Friday, April 30, 2004
(9:26 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
I said to my reflection, Let's get out of this place
John Holbo wrote another post about literary studies blogging. (I interrupt: I've discovered through blogging that I have very little control over the contents of my Windows clipboard, or cut-and-paste cache. I'm constantly trying to paste a URL and getting, say, a paragraph of an IM conversation that I don't even remember selecting, much less copying.) I already responded to his first one at Crooked Timber, though there is a long and distinguished line of such posts over at John and Belle. The remark I would like to make here is only tangentially related to the proposal ("lit studies people should blog, because it will make them less boring"), which, if it's going to happen, certainly isn't going to happen at John Holbo's request after such a patronizing characterization of lit studies people in general.
The remark: maybe strict disciplinarity is not the solution, but the problem. At this late date, is a re-professionalization of academia along the lines of law or the priesthood really what we need to do? Is it the solution to some kind of problem that is still extant? Is it going to make education better or the job market for educators more rational? Perhaps, even taking into account the human suffering and bitter disappointment involved in the current regime, the collapse of academia as a "profession" represents an opportunity for a creative re-thinking of the life of the intellect as a whole. But no, we cling to our fragments, wanting more and more degrees to certify our competence in more and more narrow and inappropriate areas (for instance, the degrees in creative writing -- what the fuck?). Just as the university is most falling apart, its position as the big Other guaranteeing our intellectual credentials increases, hence my Hardt and Negri quote in my previous post on this topic. Let's just admit it: the academic humanities are dead as a "career option." We're very fortunate that the liberal arts still persist as a parasite on the "corporate scientific research/athletic/vocational school" institutions that our universities have become, but let's not kid ourselves about the prospects for the future.
The study of the humanities is not a "profession" and never really was or should have been -- expertise in the human condition is not as easily verified as, say, expertise in chemistry or chess, or adequate performance of liturgical rituals or court briefings. We can continue this farce of acting like it is, acting like philosophy is a game we can play, or we can look for other options. Like blogging. Aspiring lit professors should quit their adjunct jobs, go get certified to teach high school, and start blogs where they can talk about Fred Jameson all they want. Sure, it's not prestigious, but why did you ever think that your cocktail of radical feminism/Marxism/psychoanalysis/queer studies was going to be prestigious, compulsorily acknowledged by all? If you want that kind of objective prestige, go play chess -- if you want to understand people, go play poker. (Objective prestige is available to the person who identifies the reference in the previous sentence.)
I know that all of this goes far beyond the scope of the simple question of whether more lit-studies blogs are a good idea, but that's just my theoretical side coming out. I now need to go read some theology, a discipline in which the method is absolutely clear: go into a room by yourself, lock the door, and make stuff up.
