tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post4184448770108763885..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Cynicism, skepticism, utopianismCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-2626547819817785102009-10-29T09:21:30.297-04:002009-10-29T09:21:30.297-04:00Ok - so I am thinking of Frederic Jameson, Archaeo...Ok - so I am thinking of Frederic Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future (London and New York: Verso,2005) and Russell Jacoby, Picture Imperfect. Utopian Thought for an anti-utopian age (Columbia UP, 2005).<br /><br />On jewishness and utopianism - (as I am sure you do know) - is a big much-debated theme - and I believe next year's AJHSE in New york will have a session on it (courtesy of H-Net).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-65380529681294634212009-10-29T09:07:51.849-04:002009-10-29T09:07:51.849-04:00Thank you for that comment Eileen, which resonates...Thank you for that comment Eileen, which resonates rather profoundly with the videocast of "Reading Beowulf" that went out today, with its citations of Reading and imagining of a university to come.<br /><br />Sarah, I am new to the topic of utopia, so anything you want to send my way I will deeply appreciate.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-29213142044320467142009-10-29T06:39:40.471-04:002009-10-29T06:39:40.471-04:00It's a while since I have been in utopian mode...It's a while since I have been in utopian mode - but I guess you know that Jameson and Jacoby have an interesting critique as to why Bloch's dreaming utopianism has resurfaced with such force in recent utopian writing and also (russell jacoby) on its relationship to jewishness?<br /><br />sorry if I am teaching you egg-sucking!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-20590080256814219662009-10-28T12:32:01.591-04:002009-10-28T12:32:01.591-04:00More largely, I think this post, and the one that ...More largely, I think this post, and the one that precedes it by Jeffrey ["Blue, wet day"], are important because as faculty members who often just want to concentrate our energies on teaching and research, we are reminded here of how we are situated within institutional contexts that don't just require, but very much need, our skilled interventions, into matters of funding, curricula, hiring, and the like. I have often been torn on this issue, wanting very much to retreat into my study and classroom, and participating in various service duties with half my mind often somewhere else completely, ticking off the completed chores as just something else to add to the service resume so that no one can accuse me of being lame in that area. And I have often said, over and over again, to anyone who will listen to me in my own department, that at the end of the day, the end of our careers, and the end of our lives, the last thing I want to be remembered for is the work I did on the general education task force or the expository writing committee. I simply admit these things as having been true, *at times*, in my own career.<br /><br />But the real epiphany, for me, came in the discussions that have been ongoing for a while now, at the disciplinary level, over the so-called "fate" of the humanities, and more pointedly, of premodern studies within those humanities. It occurred to me that if medieval studies is to both maintain its foothold within the university while also maybe having a hope of increasing its purchase upon and enlarging its fields of inquiry within the humanities [and maybe even of leaping into places beyond the humanities proper], that we have a lot of work to do both within our institutional contexts [at the level of curricular reform, especially, but also in the shape of creating and getting funding for new programs, institutes, re-defining positions, etc.] but also *across* and *beyond* institutional contexts [in the form of creating new working groups, new journals, new spaces--both virtual and otherwise--for doing and promoting new kinds of work, etc.]. So it's actually critical that we serve as department chairs and also lead committees aimed at curricular reform with an eye toward advocating for the important role of the humanities within the larger institution [which often does not value the humanities but sees them in a primarily "service" or "gateway" role to other, more "professional" fields], but also for the critical importance of the study of earlier periods in relation to very contemporary problems, issues, concerns, etc. within specific fields: literary, historical, or otherwise. This is just my way of saying that, if one is concerned about the fate, say, of medieval studies within the larger university system, that it is not enough to just write about that, or to wonder how the field can change itself from *within* to address that issue, all the while hoping others outside the field will notice [they generally don't]; rather, this concern must manifest itself in active ways within a variety of inter-disciplinary institutional contexts and also in vigorous, what I would call "hook-ups" and "mash-ups," across institutions, thereby [hopefully] creating broad networks of advocacy, and even [again, hopefully] actual mobile "products" [such as journals, symposia, books, etc.] that would help more people secure better footholds within the institutions that, frankly, pay us our living.<br /><br />So, this is all just to say that, as time-consuming and often frustrating as it is, some heroic labor dedicated to "service" to our institutions, to include taking leadership positions within department and Colleges, and also to the field itself across institutions [and maybe even--?--moving beyond the conventional institutions to newly-imagined Other-institutions or to what Paul Bowman has called alterdisciplinarities], has MUCH to do with whether or not medieval studies survives in a viable fashion [such that more than just a few persons could hope for careers there].Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-27831953055907122012009-10-28T12:28:00.677-04:002009-10-28T12:28:00.677-04:00Definitely a utopianist, in the Munoz sense, which...Definitely a utopianist, in the Munoz sense, which I take to also mean that there is sometimes a *determinacy* in that holding-open of a space of indeterminacy, which is moved toward with all sorts of built-in awareness of what really *is* and what *cannot* be [or, can only *be* with some cost, risk, pain, suffering, etc.]. <br /><br />As to credos, I have never been in a situation where I have had to deliver one, in an institutional context, although I think it's obvious how much I like to invent them in spaces like this, but those are almost always pointed at disciplinary and field concerns. In the space of my university, I am the person who has become known for speaking the uncomfortable truths that everyone is afraid to say. This sometimes gets me in trouble, but you can also see the palpable relief when I do it, since everyone is thinking it. And since I don't care if some people think I am impolitic or idiotically averse to securing my own survival through various modes of terse and double-speak diplomacy, everything generally works out fine in the end because we can move a little closer to what really matters [even if we don't always get what we want--as faculty, on behalf of our students, etc.].<br /><br />[to be continued below]Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-38617026723053237232009-10-28T10:54:06.879-04:002009-10-28T10:54:06.879-04:00I'm finding myself deeply inspired by José Muñ...I'm finding myself deeply inspired by José Muñoz's new book Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. He uses Ernst Bloch's idea of a concrete utopia, "the realm of educated hope," an indeterminate future space for collective dreaming and action. Concrete utopias are supposed to be the antidote to the "banal optimism" of abstract utopias, which are "untethered from historical consciousness."<br /><br />So, when I say I am utopian it is in this sense: I want a more just collectivity rooted in the present but open (in affect and methodology) to a future that cannot be predetermined, that is rife with potentiality. <br /><br />Bravo for your work, Karl.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-90200653415108547892009-10-28T10:16:50.168-04:002009-10-28T10:16:50.168-04:00Cynicism and skepticism are modes of non-participa...<i>Cynicism and skepticism are modes of non-participation. They are lazy. I am in fact an optimist, even a utopianist: I want to be at a university where we move forward through consensus, shared vision, and community.</i><br />Oh hell yes. Agreed completely on all points, although (see below), I'm not agreeing because of optimism or utopianism.<br /><br /><i>Have you ever been in an institutional situation when you had to deliver your credo?</i><br /><br />Just last week, in fact, in several situations, in signing my name to a report from one of my committees in which we recommended, well, various things. Let's say, though, it was less a credo than an articulation of several key points of doctrine. I was also a loud voice at a union chapter meeting in which we forged a letter demanding "consensus, shared vision, and community," although in language specific to our resistance to the top-down methods the administration is using in their attempt to reorganize our academic structure.<br /><br />Ultimately, though, I'd say I'm not a "utopian." Rather, because credo in democracy and shared governance, I'll vigorously resist any infringement on faculty self-governance.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.com