>Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:20:17 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Juergen Hahn <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Fwd: Dario Fernandez-Morera: We
>have seen the enemy, and it is us.
>To: "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>Bravo, Dario, I absolutely could not have summarized
>it better! It occured to me there may be a reason why
>things seem even worse now then when your highly
>perceptive book came out: Those who represented the
>current back then were largely still junior professors
>who still had to reckon with the resistance from older
>"universalist" scholars in their career evaluations.
>The latter have been disappearing into retirement,
>many unfortunately in pure panic, and those erstwhile
>juniors are now the undisputed senior professors in
>charge. So now you have the worst effects of the
>Kuhnian paradigm, and the worst of all worlds.
>
>As for that scholar who considers the term "bourgeois
>liberal crap" to be legitimate critical terminology,
>how should one respond? Perhaps with "Marxist crap"?
>Or "race-baiting crap"? But I fear that would mean the
>final descent into the speechless nethersphere of the
>"Hollow Men" (or women).
>
>Juergen Hahn
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>--- "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >
> > >Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:53:38 -0400 (EDT)
> > >From: [log in to unmask]
> > >Subject: Re: We have seen the enemy, and it is us.
> > >To: [log in to unmask]
> > >
> > >«Y entre los santos de piedra
> > >y los álamos de magia
> > >pasas llevando en tus ondas
> > >palabras de amor, palabras».
> > >
> > >Que estrofa mas evocativa! No la conocia. Gracias
> > por citarla, Emilia.
> > >
> > >Spanish literature is not alone in the situation
> > >that many at this forum lament. Many literature
> > >departments around the country have eliminated
> > >Medieval Studies or made them ancillary to other
> > >studies of greater relevance.... Look at the
> > >department of English at your university or
> > >college and see who publishes on Chaucer; or who
> > >publishes on Chaucer in order to show something
> > >other than the chauvinism, patriarchalism,
> > >obscurantism, and brutality of Medieval times,
> > >against which some select Medieval writers
> > >miraculously rebelled, as indubitably
> > >demonstrated by the professor's
> > >research. Taking a class dedicated to
> > >Shakespeare is no longer part of the program,
> > >but something voluntary. The same goes for
> > >French. A course on Cervantes has ceased to be
> > >a requirement of the undergraduate curriculum,
> > >and in some cases this requirement has been
> > >eliminated with the enthusiastic acquiescence of
> > >Golden Age scholars, who have been against
> > >"privileging" or "hierarchizing." The
> > >humanities are studied basically in order to
> > >show how chauvinistic, racist, and generally bad
> > >the context in which they have appeared and
> > >thrived has been; and how they have been placed
> > >largely at the service of exploitation, etc.,
> > >that is, the humanities are studied in order to
> > >show how ideological they have actually
> > >been. Some years ago I thought the situation
> > >was bad; but the situation has worsened since I
> > >published my American Academia and the Survival
> > >of Marxist Ideas. So the question is, if those
> > >who study the humanities do not consider them
> > >worth defending, why should administrators? If
> > >we consider the sixteenth and seventeenth
> > >centuries not a "Golden Age," but an age of
> > >exploitation, religious obscurantism, and
> > >general badness, which a few clever writers
> > >secretly managed to denigrate, until we of
> > >course thanks to our superior abilities have
> > >managed to detect and prove their Straussian
> > >deceptiveness, why should administrators be
> > >concerned with subsidizing the study of this
> > >historical cesspool, or students be concerned
> > >with studying it at all? At best, let us better
> > >conflate it with something of greater interest,
> > >such as Liberation Studies, for example. If we
> > >study Medieval and sixteenth and seventeenth
> > >century writers basically to show how bad their
> > >times were, how can we communicate any love of
> > >the culture that, somehow, strangely, fostered
> > >the existence of such great writers (notice the
> > >paradox here) to our students so that they get
> > >interested in studying the period
> > >themselves? Of course in many cases the concept
> > >of greater or lesser writer has disappeared as
> > >well, along with the concept of greater or
> > >lesser, period, so there are no great writers to
> > >study anymore. Now, who would want to study
> > >something under these conditions
> > >consistently? I suppose we professors would,
> > >along with pathologists, but that is not enough
> > >to keep a field alive indefinitely...(I am
> > >tempted to create a field: The Pathology of
> > >Literature; two famous French professors once
> > >did publish a book on "The Parasite" once, and I
> > >am sure many other professors read it). If the
> > >humanities have been basically an ideological
> > >instrument of exploitation, etc. etc. should we
> > >wonder that neither administrators nor students
> > >put the humanities very high on their list of
> > >priorities? I just attended a lecture on Persae
> > >by a famous English professor. Her
> > >prize-winning line of argument was how racist,
> > >chauvinistic and eurocentric Persae and its
> > >interpretations have been, at least until
> > >recently, when, as she points out, satirical or
> > >subversive adaptations have been made in order
> > >to put Persae at the service of human
> > >liberation, as understood by the English
> > >professor of course. She expressed her
> > >annoyance at other interpretations by
> > >characterizing them as "bourgeois liberal
> > >crap." Those where her exact words. She kept
> > >mocking the notion that Salamis and Thermopilae
> > >had anything to do with Western liberty--Western
> > >liberty being in any case a notion that she
> > >laughs at too. A month ago I attended another
> > >lecture on Persae by yet another famous
> > >professor, this time a classicist from
> > >Stanford. His line of argument was that
> > >egalitarianism is highly desirable, as is the
> > >redistribution of wealth. Since he has the gift
> > >of gab, as we all more or less do (after all, we
> > >are professors), he did manage to make this
> > >argument while talking around Persae. So my
> > >friends, we have seen the enemy of the
> > >humanities, and it is not administrators or
> > students: it is us.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >----------
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