Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 16:51:21 -0500
From: "J. A. Madrigal" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: { SPAM 1 }:Fwd Isaac Benabu: Re: Fwd: Jose Antonio Madrigal to Frank
 Dominguez : Re: Literatura y l
To: [log in to unmask], "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]>

Issac, I totally agree with you. if you look at our Masters program at
Auburn and, specifically at the reading list and comprehensive exams (no
choice), you will know that we do it the old way without ignoring the
new. Let's continue the conversation...Tony

***********************************************
                    J. A. Madrigal
                Castanoli Professor
        Dpt. of Foreign Languages
                  and Literatures
    Auburn University, AL 36849-5204
               Fax: 334-844-6378
            Phone: 334-844-5183
***********************************************


>>> "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]> 13/04/2007 15:56 >>>

>Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:09:25 +0200
>From: Isaac Benabu <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Fwd: José Antonio Madrigal to Frank
>  Domínguez : Re: Literatura y los
>  programas académicos
>To: "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask]
>
>Tony:Â I agree with the flow of your thoughts
>about the changes that have taken place in our
>chosen field of study , yet when you express
>relief at the idea of retirement from the
>aridness (my word) which has come to
>characterize the teaching of literature, IÂ wish
>to disagree with you, and say that the
>responsibility for what has happened during our
>term of academic service is ours and,
>consequently, it is up to us to pass on our
>understanding of what happened to the next
>generation. Whatever it was that turned the
>study of literature into something "other"Â is
>still within our memorial reach: for those
>entering the profession today it is a past to be recovered.
>
>Two values (however unfashionable!) which the
>creation of great literature and the teaching
>of the humanities  have in common are clarity
>of thought and precision in written expression:
>they both strive to communicate. Together with
>the "author", these values have gone out of the
>window. Instead, they have been replaced by
>jargon (which undoubtedly conceals thought), and
>by approximation rather than precision when it
>comes to meaning. It is our generation that saw
>a non-sense article (so described by its
>imaginative author) submitted to a pretigious
>literary review, passed by two readers and
>published. And we may have even enjoyed that
>author's subsequent confession in Time magazine
>that what he had submitted was "macaronic" non-sense.Â
>
>If we, who stimulated the growth of that
>jargon,  proved incapable of explaining in
>major conferences such as the MLA why we had to
>resort to jargon rather than clear, scientific
>prose, what can we expect from the students we
>educated? Those very Ph.d.'s applying for jobs
>today to whom you refer and whom, you say,
>display an ignorance of the very texts which
>make up the subject they purportedly have
>applied to teach, grew up in classrooms where
>thinking was abandoned in favour of ideological
>posturing, and where repetition was more
>important than the formulation of original
>thinking. The fashionable industry of the study
>of literaure took over from the more modestÂ
>explication of literature. A lack of
>self-confidence in what we were doing, don't you think?Â
>
>Late it may be, but never too late! That is why
>in our retirement, we may address these issues
>for the next generation rather than having them discover them for
themselves.
>
>Finally, I apologize if I have repeated ideas
>already expressed by others before me, without
>attribution, but I have just keyed into this discussion this
morning.Â
>
>An inflamatory afterthought on re-reading your
>piece: Your "Golden Age" breaks down into the
>study of literature (i.e. prose, and includes
>written poetry), oral literature and theatre.
>Theatre is distinguishable from literature , as
>Aristotle cared to point out early on, yet for
>the most part, we continue to approach it as
>literature, with tools devised for the analysis
>of literature. And even when we show
>willingness to refer to "performance", it may be
>because the word has been given a new coinage
>in contemporary scholarly jargon:
>traditionally (primarily, perhaps) the wordÂ
>was applied to theatre and theatrical
>representations, when it was not used in the
>more general sense of "to do, carry out".
>
>But that is a matter for another discussion...Â
>
>Isaac  Â
>
>Professor I. Benabu,
>Dept. of Theatre Studies,
>The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
>Mt. Scopus,
>Jerusalem
>Tel.:(+972-2)5883940
>------
>WebMail: [log in to unmask]
>
>