My dissertation, which I researched over five years, was arguably really about war and poetry and history. I would not have characterized it that way then, but I work for a WAR college now. It's seems oddly relevant at this time and seems prophetic from a historical perspective.
After years and 316 pages, I get what I did now--I mean, I knew what I was doing, but I get what it means to me now. I concentrated on European politics, mainly in the 1840s through 1860s. I was particularly interested in the Italian Risorgimento and the First and Second Wars of Italian Independence. The 19th century is my jam and European literature and history, too--particularly British texts, art, war. It gets narrower from there.
But what makes it all so strangely lovely and perfect now is that I did that because I love: 1) history, 2) poetry, 3) war stories, 4) politics. When I had to make a decision about which to pursue: a doctorate in English or history, I chose English because I ended up at a university where a history master's wasn't available. English it was. But I made sure a good portion of my course work was in history. In fact, my dissertation was a historical/critical edition of poems written to support the Italian Risorgimento by a British author. I loved learning about European politics from the first part of the 19th century through the 1870s (about). It was epic stuff writ large on a massive canvas. Of course, I can say that because the kind of history that I learned in school was BIG history about GREAT men.
I have since found social and cultural history as meaningful and important as national or military histories. But what I grew up on and learned to value first was the BIG stuff, the kind of things that formed nations and defined eras. And that's what authors were doing way back when--writing about Big things being done by Big men. I fight that notion that is still, the only valuable history, but it was what it was. One cannot ignore the canon because one thinks the canon shouldn't be so narrow, one must simply expand the canon as one can. So I can, and I do.
I conflated history and English and rhetoric in my dissertation, specifically, I avoided all literary criticism. I find that modern theories of literary criticism (Marxism, feminism, Lacanian, Freudian, deconstructionism, Formalism, New Critical-ism, post-structuralism and so many more) have immense historical value. It's vital, I believe, to know that these ways of thinking about literature exist, but the application of the theories to actual written texts should not be the end game. The end game is to understand a text's place in time first (New Historicism), then allow it to mean what it does for each reader (Reader Response Theory). I would definitely fall into the New Historicist domain as a literary scholar (not the most popular of theoretical locations, but it's comfy, being snuggled up next to history as a discipline; it's warm and lovely for me). And I vehemently believe in the value of a reader's response to a text--as long as it's grounded in the text. Rhetoric is the foundation upon which all else is built--all writing, all speaking, all history.
But where something came from is what it is--to some extent at least. Story doesn't erupt or exist in a vacuum. The texts of Procopius, a 6th century Byzantine writer, for example, cannot be deeply known unless one knows some history swirling around in the reader's mind as well as the actual texts Procopius wrote. His Secret History is fascinating when a reader also already knows something about Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, and the famous General Belisarius for whom Procopius was an adviser. And it's also lovely to know that Procopius was a prolific chronicler of wars in that time: against Persians, Ostrogoths, Vandals. Some texts are just better when you know something about the time that birthed the author, and hence, the text. Shakespeare is a better read if you know Elizabeth 1,"better" being equal to more depth, more breadth, more details, stronger synthesis across years, borders, genres, authors, cultures. Just for instance. I can read old texts without historical context, and a story will emerge, but I enjoy the literature more with, than without. I want something that lets me ponder connection as much as I am entertained or distracted.
In my on and off teaching over 32 years, I have never taught literature without biography and history as a major component of the course, with art and music, too, if I could. Rhetoric is always story is always history, and story is what makes us uniquely who we are, but it's so powerful to know something about when and where a story is created. Story. HI-story. Hello, story. Wink, wink. Makes sense. (And by "text" and "literature," I mean any written thing--anything that holds meaning, that is rhetorical, even visually: poetry, science fiction, journalism, history, parliamentary reports, the Declaration of Independence, novels, comic books, screen plays, drama, political cartoons, etc.--my definition of literature is wide open and far-reaching.)
I remember complaining to faculty at my undergraduate institutions that I wanted, but didn't get, a two-year long course as a literature major. I proposed this:
Year 1, Term 1: history of literature, Ancient literature and theories of literature
Year 1, Term 2: history of literature, Medieval literature and theories of literature
Year 2, Term 1: history of literature, Renaissance literature and theories
Year 2, Term 2: history of literature, Modern literature and theories of literature
I did not want to spend these classes READING the literature, but rather tracing out a history of what was written, how it was written, what critics believed about it, what theories they developed about writing and story: history, literature, rhetoric, art, music--all texts. I longed to see how genre developed over time. What changed from Homer to Pope? When did conventions of epic poetry really start to get translated to the novel? How was music and stained glass and coins and drawing used to tell story? That all seemed valuable to me. And it wasn't something I ever got consistently in a classroom. We read literature, and we took literary theory classes, and sometimes we applied theory to literature, but I had very little historical timeline upon which to layer my learning, except how I pieced it together outside class. I constructed a mental timeline eventually for me and used that kind of thinking to teach (thank you, Norton Anthology editors, for all of your leg work in this arena--those timelines of history, literature, and politics and/or art were hugely important for teaching survey classes).
I wanted that kind of history of literature course alongside a reading course, poetry, drama, the novel... an immersive kind of learning in which a student could get into a time period--read extensively from multiple genres, authors, cultures, and then surface to contextualize with history and theories galore--then go deep again as needed or desired.
The idea of such an education is still thrilling to me. A whole semester of one era: geography, science, literature, history, math, art, music, theater--all coordinated and interwoven. This would be heaven.
Such is the core of what we think of as liberal arts education today, but it's all about hit and miss and fitting checks in boxes of disparate classes which might (or might not) cover everything one might need for for a deep dive, but there's no sense to it as it is. A student could take ancient history after modern literature survey and calculus in a semester without any other science. No opportunity for synthesis during the term. Yuck.
The error of modern education is to have put up so many walls between disciplines, to have allowed ourselves such specialization that we have forgotten the way great thinking works, the way great innovation happens. It's synthesis. That's what I was really wanting--always. I got it in my dissertation, but rarely in my actual course work. Post-course work, I was awash in synthesis, but honestly, why did I have to wait until later to make mind-altering connections across disciplines? The ultimate student academic achievement is a dissertation, and it's supposed to fulfill your greatest intellectual desires, right? But why did I have to wait until then? Why wasn't my whole college education made of connections across disciplines? It's not about requesting spoon feeding, it's about desiring opportunity.
I'm arguing several things here: college education is not as purposely interdisciplinary as it should be, though it appears so in core curriculum requirements; I had to become purposely interdisciplinary on my own; I both resented that and loved it; every academic should work harder to embrace interdisciplinarity; every person should try harder to broaden their life's intellectual scope and connections. Fire all the synapses.
(Specializations are vital in fields that require it--medicine is a perfect example. But even medical schools acknowledge that humanities has a place in giving doctors what might be called "soft skills" by some, but which I would call "human skills.")
My job today allows more synthesis than ever before because my focus is broader than ever before and the students I work with are not mine alone--I teach very little, but I dabble across disciplines as a director of research and a writing consultant. The other day an Army colonel I'm honored to work with called us "generalists." Some academics might be offended by that. But I've never been more proud of a label in my life. That was the thing I always wanted to be, something with all the things interconnected and synthesized: rhetoric, literature, history, dance, poetry, math, geography, politics, art.
Comentários