At least according to this wonderful article in the CS Monitor.
The article, written by David Kirby, not only talks about what is happening at the moment in literature/humanities departments - but also how "theory" came to take over in the first place.
I know books have been written on this topic, but frankly I don't have time to read them.
Literary theory, like so many other theories, began with good intentions:
The idea was to move away from viewing literature as having any innate "truth" of its own, and rather to study it in relationship to larger schools of thought.
From this I understand that theory was formed to question things, to investigate things, to not just passively accept the canon, but to dig deep. A lovely idea.
Kirby goes on:
But the approach left many students complaining they spent more class time with dry theoreticians than with the great authors they had hoped to encounter.
Sounds pretty dreadful.
Kirby discusses the birth of theory, and Derrida - we can probably blame Derrida for most of this - but Kirby widens his scope, and looks at the tenor of the times:
But if theory is so profoundly flawed in its inability to address the ideas and emotions that not only make us individual but also allow us to marry, build communities, and undertake the countless transactions that would be impossible without basic shared assumptions, how did it ever become so popular in the first place? How did the notion that There Is No Truth become The Truth?Postmodern literary theory is rooted in mid-century European philosophy, though it didn't begin to catch on in America until the late '60s; the Johns Hopkins University conference on "The Language of Criticism and the Sciences of Man" which featured Jacques Derrida and other master theoreticians took place in 1966 and is generally regarded as the theoretical equivalent of the Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth Rock.
These were, of course, revolutionary times: The initial phase of the civil rights struggle was peaking, and serious opposition to the Vietnam war was getting underway. College students were chucking out their parents' ideas about race, class, patriotism, sex, music, and recreational drugs the way they might toss a faulty toaster oven out an open dorm window: If it doesn't work, ditch it.
Theory played right into this mind- set; it challenged lazy notions about what's right and what isn't and brought fresh air into a classroom full of mildewed literary practices.
Kirby addresses the ugly rigid "fundamentalism" of many of the theorists themselves. It is as though the theorists are such unattractive personalities that they have been turning people off of their own field. Single-handedly.
And here, I think, is the most brilliant point - and why I have been so pissed off about theory:
Fundamentalism is always ugly, and many of the secondgeneration professors who followed famed theoreticians like Derrida merely applied their ideas dogmatically, thus guaranteeing that theory would became static and stale. Eventually, theory's freewheeling skepticism became as one-dimensional as the celebrations of objective truth it sought to replace.
That's it. That's it. What originally began as a "skeptical" discovery process, a commitment to reading the great works as living breathing documents, as opposed to etchings on tablets of stone - degenerated into fundamentalist dogma.
The article is extensive, so if this subject interests you at all, I suggest you give it a read.
Posted by sheilaThere's practically nothing I can add to any of this, other than to say how very true it is. It seems to me that deconstruction as a tool can sometimes serve a useful purpose, but deconstructionISM as an ideology was always doomed to self-destruct under the weight of its own fundamental contradictions, its empty nihilistic coldness, and its obvious lack of much if any connection to reality.
Posted by: Dave J at January 29, 2004 04:10 PMIt's amazing what adding an "ism" will do to a word, in terms of meaning, understanding.
I can practically hear the doors locking, the walls hardening, keys being thrown away.
Posted by: red at January 29, 2004 04:14 PMI'm definitely reading that article when I have some time. Postmodernism/deconstructionism taking over the English department at Syracuse was the very reason I dropped English from my second major to a minor. I wanted to read and take apart great works by my heroes ... not study Derrida and Lacan . I am so sure! (Get it? Saussure. I slay me)
They changed the name of the department to "English and Textual Studies." The crowning moment was when I read a course description that said "we will explore the ear as a listening device and a sexual instrument in literature." My faculty advisor in the magazine department, a cranky old man who was related somehow to THE Keats, looked over the new course offerings and yelled "Can you tell me what the fuck any of this means??" He was great fun.
I agree with the initial concept of not accepting the truths that everyone seems to agree are true, and I admire the ideal of stripping away what society has heaped on your brain and seeing the world through the eyes of a 4-year-old. But when you start telling me that Shakespeare's sentence structure shows his plays were actually about his unresolved desire to fuck llamas in the mouth (my exaggeration) or that there is no such thing as love, we only believe there is because society needs it to survive, then I'm dumping your class for modern dance.
Posted by: sid at January 29, 2004 06:48 PMSid -
I have to say that that is one of the funniest (and insightful) comments I have ever received.
"we will explore the ear as a listening device and a sexual instrument in literature."
I can't stop laughing.
Posted by: red at January 29, 2004 10:09 PMI'm laughing as well, Sid.
Great post.
Dearest: I had read the piece [I check AL Daily, daily]and, of course, agreed wholeheartedly. I was spared that crap in college. I did not have to resort to a class in modern dance, if they had such a thing at BC in the early 60s, but it certainly kept me from pursuing another degree in English later. I'm sure I would have been a better person if I had the guts to take a modern dance class. love, dad
Posted by: dad at January 30, 2004 11:16 AMSheila & Mike ... Thanks! I promise I did not make up that course description. It was a scary time. I had a roommate during my semester in London who majored in ETS, and we would spend hours arguing whether love was real or a social construction.
Dad ... I never actually took the modern dance class, either. I did take ballroom dance, and the year of the postmodern takeover I took African dance. The teacher asked us to bring our parents to a demonstration during parents' weekend, and I thought it was going to be a showing of what good African dance looked like. I took the folks and my grandparents, and it was a modern dance demonstration. Men in tights and sequins. After the show, my grandfather asked me if I was trying to tell them I was gay.
Posted by: sid at January 30, 2004 11:47 AMSid -
Once again, you have struck me with your humor.
Your grandfather!!
Posted by: red at January 30, 2004 03:38 PMOh, Sheila ...
I could do an entire book of Granddad stories. We are so not like other families it's ridiculous (and fun!). He's really fun to hang out with.
Posted by: sid at January 30, 2004 04:40 PM