I think he (it is a he isn't it? I didn't check, just assumed...) Anyway, I think he sort of has it right, but frames it in a way that betrays a certain personal grudge, not to say ressentiment. What is this with locking us in airless rooms and papering over the windows? Crap. I totally agree that teaching should key into what is important to students, and that today's literary vogue is tomorrow's outmoded academic claptrap. However, good teaching never does anything but key into student needs, and being a teacher does not prevent me from also being a professional critic of "texts" (a bad word?) and contexts. Since when does the university _not_ operate on the model of a "priestly caste"? That's just unfounded nostalgia--nostalgia for something that never was. I'm not sure we can blame the decline of a discipline on "science envy" any more than, say, the rise of neo-liberal educational policy that puts exaggerated emphasis on empirical ways of knowing. Or, on a larger scale, the demotion of prestige discourses like literature that clearly corresponds the demise of the modern ideal.
Sorry for the argumentative tone: I'm in a pugnacious mood.
Pugnate away, my friend. I think you're right, and that a good teacher and open up worlds to their students regardless of the literary vogue. I have noticed, though, a tendency to think that a)classes should be organized around an overriding 'problem' (the post-colonial other, for example) which b)tends to devalue the notion of a canon, which, in turn, tends to c) devalue the notion of a survey course. I'm have to admit that I like survey courses, and think there's nothing better for introducing a (non-native) student to important or representative works of a people or period. I guess that means that I also buy into the notion of a canon (albeit, one that can be expanded).
I know of no other field whose practitioners decide to throw out their own theory so quickly as does literary studies. Can you imagine scientists proclaiming, "No more Newton!" On the other hand, Fleming is right about the lack of enthusiasm for it in undergraduate lit. courses. I'm glad he mentioned the gap between graduate education and the undergrad lit. classroom because I believe I was ill prepared for teaching lit., but not language. Teaching lit. can be such a mishmash of approaches and ideas.
I like survey courses too, I must admit, though officially I'm not supposed to. Perhaps this is another one of Dave's false dichotomies that we should dynamite right here and now on Peninsularistas. I remember as I was preparing to apply for grad school I took a peninsular survey course at U Mass Boston. I worked hard in the course, and I have to admit that it gave me in almost complete form the literary-historical scheme that I have to this day, which has been only slightly modified in classes by a certain Prof. Blanco (whose first name I don't want to mention for fear of web searches), CBJ, Morris, John D (which sounds vaguely like the name of a rapper), and the venerable Prof. Gimeno (one of my first courses must have been one of his last). Nor has my own teaching essentially changed what I learned in that class. This of course raises the question of whether what I learned was good or not...
There's a good article in Profession 2008 (an MLA publication I find useful) by Marshall on teaching a discipline versus teaching students. What does the undergraduate student want or need? (Do they really know the answer to that question?) Anyway, let's just say they sign up for a lit. course with some idea and some desire to learn more about literature. What do they expect? Do they want to be better readers? Better writers? Theorists? Critics? Few of our undergraduate majors go on to grad. school. I think teaching them to be better close readers versus teaching them to read through a theoretical prism is a better skill to have in the long run.
Yes, to create (close) readers is a commendable goal and a practical one at that (as opposed to initiating them in the sometimes perverse rites of the literary priestly class). However, my experience is slowly eating away at my optimism, in that regard. Unfortunately, it seems that what we need to really get these young folks engaged with literature is books-on-cellphone.
9 comments:
I think he (it is a he isn't it? I didn't check, just assumed...) Anyway, I think he sort of has it right, but frames it in a way that betrays a certain personal grudge, not to say ressentiment. What is this with locking us in airless rooms and papering over the windows? Crap. I totally agree that teaching should key into what is important to students, and that today's literary vogue is tomorrow's outmoded academic claptrap. However, good teaching never does anything but key into student needs, and being a teacher does not prevent me from also being a professional critic of "texts" (a bad word?) and contexts. Since when does the university _not_ operate on the model of a "priestly caste"? That's just unfounded nostalgia--nostalgia for something that never was. I'm not sure we can blame the decline of a discipline on "science envy" any more than, say, the rise of neo-liberal educational policy that puts exaggerated emphasis on empirical ways of knowing. Or, on a larger scale, the demotion of prestige discourses like literature that clearly corresponds the demise of the modern ideal.
Sorry for the argumentative tone: I'm in a pugnacious mood.
Pugnate away, my friend. I think you're right, and that a good teacher and open up worlds to their students regardless of the literary vogue. I have noticed, though, a tendency to think that a)classes should be organized around an overriding 'problem' (the post-colonial other, for example) which b)tends to devalue the notion of a canon, which, in turn, tends to c) devalue the notion of a survey course. I'm have to admit that I like survey courses, and think there's nothing better for introducing a (non-native) student to important or representative works of a people or period. I guess that means that I also buy into the notion of a canon (albeit, one that can be expanded).
I know of no other field whose practitioners decide to throw out their own theory so quickly as does literary studies. Can you imagine scientists proclaiming, "No more Newton!" On the other hand, Fleming is right about the lack of enthusiasm for it in undergraduate lit. courses. I'm glad he mentioned the gap between graduate education and the undergrad lit. classroom because I believe I was ill prepared for teaching lit., but not language. Teaching lit. can be such a mishmash of approaches and ideas.
I like survey courses too, I must admit, though officially I'm not supposed to. Perhaps this is another one of Dave's false dichotomies that we should dynamite right here and now on Peninsularistas. I remember as I was preparing to apply for grad school I took a peninsular survey course at U Mass Boston. I worked hard in the course, and I have to admit that it gave me in almost complete form the literary-historical scheme that I have to this day, which has been only slightly modified in classes by a certain Prof. Blanco (whose first name I don't want to mention for fear of web searches), CBJ, Morris, John D (which sounds vaguely like the name of a rapper), and the venerable Prof. Gimeno (one of my first courses must have been one of his last). Nor has my own teaching essentially changed what I learned in that class. This of course raises the question of whether what I learned was good or not...
I'm kind of under the weather, otherwise I promise you I would have something of genius to add to the discussion.
There's a good article in Profession 2008 (an MLA publication I find useful) by Marshall on teaching a discipline versus teaching students. What does the undergraduate student want or need? (Do they really know the answer to that question?) Anyway, let's just say they sign up for a lit. course with some idea and some desire to learn more about literature. What do they expect? Do they want to be better readers? Better writers? Theorists? Critics? Few of our undergraduate majors go on to grad. school. I think teaching them to be better close readers versus teaching them to read through a theoretical prism is a better skill to have in the long run.
I think teaching them to be readers, period, is the best skill in the long run. Close if possible...
Yes, to create (close) readers is a commendable goal and a practical one at that (as opposed to initiating them in the sometimes perverse rites of the literary priestly class). However, my experience is slowly eating away at my optimism, in that regard. Unfortunately, it seems that what we need to really get these young folks engaged with literature is books-on-cellphone.
Post a Comment