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I have no argument with the Berger point, although it does suggest that we may be looking for personal scholarship rather than a "movement". And maybe that's not a bad thing; I've heard (and used) terms like "New Textualism", "New Economic Criticism"; useful, each. But for better or worse we seem to be unable to synthesize the quite interesting sholarship now underway under a banner that isn't hopelessly reductive, or cryptically opaque. Perhaps what I experienced in 1995 (around the time of Kastan's comment), was the expectation of a new and clear movement, because I had been taught that such waves arrive every ten years or so. And I'm still waiting. But maybe the absense of a strong wave, which have notoriously dragged much bad scholarship along with them, allows for a different (better?) kind of environment, one characterized by a variety of interesting cross-currents. David L. Miller wrote: >If slogans are wanted, I always rather liked David Kastan's >proclamation, delivered about ten years ago at MLA, of "The New Boredom" >in literary study. Cultural studies informed by patient archival >drudgery, hard-nosed bibliographic and textual studies, but with a >theoretical edige. > >Then there's postcolonial hybridity, history of the family, and the new >formalism, which seeks to rehabilitate the aesthetic as a category. > >My money is on two prospects: > >1. Anything written by Harry Berger; > >and > >2. The Turn to Religion Turns to Theory. When the turn from New >Historicism to Neo-Angican studies finally remembers that Derrida wrote >extensively on religion during the last 15 years of his life, the whole >endeavor is likely to get a lot more interesting. > > > >David Lee Miller >Professor of English & Comparative Literature >University of South Carolina >Columbia, SC 29208 > >[log in to unmask] >803 777-4256 (office) >803 777-9064 (fax) >803 466-3947 (cell) > > > > > >>>>[log in to unmask] 4/23/2005 2:02:47 PM >>> >>>> >>>> >I got that article and read it -- it's very interesting. Of course, I >couldn't help notice that Jackson and Marotti's touted "Turn to >Religion" sounds remarkably appropriate to our own post-9/11 >zeitgeist, >with "The Passion of the Christ", God on the cover of Newsweek with >some >frequency, etc. Of course, I think Marotti and Jackson have a point >-- >my own criticism addresses pious literature, because I think it's very >interesting. But another thing that strikes me is that J and M's >notion >of where we are going seems remarkably different to Harry's. And >neither stance attaches itself to a marketable banner headline -- it >seems as if we refer to what we do as New Historicism, almost by >default >(apres la lettre?). > >Michael > >Bryan John Lowrance wrote: > > > >>Dear Michael, >> >>An interesting article for this is Ken Jackson and Arthur F. Marotti, >> >> >"The > > >>Turn to Religion in Early Modern Studies," Criticism, vol, 46, n. 1. >>(Winter 2004) pp. 167-90. It provides good bibliography and overview >> >> >of a > > >>lot of recent scholarship as well as providing some interesting >>theoretical analysis. If your school subscribes to Project Muse, >> >> >it's > > >>available on that. >> >>Best, >> >>Bryan Lowrance. >> >> >> >> >> >>>Dear All, >>> >>>I'm just finishing up a project with a student on her way to grad >>>school, and the idea is to get her oriented on graduate study >>> >>> >(literary > > >>>studies generally, and English Renaissance in particular). She asked >>> >>> >an > > >>>interesting question yesterday, which was, where are we currently? >>> >>> >When > > >>>I was at her stage in 1992, we all had a pretty clear idea of where >>> >>> >the > > >>>momentum was in literary scholarship, even though there were clearly >>>differing schools and opinions -- all scholarship seemed to be >>>positioned in one way or another with regard to the New Historicism. >>> >>> >So > > >>>I thought I'd turn the question out to the group: Is there a >>> >>> >collective > > >>>sense that we are operating in a particular phase of criticism -- >>> >>> >either > > >>>as Spenserians, Sidneyans, or more generally? >>> >>>All the best, >>> >>>Michael >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>