Did You Miss Me?

You certainly missed new content—site stats don't lie, they merely differ markedly as to the number of you who stop by and the frequency with which you do so—and after five days of flying knees-tight in airplanes; driving spine-crunched in cars; sitting through commencement speeches dull enough to melt your unmentionables; and spending one evening among old friends—one of whom reads this blog but bails out on you at 1 AM (ONE AM!) pleading exhaustion—after five days of that you're just going to have to settle for missing it some more.  As of now I'm only able to produce sentences of Faulknerian length and Fourth Gradian clarity. 

But I have quite a bit on the burner for this week, including:

1. A substantial review of Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World. 
2. Advance notice of a project in which I'll devote a post per week to a prominent thespian whose works I've expressed strong dislike for in the past but which, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I've acquired a sudden desire to read seriously.
3. Answering all the email which has graced my inbox unanswered for the past three weeks or so, as well as an explanation as to why I sometimes find it difficult to answer the five or emails I daily receive from you wonderful strangers when I also have 297 student emails in my inbox.
4. Responding to the comments left whilst I was without reliable internet connection.  (There are some great ones which need responses from some better version of me than I can currently muster.)
5. Writing a response to Laura's comment  (and Marco's too) about loving the one you're with you teach, which strikes me far more forcefully now than it did last week (and which, yes, has something to do with both #1 and #2).
6. (As does the post I plan to write in response to CR's comment about the relationship of teachers to careers vis-a-vis last week's "revelatory" post about my intellectual heritage.  (I have posts responding to pretty much every comment in that thread.  I'm currently unsure which will be comments and which will stand alone as posts.  I reserve the right to change my mind without being held accountable for doing so.)
7. Recounting the two very interesting conversations I had on the trip to Houston and on the trip back.  The first has to do with Sean's current celebrity; the second, with my future celebrity.
8. And, finally, responding to the flurry of debate about a certain novel by a certain expat Russian novelist which lately has been getting reduced to, well, openly advocating pedophilia.  But doesn't.  That needs to be said and hasn't been yet. I will bravely swim counter-current and demand people stop taking literature for propaganda despite frequently treating it as such.  (Because that's how I roll . . .  hypocritical.)

And that's just the beginning. 

A week without blogging will bring harvest to this barren blog.  (Or will if I don't drown in work come tomorrow.)

Comments

[CR]

Just to head off what I think would be very unproductive discussion, I think an answer to my comment and Laura and Marco's comments might best come in the same breath.

We COULD go down the theory=bad work, teaching, thinking route. But we'd end up in the logjam named "No, you're wrong. And here's evidence. I'M evidence." Right?

But a more productive discussion would be one, I think, that takes up the question of why exactly we do what we do. My major issue with your post was that I saw a paucity - or even a complete lack - of Actual Intellectual Questions driving this intellectual biography. Which I'm sure is not really the case. I'm as hardcore careerist, in certain senses, as they come. But my careerism still takes second place - a distant second place - to the issues that I've been trying to work out for myself from, well, childhood, it increasingly seems to me. (Having a child on the verge of intellectual life - interaction with the real world / language vs. just the boob - has been pounding me with this day in and day out for a few months now). I have found that the closer that I keep to the issues that are actually important to me, what keeps me up at night thinking and reading and writing, the happier I am and, so far, the better I do.

The trick, as is always the trick in intellectual production, is adapting what is most authentically mine to what the market demands. In other words, communication, which is always a compromise. If it became a question of "what the market demands" in exclusion of what is mine - if I couldn't or wouldn't do what I like, even in pseudo-samizdat - why bother? This work is too hard and unrewarding to play at it like a game.

In a sense, for me, blogging is a means to keep close to What It Is That I Am Truly Interested In. This is the flip side of the whole critique of anonymous blogging. I am allowed to take pot shots without taking blame, yes. But on the other hand, why is it that I am even here? Why keep the blog if no credits accrue to my meatself?

[Adam Roberts]

"I'll devote a post per week to a prominent thespian whose works I've expressed strong dislike for in the past but which, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I've acquired a sudden desire to read seriously ..."

Who's the thesp? Is it Tom Cruise? Is it? Is it? Eh? Come out of the Cruise-closet Scott, come on!

[Rich Puchalsky]

"And, finally, responding to the flurry of debate about a certain novel by a certain expat Russian novelist "

Which oddly enough came up here too -- guess where.

Unrelatedly, CR writes:

"We COULD go down the theory=bad work, teaching, thinking route. But we'd end up in the logjam named "No, you're wrong. And here's evidence. I'M evidence." Right?

But a more productive discussion would be one, I think, that takes up the question of why exactly we do what we do."

Isn't it a commonplace, though, that questions that anyone has from childhood are the questions that never get answered? So that the questions that actually affect what we work on tend to be the adult ones. That said, Scott's description of why he thinks as he does does not seem to be dependent merely on particular teachers, or a lack of intellectual engagement with important questions. Rather it seems that he describes his involvement with a style that he thought could help him answer questions, and that he decided couldn't. That's what "intellectual seriousness" means in this context, I think.

I agree that the impulse among theory's detractors to universalize it as bad work, teaching, thinking should be avoided. After all, it's part of the humanities at this point, and it's pretty much part of the self-definition of the humanities that no widespread historical style can be fully "bad". But at some point theory is going to occupy the same status vis-a-vis what you're doing as the New Criticism, right? It's historically inevitable.

[CR]

Feel free to ignore the "from childhood" bit. Was being a bit romantically hyperbolic in the wake from some quality time with the kiddo, buying her toys and so forth. Your questions don't have to come from childhood - just need to have questions leading the way, imho.

But at some point theory is going to occupy the same status vis-a-vis what you're doing as the New Criticism, right? It's historically inevitable.

Actually, Rich, in a lot of ways they already occupy the same status in my work. I've discussed this before...

[Rich Puchalsky]

OK, then the question becomes, what works within theory, and what doesn't? Or perhaps that's too pragmatic, but the meaning of "works" has to take the academic, scholarly context into account, I would think, so it isn't really an individual criterion. Scott's particular criticisms have always struck me as being of the variety I'd paraphrase as "Academia demands a certain kind of carefulness which theory discourages" -- carefulness both in the sense of considerating alternates and justifying one's preference among them.

[Jason]

That's right. 1AM. Actually, 1AM CST--Mr. I-live-in-the-Pacific-Time-Zone.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Just to head off what I think would be very unproductive discussion, I think an answer to my comment and Laura and Marco's comments might best come in the same breath.

I didn't plan on being unproductive in the least; in fact, I had planned on granting Laura and Marco some points, and responding to you by saying that I seemed to have masked my intellectual development with the development of my interests...but now IT'S ON! Alright, no it isn't. But only because I have that post pretty much written already. (Hell, Rich nearly boiled down into a sentence. I've more to add, of course, including a bit about "love," but that'll have to wait until later tonight.)

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

By the way, if it looks like I'm ignoring certain comments, I'm not. I only got comment notifications on about half of those, composed my response in Outlook then slapped in the window. I'm not sure what's up with TypePad, but something is. Anyhow:

Adam: You'll just have to wait a few weeks to find out. I could be a tease and leave some clues, but why bother?

Jason: Excuses, excuses...valid ones, certainly, but excuses nevertheless.

[CR]

"Academia demands a certain kind of carefulness which theory discourages"

I guess that I'm a bit more worried about what these questions demand, what the world demands of me and what I demand of myself than "what academia demands" - which is secondary, at times a handicap, other times an enabling limitation.

[Rich Puchalsky]

CR: "I guess that I'm a bit more worried about what these questions demand, what the world demands of me and what I demand of myself than "what academia demands" - which is secondary, at times a handicap, other times an enabling limitation."

Well, questions don't really demand anything other than as part of a rhetorical expression, nor does "the world", so I hope that you don't mind if I treat these first two as being synonyms for what you demand of yourself. But academia does demand certain things in a sociological, subcultural, scholarly norms kind of way.

One of the recurring criticisms of theory is that it encourages every academic to try to be a Nietzsche. There's a sort of fundamental problem there, it seems to me. Not everyone can be Nietzsche, and Nietzsche did his well-known work after he had to give up being an academic.

[CR]

But academia does demand certain things in a sociological, subcultural, scholarly norms kind of way.

Yep. It surely does. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But no one writes innovative work by aiming directly at the bullseye of the scholarly norm. It's a dialectic, Rich...

One of the recurring criticisms of theory

Well, at least in these parts.

You know what, the "Accept Your Probable Mediocrity" argument isn't the greatest argument ever invented. It's kind of hilariously dumb, actually... Like, literary academia should trade theory for something more appropriate to the bottom quartile of grad students.

[Rich Puchalsky]

The "Accept Your Probable Mediocrity" argument is pretty funny, yes. But there's an element of seriousness to it, even (and no, I'm not writing this to wind you up) an element of leftist politics. If someone really wants to be the Nietzschean Superperson, and has the talent or whatever to do it, then academic norms aren't going to stop them. But telling everyone that they should aspire to be that is no longer really Nietzschean; it has more to do with celebrity culture and late capitalism. Theory is mostly an American movement, right? Well, this is the American Dream -- don't be concerned about what ordinary people do, because you always can pull yourself up by your bootstraps into superstardom if you work hard enough. A leftist society is supposed to have meaningful work not only for the lowest quartile, but for the next two quartiles -- hey, you're probably considered "mediocre" if you're in the lowest 99%. (I wonder whether a study of numbers of citations would show that the top 1% of people cited have a greater proportion of the total than the top 1% of the U.S. population have of wealth? But I digress. There's really nothing wrong with having the distribution of citations be so skewed, because academia is supposed to be a meritocracy.)

A lot of the folkways of academia are supposed to free you from this kind of thing. Tenure, for instance, means among other things that you don't have to always worry about what you've done lately is brilliant enough to keep you your job. Disciplinary norms mean that you're supposed to be able to use other people's work and contribute your own as something useful, even if not groundbreaking. Sure, no one aims "directly at the bullseye of the scholarly norm", but there's a serious question of how high you're going to habitually try for. Because once it becomes everyone's habit to try to answer the really important questions, then it really does become funny.

[CR]

No one is trying to be the ubermensch, Rich. Some have achieved a certain level of renown - but only in the most limited of circles. Come on. We're not talking Entertainment Weekly here.

If it's the American system of higher education that you want to talk about, let's talk about that. There are 50 physicists gaming state universities for Biooptimetricalicity Centers and Radiononticdentology Programs (only to leave, the next year, for the State Uni or Ivy down the road) for every Zizek.

Theory could be banished tomorrow. But the desire to outperform your neighbor would remain. Such is life in the US, any high performing career track.

This has nothing to do with theory. If we're weren't trying to be Nietzsches (not really what we're trying for, but whatever) we'd be trying to be, dunno, Empson or Leavis or the critical Eliot or somebody.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Well, I know physics. In physics there are well-determined routes by which you can try, fail, and still end up doing useful work. In astrophysics, for instance, there's a convention of titling papers "In Search Of X", which translates into "I looked for X and didn't find it." That is publisheable because it's still useful information to the next person who might think of looking for X or the theorist who might base a theory on X not being detected.

The point being, I'm not sure that a heavily Theory-dependent work that tries and fails really leaves much. If Scott's dissertation turns out to not conclude anything remarkeable, it'll still be looked at by the next person to work on that time/place, for the value of its accumulated research. If someone tries to be the next critical Eliot and fails, they'll still be expert on whatever works they consider. But if you try to write like Derrida and fail, what are you left with? Not much. I'm not saying that people actually want to be Nietzsche or Derrida (although it's a useful analogy), but a mediocre version of anything like Derrida's style wouldn't produce anything useful to anyone.

[Matt]

Dear God, Rich. Kindly point to the place where you demonstrate that you've carefully read and understood *any* Derrida, if you would say such clichéd, tiresome things.

I suppose it's of little use pointing out how your argument rather depends upon repeating the caricature of Derrida as rock-star, and the caricature of his students as mere stylistic sycophants and vain imitators.

Of course there's some truth to these observations (and plenty of bad examples one could cite in support of them), but it's finally neither very useful nor interesting to dwell on (as anything but a cheap shot, really) come the end of the day. It's like dwelling on the decades-old dregs as an excuse to blame the coffee for some inherent, fundamental flaw, when there's plenty of rather good new combinations of coffee out there, if only one cares to look.

I mean, not everything the man said was an enigmatic tone poem, after all. He was capable of being as clear as any number of analytic philosophers, and this clarity (and generosity, especially in interviews) was arguably as much a part of his "style" as anything.

Out of genuine curiosity though, could you provide an example? Would something like this fit the 'nothing useful to anyone' bill? Something else?

Do you think these analogies with what is useful in astrophysics might possibly be a little stretched?

[CR]

You are totally unaware of the current mode of writing in literary humanities. I don't mean to be rude, but seriously, you are. First off, no one "tries to write like Derrida." Not in American literature departments anyway. Secondly, of course theoretically inflected work adds to the storehouse of knowledge, whether totally successful (what would this mean?) or mostly not (what would this mean?)

Say I want to write on, I dunno, Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year. I look around a find a 1980s upsurge in Foucauldian readings of the text - it's all about emergent forms of discipline etc... Well, I don't think it's ALL about emergent forms of discipline, I think it's also about an upsurge in human activity in the face of death / modernity. I build upon this Foucauldian material, which in fact makes my finding all the more interesting, doesn't it, and cite it and argue with it, and move forward into my own specific perspective.

When you talk about "theory-dependent work," it sounds like you mean "just pulling stuff out of your ass." Which, well, has happened of course, I'm sure. But it is not a specifically theoretical problem. The idea that theoretically inflected research and argument closes the door to the furtherance of some sort of knowledge is just plain wrong.

It just seems like you imagine departments full of junior faculty generating piles of derivative versions of Glas or something. Nope....

There are dangers with both the theoretical model and the democracy of physicists model and what you're deploying as Scott's model, to be sure. Theorists work under the threat of overestimating the provocation value of their findings. (Finding the symptoms of imperialist ideologies in Joseph Conrad isn't going to end imperialism). Physicists (your physicists above) risk banality - my lab notebooks recording the velocity of the beer cans hitting the floor every night as I type on here probably won't really push the paradigms forward. The "research" driven model of humanities writing - well - risks the same thing. All datapoints without a point, any actual reason to read it.

[CR]

The "research" driven model of humanities writing - well - risks the same thing. All datapoints without a point, any actual reason to read it.

This, of course, wasn't a backhanded slap at Scott, whose work I haven't read, sounds very interesting, so much as an anxiety that I've experienced myself, in my own work (surprise surprise). Loading the text with Pertinent Historical Contextualization until the argument itself disappears under the weight of what Little Man A told the Manchester Shipward Reporter in 1897, the color of the socks that Little Man B wore the day he left Bolton, that sort of thing.

Like, I guess someone might find it useful someday. Sometimes it's hard to imagine whom, exactly.

But just wanted to make clear, that there's a danger in this model too. Banality.

[jholbo]

CR writes: "You know what, the "Accept Your Probable Mediocrity" argument isn't the greatest argument ever invented. It's kind of hilariously dumb, actually... Like, literary academia should trade theory for something more appropriate to the bottom quartile of grad students."

I have a feeling that CR is hereby referencing an argument I made some time back. If so, I would just like to be on the record as stating that this is a kind of hilariously, um, not correct reading of my argument. (If CR says he definitely didn't have me in mind, but some actual to gosh mediocrity-advocate he dug up somewhere, I retract my complaint.)

If CR does have me in mind, then the source of his trouble is a failure to distinguish between advocacy of mediocrity, on the one hand, and concern about a rather specific, characteristic sort of slippage between scholarly rhetoric and the realities of scholarship, on the other. There are demands for results, and then there are demands for resultiness, if you will. Resultiness in the humanities is often cobbled together out of bits extracted from the edifice of philosophy - you daub and ornament your work with a trimming of anti-foundationalist paradigm-busting, for example; when really there was just this nice thing you noticed about Robinson Crusoe. Or whatever it may have been. I was trying to illustrate this very problem with some close readings in my discussion of Armstrong's "How Novels Think". But CR didn't exactly buy it, if I recall.

At any rate, I think it is important to meditate on the institutional maw that demands to be fed with resultiness. And I do not think this amounts to advocating mediocrity.

On the other hand, who can be brave and strong, in a scholarly sense, without indulging in a bit of self-promotional resultiness? But in conceding so much, I think it is important to see that the resultiness-loving portion of our soul is not necessarily the best angel of our natures. Perhaps we should aspire higher, not setting our sights so low.

[Rich Puchalsky]

"Writing like Derrida" was a phrase that I knew that I shouldn't have used. At any rate, no I don't mean that Derrida wrote enigmatic tone poems. But at the most basic level, his style of analysis doesn't seem to me to work unless there's a big heaping of old-fashioned scholarly carefulness underlying it.

OK, here's an example, a well-known one so I won't be accused of criticizing some mediocrity. Remember the _Scattered Speculations_ essay that there was a symposium on recently? Perhaps that's not really in the right subdiscipline, but I believe that Spivak is considered to be a literary critic in addition to being a philosopher. Compare her treatment of Marxian concepts in that essay with Derrida's in _Specters of Marx_. Spivak's essay is full of "huh?" moments, as in when she turns from a consideration of the labor theory of value to a bit on literary value, then goes back to labor as source of value, with never an explanation of how the two could possibly be related. (Sure, I accept that literary value and economic value are in some ways related -- but not through labor.) Derrida never in any place in _Specters of Marx_ that I noticed uses a play on words merely to elide, rather than to illustrate, consideration of some analytic concept.

Now Spivak is of course a superstar rather than an average academic toiling away. But I don't think that this particular essay of hers seems very useful, frankly. Derrida's book wasn't what I in particular was looking for, since I thought that it was going to address the ostensible topic "Whither Marxism?" in a more sustained way than it did; I don't think that the 3-4 pages on the "New International" broke any new ground. But it still appeared to me to be a great literary reading of Marx. As such it in a certain sense represents a useful failure by my criteria. Spivak's essay, on the other hand, is based on an imperial overstretch into economics that I think can only result in confusion.

[CR]

I was referring to Rich's instantiation of it above. Yours is more elegant. I've found it very valuable to think about, actually, since we last discussed it.

It's a double edged sword, I think. The way I'd put it: On the one hand, theory encourages engagement in matters philosophic, social, political. Engagement is good, to my mind. Better than "this pentameter is so damn iambic." (I've done that - btw. My start was at an undergraduate program where I read not a single work of theory. Just poetry, heaps of it, and a couple novels). On the other hand, yes, theory may encourage a false sense of engagement when there's none there.

(Since engagement for me is a good thing - my version of your theory is inverted. Rather than "forces people toward resultiness," I'd say "encourages them to see it where its not.")

So, I think you too might fail to distinguish between advocacy and concern, but in the other direction.

(HEY! Why are you writing about me in the third person, weirdo? This ain't the TLS letters section! Scott, can you pass a rule about this? He's ruining the blogtimacy!)