what is "hot" in English today?

[TripWillis]

 

The hottest thing in English today is a new club called Sylvia's Daddy. 

I think my favorite of all time was "New York's hottest new club is '...KEVIN?...' located in an abandoned warehouse on..."

[champagne]

Thestage, that was such a beautiful metaphor. Seriously why aren't you writing books already?!

 

I was about to post the same thing. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, that really was a fantastic philosophical conceit. 

[ComeBackZinc]

By the way, the notion that queer studies is about looking for "what could be gay" in literature is somewhere between laughable and offensive.

[DisplayCancel]

I'm enjoying (some of) this debate- thanks to those who have given introductory reading to animal studies- I'll read and see what I think!

 

Personally, my interests recently have turned to male friendship in literature of all periods. Like most interested in friendship, I came to it first in early modern reading, but am interested in its application in 20th century British and American fiction - Lawrence, Conrad, and (tentatively) Roth, Bellow . Anyone know if any schools have a reputation for, or a particular professor in, friendship/ Roth etc ? It obviously overlaps with a lot of queer theory (also an interest), but I wondered if anybody knew of individuals/ institutions fostering this more specific interest.

 

Thanks- and thanks to all who have constructively contributed to this debate.

[TripWillis]

By the way, the notion that queer studies is about looking for "what could be gay" in literature is somewhere between laughable and offensive.

Exactly. Can we start a petition to ban Harold Bloom and his multiple gradcafe accounts?

[planesandtrains]

Exactly. Can we start a petition to ban Harold Bloom and his multiple gradcafe accounts?

too funny. appropriate because the yale english dept did in fact find harold bloom so insufferable that they kicked him out and gave him his own department so that he could quit bothering them and live alone in his own solipsistic bubble isolated from the modern world where he was free to rant against it. it let them get back to what grown-ups do.

[oij]

too funny. appropriate because the yale english dept did in fact find harold bloom so insufferable that they kicked him out and gave him his own department so that he could quit bothering them and live alone in his own solipsistic bubble isolated from the modern world where he was free to rant against it. it let them get back to what grown-ups do.

 

actually he left on his own accord. commendable.

[practical cat]

Exactly. Can we start a petition to ban Harold Bloom and his multiple gradcafe accounts?

How is it even possible that I accidentally down voted THIS? Ugh, sorry. All I was trying to do was quote you so I could say that this is why you are great (and that you made me laugh-choke on my apple).

[Fishbucket]

We all feel critical about other people's success sometimes. But for me, that was one of the first things I had to let go.

Probably right around the time you decided to go to Purdue, amiright amiright?

The thing I don't like about these "hot" "new" "fields" is that they aren't new, they are only hot because people are attracted to what they perceive as novelty, and they have every appearance of weak minds taking a point made by (for example) Heidegger, and trying to spin off a brand of theory from it.

I think I'm going to specialize in puppy studies, because puppies have so much to teach us about literature. And about life, people. Puppies understand what it means to live.

OMG i love puppies.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Fishbucket

[ComeBackZinc]

Probably right around the time you decided to go to Purdue, amiright amiright?

 

The thing I don't like about these "hot" "new" "fields" is that they aren't new, they are only hot because people are attracted to what they perceive as novelty, and they have every appearance of weak minds taking a point made by (for example) Heidegger, and trying to spin off a brand of theory from it. 

 

The way you guys discuss stuff is so serious, so up-your-own-bazoomba. Chill out!

[asleepawake]

For all of you who keep saying the rest of us are ill-informed, and don't know enough to criticize the field, etc, nothing you've said has convinced me that this is a field at all worth pursuing.

Convincing you that it is worth studying is not exactly our job. In order to find out if something is worth pursuing, it's your job to actually read what has been written in the field before you decide. You sound an awful lot like the folks who just don't get literary study generally and who say things like "you're reading too much into stories; they are just stories." It's really hard to begin explaining the value of theory to that person, and since you're not a student in our classes we don't feel the need to explicitly explain to you why the field is worthwhile, even though a number of good reasons have been given on this board already.

 

The thing I don't like about these "hot" "new" "fields" is that they aren't new, they are only hot because people are attracted to what they perceive as novelty, and they have every appearance of weak minds taking a point made by (for example) Heidegger, and trying to spin off a brand of theory from it. 

How do you claim knowledge of the motives of people involved in these fields when you aren't even familiar with the fields in the first place?  I'd have been drawn to animal studies whether it was old hat or whether it didn't exist yet... I certainly didn't jump at it for "novelty," and I don't know of anyone else who has gone into any field for that reason, though I'm sure a few people have (it is true, though, that it is nice to be a field that is developing). If you do your work because it is "hot," it probably will not be very good work. You are simultaneously accusing animal studies and etc. folk of seeking "novelty" but then also of just ripping off Heidegger. What are you even talking about?

Edited March 22, 2013 by asleepawake

[Fishbucket]

I realized the other day that, as an English major, I never interacted with a Rhet/Comp professor my entire time in undergrad. I figure this must be the case for a majority of English majors who came into school with AP Language & Composition credit and never had to take a University writing course. Also I don't think my school gave degrees in Rhet & Comp, so we had no grad students in that field anyway.

 

In conclusion, studying rhet & comp feels like it's actually miles and miles away from studying literature. It's kind of like going to school to be an electrician vs. an electrical engineer. Completely different things at work there, right?

[Fishbucket]

It's really hard to begin explaining the value of theory to that person, and since you're not a student in our classes we don't feel the need to explicitly explain to you why the field is worthwhile, even though a number of good reasons have been given on this board already.

 

And that is exactly why the humanities has such a bad reputation. I think an articulate person actually SHOULD be able to describe why their field is interesting to outsiders. It shouldn't be an impossible, or monumental task. We need a better sort of language if we are only able to convey what we value to the people in our immediate vicinity who already share exactly our background and our interests.

 

And asleepawake: something can be both novel (as in, the new name evokes a sense of excitement) and a rip-off of an old idea (the name is actually just a way of labeling thoughts from a philosopher of a different epoch). There is no contradiction in that, it happens all the time. 

 

The fact is, it's hard to come up with something really profound to say. It's much easier to take things that have already been said, gather them together under a catchy title, and call it a new field of study. If we interrogate what about these fields actually makes them new, we find that Montaigne was playing around with these ideas in the 16th century. Show me one thing about post-humanism that is TRULY new, and I will give you a cookie.

Edited March 22, 2013 by Fishbucket

[asleepawake]

The fact is, it's hard to come up with something really profound to say. It's much easier to take things that have already been said, gather them together under a catchy title, and call it a new field of study. 

 

Please open up a book or an article and actually read some of this stuff because you're making a fool of yourself.

[ComeBackZinc]

In conclusion, studying rhet & comp feels like it's actually miles and miles away from studying literature. It's kind of like going to school to be an electrician vs. an electrical engineer. Completely different things at work there, right?

 

It's looking that way. And, indeed, some schools are either moving into schools of communication and media or education, or are already there.

 

Me, I like lit people. I value them. Sometimes they drive me crazy. But I think of lit people (and English people writ large) as my people. It's like my adviser often says. She could be working in a department of communication or computer science. But she's in a department of English because she admires the values of English people.

[Fishbucket]

But she's in a department of English because she admires the values of English people.

 

Is the feeling mutual?

 

 

 

Please open up a book or an article and actually read some of this stuff because you're making a fool of yourself.

 

Everyone who says that has yet to prove this to me. If I am "making a fool of myself" then show me how. You should be able to do that, given the depth of your knowledge, right?

[asleepawake]

I actually applied to grad school with a major interest in posthumanism. I would not identify it as trendy, or trying to force science into literary studies. In fact, it has a lot to do with study of history of consciousness mind-body dichotomies, animal representation in literature and representations of human bodies, which are relevant to many different periods of study.

In this case I sense you just don't know very much about animal studies and posthumanism, especially considering that asleepawake has already acknowledged one of your primary critiques (of something you obviously know nothing about) and you read right through it. This is either cognitive dissonance or you are a troll.

 

Humanism is also people talking for other people (see like everything ever written by Spivak for instance -- the fucking double bind!). Does that invalidate humanism? Is humanism a flawed methodology? Are you a troll?

 

Edit: Everything is representation. Get over it.

but it's a new, useful way to name a mode of thought that it is possible to trace through history, so that we can have a conversation about it (and have a way of tracing it and talking to each other). you can trace it back to rome! it is especially interesting now ("hot") because new technology, environmental disaster, globalization, etc. have posed interesting new dilemmas about the boundaries of the human. we're always interested in the past for how it speaks to the present.

Posthumanism suggests that the more that we work on understanding how things, animals, and environments change us, the more we can effect real change on our own cognition, subjectivity, and life world.  That's the furthest thing from "impossible."

Gathered some people articulating the field's importance for you, Fishbucket, so you don't have to do any more reading than the bare minimum.

Edited March 22, 2013 by asleepawake

[ComeBackZinc]

Not always. Mutual suspicion is a fact of life in a lot of hierarchies.

 

Honestly, Fishbucket, I don't think that there's a lot of utility to this conversation right now. I don't think anybody is learning much of anything about anybody. It might be best just to shelve it for awhile.

[asleepawake]

Everyone who says that has yet to prove this to me. If I am "making a fool of myself" then show me how. You should be able to do that, given the depth of your knowledge, right?

 

I can't prove it to you; you need to prove it to yourself by familiarizing yourself with the works that exist in this field. A few of us listed them some pages back.

[asleepawake]

I read a little bit of Animal Studies, Thing Theory, etc. in a theory course during my MA. Honestly, I don't really know how much staying power these fields have. I think one thing we all have to think about as we're planning our specialization is whether or not that field will still be relevant 10, 20 years from now. Obviously no one does Structuralism anymore. That was 50+ years ago. But to teach theory, you have to know Structuralism. Will the same be true of Animal Studies when we've been out of grad school and (hopefully...) on the path to tenure a decade from now? Maybe, and for those who are interested in it, I hope so! But count me as one who is a bit skeptical.

 

I think that animal studies has immense staying power. That animal studies is even controversial as a thing to study is blowing my mind. It has practical applications to our culture, to our relationships with the beings things that live on this Earth, with what we eat and how that food is produced, with the object of suffering, with the beings we call "man's best friend," with how we complete scientific research, with our livestock and companion animals and nuisance animals, etc. I think that views on these things are shifting not just in academic circles, but in modern culture as a whole, and that the study of these shifting views is relevant in the long term.

Edited March 22, 2013 by asleepawake

[ProfLorax]

Hey ya'll. I just wanted to chime in to say that this discussion has been riveting and has certainly challenged my own perceptions of posthumanism and animal studies. I was never really dismissive of those perspectives, but I was certainly ambivalent. Now, I am seeing how posthumanism specifically may align with my own academic interests in difference and power. 

it's not called "non-humanism," it's called "post-humanism," and is generally acknowledged to be within the humanist project. if you think that sounds contradictory, that's a signal that you don't know what it is, and should maybe do some basic reading before getting all haughty about it. you're using "human" like it's an unimpeachable, natural category, when in fact the way it's defined and where its boundaries are placed is far from stable and is actually quite culturally and historically specific. posthumanism is about questioning those boundaries and thinking about how literature enacts that questioning.

Ok, this was my a-ha moment. The socially constructed definition of "human" has been utilized throughout history to oppress and marginalize groups of people:

• Women are merely less developed humans, compared to fully developed men.
• People with disabilities are more monster than human. 
• Africans are animalistic, not human, which is why they need the care of guidance that slavery provides.

It's eery to think about how so many categories of people have been considered less than human, which has led to real material and political consequences. Looking at the rhetoric of humanness during different historical periods and connecting that to the politics of division and oppression could lead to some really exciting scholarship (although I imagine this has already been looked into, and I'm just late to the party. As usual.)

Edited March 22, 2013 by proflorax

[planesandtrains]

Please open up a book or an article and actually read some of this stuff because you're making a fool of yourself.

for real. i mean i bet when i first heard the term "posthumanism" i thought, "well that sounds crazy!" but not having read it, had the most basic level of self-awareness required not to think i was qualified to critique it. that shit doesn't fly when you're a professional (or on applications to be one - as you've discovered this season, fishbucket. zing!)

[planesandtrains]

Ok, this was my a-ha moment. The socially constructed definition of "human" has been utilized throughout history to oppress and marginalize groups of people:

• Women are merely less developed humans, compared to fully developed men.

• People with disabilities are more monster than human. 

• Africans are animalistic, not human, which is why they need the care of guidance that slavery provides.

It's eery to think about how so many categories of people have been considered less than human, which has led to real material and political consequences. Looking at the rhetoric of humanness during different historical periods and connecting that to the politics of division and oppression could lead to some really exciting scholarship (although I imagine this has already been looked into, and I'm just late to the party. As usual.)

totally! it tries to think not just about how to "properly" draw those boundaries (let's just make sure we move "women" and "africans" definitively into the "human" category) but how thinking of those categories as naturally stable and not socially, culturally, historically constructed, and as a justification for the exertion of power and violence, is itself untenable.

[Phil Sparrow]

Who cares if something is new or not? Just because a field of inquiry takes inspiration or direction from an older philosophy doesn't mean it can't be intensely relevant and help us rethink the way we understand the world today. Montaigne already covered this stuff. True! That's why is extra relevant to take into account his work in our current cultural climate. You know, sometimes great intellectual, cultural, technological (etc., etc.) innovations are made by re-visioning older concepts. Here is one example of such innovation-via-ripping-off-older-ideas that even all the fogey-minded will appreciate: the Western European "Renaissance" (ripped off the Ottomans and Romans). Here's another example: the Romans (ripped off the Greeks). I don't see how insisting about a field of study that "well, it's totally not REALLY new, just a re-branding" has any relevance whatsoever to this conversation.

 

The fact is, it's hard to come up with something really profound to say. It's much easier to take things that have already been said, gather them together under a catchy title, and call it a new field of study. If we interrogate what about these fields actually makes them new, we find that Montaigne was playing around with these ideas in the 16th century. Show me one thing about post-humanism that is TRULY new, and I will give you a cookie.

[gradschoolwannabe]

Ok, this was my a-ha moment. The socially constructed definition of "human" has been utilized throughout history to oppress and marginalize groups of people:

• Women are merely less developed humans, compared to fully developed men.
• People with disabilities are more monster than human. 
• Africans are animalistic, not human, which is why they need the care of guidance that slavery provides.

 

Excellent point! Interrogating the human (from the humanist perspective), and the presupposed qualities that make it up and then placing that into larger contexts about life on Earth is fascinating to me. And this is just one route that posthumanism is interested in.

 

 

 

And that is exactly why the humanities has such a bad reputation. I think an articulate person actually SHOULD be able to describe why their field is interesting to outsiders. It shouldn't be an impossible, or monumental task. We need a better sort of language if we are only able to convey what we value to the people in our immediate vicinity who already share exactly our background and our interests.

 

This can be done in one sentence: Posthumanism is important because it forces humans to rethink the ways that they address the environment, animals, computers, and other f***ing people.

 

For example, N. Catherine Hayles draws from several science fiction authors to illustrate how silly the concept of downloading one's consciousness into a computer, an idea which many people think is totally possible and/or a good idea! Totally fascinating to me. 

But I'll probably end up without a place in academia, according to many on this thread. Oh well, I'll try and find somewhere that'll let me teach.