Literary Studies R.I.P.?
So, once again we are told that literary criticism is ready to kick the bucket. But wait, Jonathan Gottschall has a cure!
Literary studies should become more like the sciences. Literature professors should apply science’s research methods, its theories, its statistical tools, and its insistence on hypothesis and proof. Instead of philosophical despair about the possibility of knowledge, they should embrace science’s spirit of intellectual optimism. If they do, literary studies can be transformed into a discipline in which real understanding of literature and the human experience builds up along with all of the words.
The quick way forward is two steps back. Gottschall’s use of the scientific method has revealed such earth-shattering new evidence as the presence of the author and the pressure on the artist to “make it new.” What is really being said in the above piece is that poststructuralism and other forms of literary theory had made the critical enterprise too unstable and let’s use science to get back to the familiar, conservative truths. (I fed the data into a machine and got the result which I’ve typed out in the previous sentence.)
Also check out this from the Nation
This is a different field. Do literary scholars have time to add new tools, of questionable value, to their arsenal? To the extent that research and scholarship flows into teaching (and isn’t that the point?) is it wise to compromise the heart of the humanities? Should all college courses be the same? Why don’t we just have computers write the literature and cut out the middle man?
Comment by B — May 13, 2008 @ 7:11 pm
I thought about this over night, and I still wonder: given your own idiosyncratic journey through “literary studies” or “english studies,” did you have any particular reactions to the piece in the Nation?
Comment by rl — May 17, 2008 @ 1:22 am
I don’t know if I agree that literary studies leads to philosophical despair. Why can’t it be intellectually optimistic as well? I don’t think applying scientific principles would be the most effective way to study literature. I’m curious to read the rest of the article when I have a little more time.
Comment by Angie — May 19, 2008 @ 4:39 pm