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On the religion issue, I highly recommend Karen Armstrong’s “The Lost Art of Scripture.” Among other things, it has a sophisticated take on why supposedly religious students may be ignorant about their own stories, but it’s a much richer book than that. It also offers some good reasons why the exegetical and hermeneutic arts—which are basically what we practice—are crucial for human thriving. Susanne > On Jan 13, 2020, at 11:38 AM, Hannibal Hamlin <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > There was a Gallop Poll a few years ago that revealed that the majority of members of all faith groups were ignorant about the tenets of their own faiths or denominations. And I've had the same experiences Peter and Martin describe of even zealous students who know little of the Bible. I've also had students who knew it well, though, even if their interpretations were rooted in received wisdom rather than careful reading. Of course, in the Catholic tradition knowledge of the Bible has not been deemed especially important. And some evangelicals might say that faith is not about knowledge but love, or something else. It may be Muslims who know their scripture best, since it's common for them (men anyway) to commit large parts of the Qur'an to memory. It's a complex business, and always has been. There's that astonishing story about a man somewhere out in the English countryside (a shepherd?) in the late 16th or early 17th century, who, when asked about his beliefs, said he'd once seen a play where a man was on a tree, and the blood ran down. > > My point was simply that what hard evidence there is suggests that we are a secular society on in the limited sense that we are free to choose for ourselves from among a variety of beliefs. Though we still haven't had a president who felt free, if so inclined, not to believe in God; they all seem required to make statements of faith. If by "secular" we mean non-religious, we aren't a secular country at all, and many countries are less secular still, in every sense. Durling is wrong about this (perhaps because Australia seems to have an unusually high percentage of non-believers, over 60%?), which undermines his argument about the humanities. > > Hannibal > > >> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 9:03 PM Peter Herman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> While I have no doubt that Hannibal has a point, for whatever it's worth, I've noticed a radical ignorance among my students of the most basic concepts and stories concerning Judaism and Christianity. As I've noted before, many of my students now have never heard of Samson. Most of my students in my upcoming Milton class will have never even glanced at Genesis, let alone know the differences between the Creation stories. And a colleague has reported that a student of her had never heard of Jesus. >> >> How to square this loss of knowledge with religion's continuing place in America, I don't know. >> >> pch >> >>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 5:50 PM Hannibal Hamlin <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> I posted something on Durling on FB recently, which I repost in hopes it might be of interest: >>> >>> "Since we're into the holiday season, I'm posting a thought on religion. A talk by Simon During printed in the Chronicle of Higher Education once again wrestles with the decline of the Humanities and relates it (originally) to the decline of religion. Leaving aside the Humanities for now, I'm once again perplexed, as I usually am, at the suggestion that religion is in decline, even "in the West," as Durling qualifies. I don't have a personal stake in this debate, I should perhaps confess, but if anyone actually looks at available data on religious belief, it's clear that the large majority of people in North America are believers, with at most 20-22% of Americans reporting as atheists or non-believers. There seems to be great variation among European countries, but overall the EU figures are about the same as in the US. Elsewhere in the world, an even greater percentage of people believe, and religious belief worldwide seems to be rising, not waning. The persistent commitment of some coastal academics to the idea of a secular modernity seems bizarre, and no doubt explains why they are sometimes so poor at understanding not only the wide world but these United States. Just saying. " >>> >>>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 8:43 PM Peter Herman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>>> True that. Like Douthait's piece, Durling's essay has parts I agree with and parts I don't, but it is exceptionally intelligent and well-written. >>>> >>>> pch >>>> >>>>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 4:32 PM Quitslund, Beth <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>>>> Simon During's piece--the one that panics Douthat--is well worth a read. It is has the virtue of trying to model the larger cultural shifts around the humanities in a thoroughly humanistic way. >>>>> >>>>> Beth >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Typed, probably badly, on my phone. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -------- Original message -------- >>>>> From: David Miller <[log in to unmask]> >>>>> Date: 1/12/20 2:47 PM (GMT-05:00) >>>>> To: [log in to unmask] >>>>> Subject: Re: "Crisis in English" continued (in today's NYT)... spot the Spenserian >>>>> >>>>> I skimmed the Chronicle pieces, but hadn't the heart to really read them. >>>>> >>>>> I suspect that there's a kind of alienated narcissism in our belief that the discipline is foundering because of how we do the work. I think the causes are vaster and less amenable to control. We aren't losing majors because some of us don't want to prescribe merit. We are, however, losing a generation of students to the genteel poverty of insurmountable debt, losing our universities to global corporate culture, and losing tenured positions to the ruthless force of market capitalism. >>>>> >>>>> If teaching better or differently could save the day, it would already have happened. After decades of reading my colleagues' evaluations, I know that most lit classrooms are places of intellectual ferment that inspire students. We should stop blaming ourselves for forces way beyond our control: surely a perverse form of egotism. >>>>> >>>>> Martin, you may be right about Northwestern. I wouldn't know. But some of my best graduate students over the years have been evangelical Christians whose values overlapped with mine only incidentally, and mostly just in the study of Renaissance literature. The profession is very large (even still), much larger than its elite enclaves. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 10:28 AM Peter Herman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>>>>> Thanks for sending. >>>>>> >>>>>> But I could not find Jon Quitslund's comment. >>>>>> >>>>>> Could someone please distribute it? >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks in advance, >>>>>> >>>>>> pch >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 6:26 AM Martin Mueller <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>>>>>> Ross Douthat has always been a fan of Pope Benedict. In reading his op-ed piece I was reminded of a letter I sent to the president of my university shortly after Cardinal Ratzinger became pope. For another dimension of that piece and the comments it generated, one might also think of Aristophanes’ Clouds—the story of Strepsiades, the ‘twisted’ or ‘twisting’ parent, who pays good money to send his son to the thinkery of Socrates where he learns how to make the weaker argument the stronger and ends up arguing that it is OK to beat up your mother. Whereupon the clouds descend apocalyptically. 423 BCE. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Here is the letter: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The deepest problem in the humanities at Northwestern and similar institutions may well be tacit and deeply embedded patters of recruitment and self-selection that have developed over the past generation and have produced what is from a longer perspective a radical narrowing of the intellectual dispositions of the scholars and critics who labour in the vineyards of history, literature, philosophy, art, music, and religion--broadly speaking the major subdivision of the humanities. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Consider the cases of Theodor or Theresa Ratzinger and Maria or Josef Adorno, fictional grand or great grant nephews and nieces of Pope Benedict XVI and Theodor Adorno. These were in their day spectacularly successful German academics with odd and deep similarities, despite the fact that one >>>>>>> >>>>>>> is known as a systematic theologian of a markedly conservative bent and the other was among the most famous Western Marxist theorists of his generation. But both were known as speculative thinkers of a very high order with deep roots in the German metaphysical tradition. Both have reputations as gifted musicians. Both are known for deep ambivalence towards a mass and consumer culture that has spread from America. Both had disastrous encounters with the student revolution of the sixties. Students drove Adorno out of the lecture room and may have caused the heart attack from which he died. The same generation drove the gifted theologian Ratzinger from Tubingen to Regensburg, from perhaps the most speculative of all German academic habitats to a place that was never known for academic distinction but famous as an Archdiocese. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Pope Benedict had the nickname of "Cardinal No." There is an anecdote about Adorno in a Hegel seminar. He elaborated on a complex passage, when a student pointed out a textual problem in the passage which involved a "no". "Umso besser," Adorno is supposed to have exclaimed, in the best spirit of Goethe's devil, as "der Geist der stets verneint," or the "spirit that always negates." Two "Doctor No's" in short, are deeply joined at the hip as naysayers. The substance of the No may matter less than the doctrinal certainty with which it is uttered--even though the substantial difference concerns the very existence of substance. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Now consider their grand nieces and grand nephews. The proverbial apple has not fallen far off the tree: they are all very gifted, with marked interests in speculative thought and in the arts. But in disposition and outlook, the young Adornos and Ratzingers are very much Adornos and Ratzingers. Imagine some of them applying to graduate school at Northwestern. What would we do? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> There is no question about the Adornos: we would welcome them with open arms and shower on them all the gifts at our disposal. Every admission committee >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I can imagine would rejoice at the prospect of recruiting students who are so exactly "what we are looking for." But what about the Ratzingers? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I doubt whether we would welcome them with open arms. Earnest admission ommittees might decide after much deliberation that despite their unquestionably strong records they lack theoretical sophistication. Or if they came, we would not go out of our way to make them feel welcome. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On the other hand, the question is largely academic. The Ratzingers would probably not apply in the first play. They learned a long time ago that the humanities departments of universities like Northwestern are not places where their way of being in the world is valued. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The loss, however, is entirely ours. There is a lot of rhetoric about interdisciplinarity and reaching out across this boundary or that. But this vaunted give and take happens across a much diminished spectrum. And my fear is that the humanities will wither on the vine until the space of argument widens and deepens. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I am not sure whether there is anything that university administrators can do about this. How do you change the weather? On the other hand, without some change in the weather, it is idle to think that this initiative or that initiative will do much good. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of "Herron, Thomas" <[log in to unmask]> >>>>>>> Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> >>>>>>> Date: Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 6:27 AM >>>>>>> To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> >>>>>>> Subject: "Crisis in English" continued (in today's NYT)... spot the Spenserian >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Dear List, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> an interesting article in today's NYT by Ross Douhat with even more interesting commentary, including a post-MLA posting by Jon Quitslund. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/opinion/sunday/academics-humanities-literature-canon.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Opinion | The Academic Apocalypse - The New York Times >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The crisis of English departments is also a crisis of faith. This column tries to keep its cool, but last week I briefly surrendered to crisis and existential dread, to the sense that an entire ... >>>>>>> >>>>>>> www.nytimes.com >>>>>>> >>>>>>> See also posts by other academics who dare name themselves, including Eileen Botting of Notre Dame. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Bonus points if you find the references to Fulke Greville and Middlemarch. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Many regards, --Tom >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Thomas Herron >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Professor of English >>>>>>> Department of English >>>>>>> East Carolina University >>>>>>> (252) 328-6413 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Writer/Director, Centering Spenser: A Digital Resource for Kilcolman Castle >>>>>>> http://core.ecu.edu/umc/Munster/ >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >>>>>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >>>>>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Peter C. Herman >>>>>> Professor of English Literature >>>>>> San Diego State University >>>>>> >>>>>> Unspeakable: Literature and Terrorism from the Gunpowder Plot to 9/11 >>>>>> https://www.routledge.com/Unspeakable-Literature-and-Terrorism-from-the-Gunpowder-Plot-to-9-11/Herman/p/book/9780367249007 >>>>>> >>>>>> Editor, Critical Concepts: Terrorism and Literature >>>>>> https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-literature/B276DBD28A55D10FA05ED356716C74B2# >>>>>> >>>>>> Editor, with Elizabeth Sauer, The New Milton Criticism >>>>>> https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/new-milton-criticism/082A6DAA78B170EA428DFCD098BF60E1# >>>>>> >>>>>> Destabilizing Milton: "Paradise Lost" and the Poetics of Incertitude (Palgrave) >>>>>> https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781403967619 >>>>>> >>>>>> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >>>>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> David Lee Miller >>>>> 837 Camellia Street >>>>> Columbia, SC 29205 >>>>> [log in to unmask] >>>>> (803) 466-3947 >>>>> >>>>> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >>>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >>>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Peter C. Herman >>>> Professor of English Literature >>>> San Diego State University >>>> >>>> Unspeakable: Literature and Terrorism from the Gunpowder Plot to 9/11 >>>> https://www.routledge.com/Unspeakable-Literature-and-Terrorism-from-the-Gunpowder-Plot-to-9-11/Herman/p/book/9780367249007 >>>> >>>> Editor, Critical Concepts: Terrorism and Literature >>>> https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-literature/B276DBD28A55D10FA05ED356716C74B2# >>>> >>>> Editor, with Elizabeth Sauer, The New Milton Criticism >>>> https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/new-milton-criticism/082A6DAA78B170EA428DFCD098BF60E1# >>>> >>>> Destabilizing Milton: "Paradise Lost" and the Poetics of Incertitude (Palgrave) >>>> https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781403967619 >>>> >>>> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Hannibal Hamlin >>> Professor of English >>> The Ohio State University >>> Author of The Bible in Shakespeare, now available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199677610.do >>> 164 Annie & John Glenn Ave., 421 Denney Hall >>> Columbus, OH 43210-1340 >>> [log in to unmask] >>> [log in to unmask] >>> >>> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >>> >> >> >> -- >> Peter C. Herman >> Professor of English Literature >> San Diego State University >> >> Unspeakable: Literature and Terrorism from the Gunpowder Plot to 9/11 >> https://www.routledge.com/Unspeakable-Literature-and-Terrorism-from-the-Gunpowder-Plot-to-9-11/Herman/p/book/9780367249007 >> >> Editor, Critical Concepts: Terrorism and Literature >> https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/terrorism-and-literature/B276DBD28A55D10FA05ED356716C74B2# >> >> Editor, with Elizabeth Sauer, The New Milton Criticism >> https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/new-milton-criticism/082A6DAA78B170EA428DFCD098BF60E1# >> >> Destabilizing Milton: "Paradise Lost" and the Poetics of Incertitude (Palgrave) >> https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781403967619 >> >> To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: >> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 >> > > > -- > Hannibal Hamlin > Professor of English > The Ohio State University > Author of The Bible in Shakespeare, now available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199677610.do > 164 Annie & John Glenn Ave., 421 Denney Hall > Columbus, OH 43210-1340 > [log in to unmask] > [log in to unmask] > > To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: > https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1 ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the SIDNEY-SPENSER list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=SIDNEY-SPENSER&A=1