is Enlightenment?" PhilosophicalWritings. Ed. Ernst Behler. New York: Continuum, 1991. 263-69.Kaplan, Charles, and William Anderson, eds. Criticism: MajorStatements. 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin's, 1991.Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition. Trans. Georges VanDen Abeele. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 1986.Minnich, Elizabeth Kamarck. Transforming Knowledge. Philadelphia:Temple UP, 1990.Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), written by American philosopher Richard Rorty, is based on two sets of lectures given at University College, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. . Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 1989.Said, Edward W Said, Edward W(adie)(born Nov. 1, 1935, Jerusalem—died Sept. 25, 2003, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Palestinian-born U.S. literary critic. Said was educated in Western schools in Jerusalem and Cairo before moving to the United States to attend Princeton and Harvard . Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.-----. The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge: Harvard UP,1983.Sidney, Sir Philip Sidney or Sydney, Sir Philip,1554–86, English author and courtier. He was one of the leading members of Queen Elizabeth's court and a model of Renaissance chivalry. . "An Apology for Poetry." 1595. Kaplanand Anderson 108-47.Sprinker, Michael. "The War Against Theory." The MinnesotaReview 39 (1992/1993): 103-21.West, Cornel. Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times. Monroe: CommonCourage, 1993.Williams, Jeffrey. "Packaging Theory." College English 56.3(1994): 280-99.Zavarzadeh, Mas'ud, and Donald Morton. "Theory PedagogyPolitics: The Crisis of 'the Subject' in the Humanities."Theory/Pedagogy/Politics. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1991. 1-32.Peter Baker is the author of two books on modern poetry as well asthe forthcoming Deconstruction and the Ethical Turn (Florida 1995). Hehas recent articles on Don DeLillo in Postmodern Culture, on PaulBlackburn in Sagetrieb, and on Barrett Watten in Aerial. He teachesmodern literature and theory at Towson State University. Timescapes for