Steven Willett said:
"I believe that we should first provide students with the (a) historical background, (b) linguistic knowledge, (c) technical versification and (d) genre conventions of what we teach. These are subject to empirical verification and testing and ought to be the bedrock of literary studies, not criticism. Beyond that we get into hermeneutics."
I completely agree, with the one caveat that I would put linguistic knowledge before historical background. As English professionals, we should be appalled by and committed to waging war against the widespread illiteracy and aliteracy in our society. Such is clearly the duty that all the world expects of us, and failing that motivation, we can surely recognize that widespread, socially acceptable illiteracy sounds the death-knell of our departments.
Just how far we've fallen is apparent upon a little retrospection:
Hudson Taylor (the famous Christian missionary to China) was the sickly descendent of stone masons and reed makers. He was unable to go to school until he was eleven, and he was able to stay only two years before he had to go to work (mostly in his fathers reed shop, but with a nine-month stint as a junior clerk at a bank).
And yet here is a snippet from his correspondence with his sister (about four years his junior and never went to school), written at eighteen years old and in the month of November. Imagine this from a first-semester freshman writing in the Fall:
"In your last note you suggest that it might be a good plan to write to the Chinese Association and ask whether they could send me out as a married man. You must excuse my differing from you in opinion. I think that to do so would be to effectually prevent them. They would naturally conclude that I wanted to get married without means, and that I hope they would insure me from the consequences of such conduct. It would not do to write to them at all at present."
Compare this to the written communication of the teenage sons and daughters of the middle-class in our day, and the problem is manifest. In a society where reading and writing (in the full sense of the word, as exemplified above) are not widely used skills, real literature can never be widely enjoyed or understood. If it isn't widely enjoyed and understood, the majority of people will be less and less eager to pay to have it taught to their children. Herein, in my estimation, is the root of shrinking English departments.
And we, the professionals, are (with the parents) chiefly to blame.
There are certainly other contributing factors, including changes in technology and the rise of the visual media. It's not an ideal pedagogical situation by any stretch, and there's much that is out of our control. But at the end of the day, there's only one group in society both trained and strategically situated to stem the tide: Us.
And yet what do we do?
At my university, two semesters of English are required of students. That's only two, but it's still two. Every year, three thousand new students sit in our freshman English classes for two semesters while we get to take one last shot at teaching them to read and write like (and I mean this) *human* beings.
In one of those semesters (until recent changes) the goal was to teach students to write a literary paper from each of several critical perspectives, including New Critical, Reader-Response, Deconstructionist, and Feminist.
It's not about student intelligence or ability. It's about educator goals.
If for no other reason than the continued existence of our profession, we ought to throw the critical theory and film studies out the pedagogical window (and go teach in secondary schools if we have to) *until* we have a generation of students that once again knows how to read and write as humans were meant to.
(IMHO) :)
Work Cited: Taylor, Frederick Howard. <i>Hudson Taylor in Early Years: The Growth of a Soul.</i> Rpt 1998. Singapore: OMF International (formerly China Inland Mission), 1911. The bio sketch is derived from the first several chapters. The excerpt is taken from page 98.
>>> Ian <[log in to unmask]> 06/10/08 7:19 AM >>>
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Poster: Ian <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: A problem with pastoral
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Cheers for Professor Willett! I hope I am not misunderstanding his
position. I have returned to academic study after many years teaching and
administering in a secondary school/college environment. Now after two+
years studying within one of the premier universities in my country, I am
staggered to read the same sort of piffle that Professor Willett describes.
I thought I was some sort of fatuous idiot unable to understand what so many
Ph D theses' abstracts were really saying. I had discounted in my naivete
that students were being tailored to pursue areas of interest that reflected
glory on a minority point of view. I am struggling to say accurately and
fairly what it is I observe around me. Maybe I haven't been very clear, and
maybe you can cut me a little slack. I will not class myself as an academic
until I have at the least earned my Ph D.
But please, surely real scholarship is not the blind presentation of
personal prejudices, and moreover, surely real scholarship grows out of the
sort of process Professor Willett describes. Further, it can be
demonstrated that simple language is an excellent conveyor of complex ideas.
I hate to see language made deliberately complex in the belief that such is
scholarship. I hear agreement to this point around me, but I actually
witness only lip service.
Off my soapbox, out of the real world, back to the world of the theoretical!
Ian Lipke
UQ, Australia
From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Steven J. Willett
Sent: Monday, 9 June 2008 10:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A problem with pastoral
One of the issues we have debated with considerable heat over the past
fifteen years is the tendency of many academics, at least in the post-1800
literatures, to teach more like politicians, Marxists, sexual
revolutionaries or sociologists than professors of literature. The tendency
is particularly acute in black and feminist studies departments, but the
habit of proselytizing students is not confined to them or the literature of
the past 200 years.
<snip>
I am not anti-theory and most particularly not opposed to feminist studies
and black studies departments if their programs are conducted at the highest
levels of disinterested scholarship. But I've seen too many classes where
the professor has set out to tell the students what is moral and what is
immoral, what is racist and what is not, what is sexist and what is not, and
grading accordingly.
<snip>
Is this a middle way? I would say not and probably Charlie would say not.
It is at most a one-fourth way. It has been my experience, especially with
NASSR and MLA conferences that academics prefer by a huge majority to
indulge their own ethical hobby horses. Here is a link to this year's
Toronto NASSR conference where we will hear papers like "Queering
Man-Midwifery," "'Endless Dreams of Sickliness': Embodied Disease and
Revolution in Wordworth's Prelude," "Sympathy and the 'Mist of Nothing' of
Romanticism," "That 'strange and awful hour / of vast concussion': Reading
Time in Beachy Head," "Domesticated Discourse of Sexualtiy in Darwin's Loves
of Plants and its Imitators," "Technoromanticism Reanimated: A 'Grave'
Approach," "'A goddess of four years standing! incredible!': The Dazzling
Collectibility of the Venus de Medici," "'Things violently destroyed or
silently gone out of mind': Slow Death and Naturalist Time-Keeping" and many
another finely-wrought vase:
http://www.utoronto.ca/english/NASSR/program.html
No wonder ordinary readers want nothing to do with criticism. Without
graduate training, most of it's impenetrable to even well-read minds. And I
can assure Charlie that the conference will be awash with predigested
ethical claims, especially about the high accomplishment of say Charlotte
Smith, the equal of Wordsworth. Even I will be there in a panel on prosody,
where I will take the audience through the stages by which Wordsworth
created the most complex stanza form in the English language, explain why he
structured it as he did and show how it functions in perhaps his last great
masterpiece, "On the Power of Sound." But we few on the versification panel
are clearly in the backward and abysm of literary studies.
Steven J. Willett
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
US phone/fax: (503) 390-1070
Japan phone: (053) 475-4714
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<body lang=3DEN-US link=3Dblue vlink=3Dpurple style=3D'word-wrap: =
break-word;
-webkit-nbsp-mode: space;-webkit-line-break: after-white-space'>
<div class=3DSection1>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Cheers for Professor Willett! I hope I am not
misunderstanding his position. I have returned to academic =
study
after many years teaching and administering in a secondary =
school/college
environment. Now after two+ years studying within one of the =
premier
universities in my country, I am staggered to read the same sort of =
piffle that
Professor Willett describes. I thought I was some sort of fatuous =
idiot
unable to understand what so many Ph D theses’ abstracts were =
really
saying. I had discounted in my naivete that students were being =
tailored
to pursue areas of interest that reflected glory on a minority point of =
view.
I am struggling to say accurately and fairly what it is I observe around =
me. Maybe
I haven’t been very clear, and maybe you can cut me a little =
slack. I
will not class myself as an academic until I have at the least earned my =
Ph D.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'> But please, surely real scholarship is not the =
blind presentation
of personal prejudices, and moreover, surely real scholarship grows out =
of the
sort of process Professor Willett describes. Further, it can be
demonstrated that simple language is an excellent conveyor of complex =
ideas.
I hate to see language made deliberately complex in the belief that such =
is
scholarship. I hear agreement to this point around me, but I =
actually
witness only lip service.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Off my soapbox, out of the real world, back to the world =
of the
theoretical!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Ian Lipke<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>UQ, Australia<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style=3D'border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt =
0cm 0cm 0cm'>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><b><span =
style=3D'font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span>=
</b><span
style=3D'font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> =
Sidney-Spenser
Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] <b>On Behalf Of =
</b>Steven
J. Willett<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, 9 June 2008 10:56 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> [log in to unmask]<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: A problem with pastoral<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal>One of the issues we have debated with considerable =
heat
over the past fifteen years is the tendency of many academics, at least =
in the
post-1800 literatures, to teach more like politicians, Marxists, sexual
revolutionaries or sociologists than professors of literature. The
tendency is particularly acute in black and feminist studies =
departments, but
the habit of proselytizing students is not confined to them or the =
literature
of the past 200 years. <span =
style=3D'color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><snip><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal> I am not anti-theory and most particularly =
not opposed
to feminist studies and black studies departments if their programs are
conducted at the highest levels of disinterested scholarship. But =
I've
seen too many classes where the professor has set out to tell the =
students what
is moral and what is immoral, what is racist and what is not, what is =
sexist
and what is not, and grading accordingly. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'color:#1F497D'><snip><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal>Is this a middle way? I would say not and =
probably
Charlie would say not. It is at most a one-fourth way. It =
has been
my experience, especially with NASSR and MLA conferences that academics =
prefer
by a huge majority to indulge their own ethical hobby horses. Here =
is a
link to this year's Toronto NASSR conference where we will hear papers =
like
"Queering Man-Midwifery," "'Endless Dreams of =
Sickliness':
Embodied Disease and Revolution in Wordworth's Prelude," =
"Sympathy
and the 'Mist of Nothing' of Romanticism," "That 'strange and =
awful
hour / of vast concussion': Reading Time in Beachy Head," =
"Domesticated
Discourse of Sexualtiy in Darwin's Loves of Plants and its =
Imitators,"
"Technoromanticism Reanimated: A 'Grave'
Approach," “‘A goddess of four years standing!
incredible!’: The Dazzling Collectibility of the Venus de =
Medici,” “‘Things
violently destroyed or silently gone out of mind’: Slow Death and
Naturalist Time-Keeping” and many another finely-wrought =
vase: <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><a =
href=3D"http://www.utoronto.ca/english/NASSR/program.html">http://www.uto=
ronto.ca/english/NASSR/program.html</a><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span class=3Dapple-style-span><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"'>No
wonder ordinary readers want nothing to do with criticism. Without
graduate training, most of it's impenetrable to even well-read minds. =
And
I can assure Charlie that the conference will be awash with predigested =
ethical
claims, especially about the high accomplishment of say Charlotte Smith, =
the
equal of Wordsworth. Even I will be there in a panel on prosody, =
where I
will take the audience through the stages by which Wordsworth created =
the most
complex stanza form in the English language, explain why he structured =
it as he
did and show how it functions in perhaps his last great masterpiece, =
"On
the Power of Sound." But we few on the versification panel =
are
clearly in the backward and abysm of literary studies. =
</span></span><span
class=3Dapple-style-span><span style=3D'font-family:"'Helvetica =
CY'","serif"'> </span></span><span
class=3Dapple-style-span><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"'>
</span></span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";
color:black'>Steven J. Willett<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";
color:black'><a =
href=3D"mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]</a><o:p=
></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";
color:black'><a =
href=3D"mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]</a><o:p=
></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";
color:black'>US phone/fax: (503) 390-1070<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";
color:black'>Japan phone: (053) 475-4714<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";
color:black'><br>
<br>
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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