tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post8277586610025794256..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Cho Seung-hui and Emma Smith’s “So What”?: Why the Humanities Don’t Matter, or, Into Our Own Dark WoodsCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-54236789031614162232007-04-25T12:59:00.000-04:002007-04-25T12:59:00.000-04:00Rene--thanks for your comments, which are fantasti...Rene--thanks for your comments, which are fantastic. I have wandered over to "Coffee and Critique," and have read and responded to your post there, "The Myth of Ineffective Teachers" [I have also highlighted your post and comments over at Literature Compass, Blackwell's literary studies blog, to which I contribute semi-regularly], and I encourage everyone else to do the same--it's a fabulous blog [see link below]. Cheers, EileenEileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-15418259512907298742007-04-25T05:06:00.000-04:002007-04-25T05:06:00.000-04:00My full response is over at Coffee and Critique, l...My full response is over at Coffee and Critique, linked below.<BR/><BR/>A couple of quick responses, though. First of all, Colin, I'm not sure where it's getting anybody to dismiss Plato out of hand, aside from elevating accidental commonalities of method to a principle of original desire for "the good." In order to desire the good, one would already have to know what the good was, in which case it wouldn't be necessary to imitate anyone. I'm paraphrasing <I>The Republic</I> here, of course -- that's the point.<BR/><BR/>On a more mundane level, most students do come into literature classes "desiring the good," but their notions of the good tend to get vague once you get beyond learning to write well. That's a social problem, related to the primacy of abstractible skill sets in a society dominated by the market. It isn't ontological.<BR/><BR/>Moreover, I'm not sure how one could teach Aristotle, but defer disagreeing with Aristotelian moral psychology until after a consultation with somebody in the <I>field</I> of psychology. In that case, it would hardly be possible to <I>agree</I> with him, or to present him unreservedly to students, without having a similar consultation first.<BR/><BR/>I think the pleasurableness of literature should not have to suffer a divorce from its ethical and practical dimensions; its pleasures are ultimately part of an ethic of pleasure, and Chaucer is one of the best examples of this in the whole canon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-80591026684269790262007-04-24T14:29:00.000-04:002007-04-24T14:29:00.000-04:00You all have seen this blog?http://chronicle.com/n...You all have seen this blog?<BR/><BR/>http://chronicle.com/news/article/2104/english-professors-formed-task-force-to-help-cho<BR/><BR/>Ouch. There's way too much grand-standing and axe-grionding. But still, ouch.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-25422596403515578982007-04-23T09:28:00.000-04:002007-04-23T09:28:00.000-04:00to make art serve man as a thing of action and not...<I>to make art serve man as a thing of action and not man serve art as a thing of escape</I><BR/><BR/>There's (at least) a third option: What about serving art as a thing of pleasure? Dislodge it from notions (regimes?) of productivity altogether?<BR/><BR/>I suggest this in part because whenever I'm faced with the deadend of justifying what it is I do, I stop justifying and just say: I'm a medievalist because I like it.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-4136215236925742932007-04-23T09:17:00.000-04:002007-04-23T09:17:00.000-04:00Karl--I don't know if I should thank you for a lin...Karl--I don't know if I should thank you for a link to a site that led me to another site that just made me angry [haha], but thanks. I keep forgetting there's that contingent out there who think everything we do "in here" [especially in the liberal arts] is mainly bent on perverting our students' minds and souls. But it prompted me, too, to want to say here that my original post on this subject could be viewed as overly pessimistic about what we do "in here" and I didn't mean it to be so. I actually think many students who drink at the well of the humanities leave refreshed and better able to "be better" in this world; otherwise, I wouldn't have decided to devote my life to teaching literature [and literary thought]. In the unfolding thread on this subject at The Valve, Tony Christini had this to say, with which I agree:<BR/><BR/>"Reading books (and experiences of all sorts) change some people’s lives, in various ways, at least in that they can have this real affirming or strengthening or committing or otherwise galvanizing effect. Can many people who have devoted their professional lives to literature really not come up with a variety of examples of this well-documented fact or phenomena off the top of their heads?<BR/><BR/>. . . .<BR/><BR/>Reading (and writing) is an experience that can help people think about all sorts of things – including the moral, the psychological, the political, even simply the factual, you name it. It can help us make up our minds about so much. The evidence for this is overwhelming. And when we really make up our minds about certain things, really set our minds to something, the effects can be, sort of, limitless. Hiroshimic. Or otherwise. Literature/art has played extraordinarily oppressive and libratory roles. It’s important to have some idea how. And which. And why, what, when, where, and to what degree. Some of this has been studied and determined. And more such important studies, including experiments, are badly needed.<BR/><BR/>. . . .<BR/><BR/>But then these concerns may apply only if you agree with Calverton that 'granted the craftsmanship, our aim should be to make art serve man as a thing of action and not man serve art as a thing of escape.'"Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-76372484399806814942007-04-23T08:47:00.000-04:002007-04-23T08:47:00.000-04:00Notably, deplorably, some people do believe that t...Notably, deplorably, some people do believe that the humanities matter (see the discussion <A HREF="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/04/lower_than_dirt.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-74824637264861873312007-04-22T20:53:00.000-04:002007-04-22T20:53:00.000-04:00Small point, but it's either "Virginia Tech" or (t...Small point, but it's either "Virginia Tech" or (the full name) "Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University."Matthew Gabrielehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11971159578332078338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-43073633956121779392007-04-22T11:27:00.000-04:002007-04-22T11:27:00.000-04:00Colin--thanks for reminding us about Aristotle, wh...Colin--thanks for reminding us about Aristotle, who I often talk about in my literature classes when I am teaching classical drama but also Shakespeare. The idea that one must have a desire to be good before one can even begin to try to be good is something I really believe is true. Which is not to say that someone who mainly hates herself, everyone else, and the world can never be turned toward a more hopeful [and loving] perspective--I leave that question to my friends in psychology!<BR/><BR/>Anonymous--why is my website scary? I would appreciate more feedback. Only one student ever complained about it and that was because I had a link to a website called "Dogs Who Hate George Bush," which was a mainly humorous site where people sent in pictures of their dogs with quotations from those dogs as to why they didn't like George Bush [I had that up during the last presidential election, then took it down, and the student who complained[?]: his father works in the White House]. I have some photos from certain world conflicts, mainly because much of my scholarship centers on those conflicts and the questions they raise concerning ethics and violence, among other matters. But I can't understand why my website frightens you, unless you tell me why more specifically, and I would be happy to try to speak to that.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-58614038458788069212007-04-22T08:33:00.000-04:002007-04-22T08:33:00.000-04:00A thoughtful post, Eileen.I think you're right in ...A thoughtful post, Eileen.<BR/><BR/>I think you're right in stating that it doesn't matter all that much that the murderer was an English major -- demons, as you say, are to be found in every discipline, and I'm not certain that choice of major is all that relevant here. Still, it is interesting that Cho Seung-hui's lack of voice has been stressed by family members, roommates, acquaintances: according to today's New York Times, many people in his youth thought he was a deaf-mute. Perhaps he chose English-Creative Writing because it was a place where he was enabled to have a (written) voice. Perhaps. But what is clearly evident from even a glance at his plays is that he did not allow any literary voices to affect him -- that is, you can't read his material and find resonance with some of the works that he (as Scott pointed out) must surely have read during his time studying English. Closed to external voices, written without a sense of a wider world where something called art exists, there is something that is lonely and terrible (in all senses of that word) about his texts.<BR/><BR/>It seems that, these attempts at creative writing aside, Cho Seung-hui communicated mostly through instant messaging, and even there mostly in monologue.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-10672958192425179112007-04-22T00:58:00.000-04:002007-04-22T00:58:00.000-04:00Ms Joy, I looked at your website. Frankly it frigh...Ms Joy, I looked at your website. Frankly it frightens me. I wonder how students respond to it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-29677370955751354982007-04-22T00:25:00.000-04:002007-04-22T00:25:00.000-04:00This is an excellent post, and you would htink tha...This is an excellent post, and you would htink that by now people would be aware that there are very scary creative types in the world. That's not why I posted though, I actually wanted to point out that the idea that it is only the people who are hardwired to be good that can be taught to be good (or moral or whatever) is very Aristotelian. Aristotle posits that in order to be good you have to want to be good, and that in a sense one can only learn to be good by imitating someone who is already good. But you have to want it first. Very unlike Plato who suggests, in the Republic, that he wants to confound the moral skeptic. (Something he probably does not end up accomplishing). It's actually kind of sad that Plato was wrong and Aristotle right. Ah well...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-55434215524464479952007-04-21T21:06:00.000-04:002007-04-21T21:06:00.000-04:00Thanks for those cites, as always, Michael O. I ju...Thanks for those cites, as always, Michael O. I just want to mention here, too, that I hope everyone who comes to this post and thread will also check out SEK's original post at The Valve, as it is much more rich and complex than the brief abstract I have included here reflects/Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-54674368766948505882007-04-21T17:56:00.000-04:002007-04-21T17:56:00.000-04:00Lots to think about here Eileen, thanks. As well a...Lots to think about here Eileen, thanks. As well as Bill Readings' The University in Ruins we should pause--refusing the rush into the posthumanities-now to read Derrida's "The University Without Condition" in Without Alibi and J. Hillis Miller's "The Transnational University" in Black Holes on the humanities to-come.Michael O'Rourkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03110210128389911666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-58467084290653224842007-04-21T15:52:00.000-04:002007-04-21T15:52:00.000-04:00Hopefully, Scott Eric Kaufmann will not mind if I ...Hopefully, Scott Eric Kaufmann will not mind if I post here some of his further thoughts posted at The Valve, and maybe he'll join us here as well:<BR/><BR/>"First, I should acknowledge the willful naïvety of this [his original Valve] post ["Virginia Tech, Huck Finn, and the Novel of Purpose"]. One of the reasons I thought it inadequate in the first place was because the events of last week so marked my thoughts about Amanda’s book. I know that shouldn’t have been the case, but life intervened. Second, I should say a little more about why I’m willfully naïve: Edward James Olmos. I must’ve watched "Stand and Deliver" fifty times growing up. It’s the reason why continuing into graduate school was not the typical non-decision of the English graduate student: I always wanted to make a difference. As I said above, this has led me to be a little wily; liberal students have their expectations, conservative their fears, libertarians their sense of superiority—I kid, I kid, but only a little bit, as libertarians tend to be autodidacts and fiercely independent-minded, despite the fact that at this point in their intellectual development they’re spouting platitudes. In my "Stand and Deliver" moments, I strongly reject Eileen’s claim (which echoes a point Rich made earlier):<BR/><BR/>'But, over the years, I’ve also developed a hunch that we only really help students who are already hard-wired to embrace and open up to what we and literature have to offer.'<BR/><BR/>I can teach anyone literature, damn it. I will reach these kids, change their lives, make a difference, &c. The self-importance is overweening, I admit, but it’s how I approach teaching, and why a novel like "Huck Finn" appeals to me. That said, my practical mind knows that Eileen’s point about modeling the life of an intellectual is a far better approach, and one I also take. For example, when I taught literary journalism, my favorite article to teach—who knew how handy course blogs could be?—was David Quammen’s “Strawberries Under Ice.” As I wrote elsewhere:<BR/><BR/>'Quammen’s demonstrating the way in which a scholar or writer’s research colors all aspects of his or her life, creating meaningful but ultimately irrelevant juxtapositions of research and lived experience.'<BR/><BR/>And I go further than that. My idle chit-chat at the beginning of class about how hard I work, the hours I keep, &c. is not intended to muster sympathy, but to give my students an idea of what commitment to an idea entails. All of which is only to say that Eileen is correct to emphasize the life of mind in the classroom, and that the horse I ride in on is often high indeed."Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.com