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Yes, I think your account of the dispersion of the mission of NH coinciding with the interrogation of some of its (originally) defining preoccupations is right. I'm troubled by the phrase "religious turn" simply because, as you point out, it's so liable to ambiguity/misreading -- as if people have not been working on Donne for the past twenty years. But for what it's worth, I find your phrase of a "New Syncretism" intriguing, especially because it hints at a revisioning of the original analogy between modern scholars of the renaissance (who want to speak with dead Renaissance poets) and Renaissance poets (who wanted to speak with Rome and Athens); if I take your implication correctly, the analogy that you would be replacing would be to liken our pluralistic and biased academe (under religious pressures) seeking to find a position to understand the God-centered Renaissance with the equally complicated relationship between post-Reformation writers who negotiated simultaneously between a religiously fraught present and a religiously foreign pagan past. I don't know if it's important for a new movement to tie itself to such a self-positioning analogy, but if it is, I like this one, because it reflects our concerns but also our panaply of divergent perspectives on how this scholarly syncretism would operate. Michael Hannibal Hamlin wrote: > Much depends, of course, on what the "religious turn" constitutes. I > spend > much of my time studying things religious (or biblical), not for any > confessional reasons (it strikes me as sad that any study of religious > culture has to be prefaced by some form of authorial confession of > faith -- > no one studying Ovidian influences feels compelled to clarify their own > paganism), but because it seems to me that (a) religion impinged on > virtually everything in the period, and (b) it's in the realm of the > religious (broadly consider) that one often finds people at their most > serious and engaged. I found Diarmuid McCullough's remarks at RSA > encouraging and important -- he argued for a more confessionally > detached, > indeed secular, approach to Reformation studies. My hopes would be the > same for studies of religion and (or in) literature. It would be > refreshing if we could finally get beyond the old Protestant-Catholic > polemic (which doesn't mean, of course, rejecting either Catholicism or > Protestantism, not to mention Judaism or Islam). > > On the matter of "new" approaches more generally, my feeling tends to be > that the more neatly I can peg a critic as "X" or "Y," the less > interesting > and useful I generally find her or his work. I'd advocate a New > Syncretism > (though maybe we should drop the "New"s altogether!). > > On New Historicism, isn't it the case that some of the general principles > -- the importance of situating literary works in their > historical-cultural > contexts, say -- have become part of the critical mainstream, absorbed > into > the general discourse, but that we have (I would say happily) moved > beyond > the narrowly Foucauldian, oppression-and-subversion model of culture? > > Hannibal > > > > At 05:29 PM 4/24/05 -0500, you wrote: > >> Oddly Jackson and Marotti focus on the ethical aspects of the "religious >> turn" to the exclusion of the political. Terry Eagleton has gone back >> to his >> Catholic roots to salvage Marxist theory with Aristotle and Aquinas. >> Alain >> Badiou has gone to St. Paul for a new militant figure. Likewise, Slavoj >> Zizek wants a "materialist fundamentalism" and goes to Lenin, Lacan, St. >> Paul and G. K. Chesterton. Stanley Fish, who predicted the "religious >> turn" >> as well, keeps gleefully dancing on the enlightenment corpse of liberal >> pluralism, and Jurgen Habermas is making common cause with Benedict >> XVI to >> save it. Fascinating time. -Dan Knauss >> >> > -----Original Message----- >> > From: Michael Seanger [mailto:[log in to unmask]] >> > Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 1:03 PM >> > Subject: Re: Momentum? Trajectory? >> > >> > >> > 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 >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> -- >> I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has >> removed >> 15518 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in >> their >> emails. Try www.SPAMfighter.com for free now! >> >> -- >> No virus found in this outgoing message. >> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >> Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.10.2 - Release Date: 4/21/2005 >> > > Hannibal Hamlin > Assistant Professor of English > The Ohio State University > 1680 University Drive > Mansfield, OH 44906 > 419-755-4277 > [log in to unmask]