Thank you, Millennial Star, for your gracious introduction and for letting me write with you.
Riding a bicycle in Washington D.C. nudges me into a sidestream of metropolitan life that I would miss underground or in a car. I got to mark the opening of kayaking season on the Potomac as I rode across the Key Bridge every morning in late April. I saw—and sometimes tasted—the reawakening insect life swarming above the warm grass along the Mt. Vernon trail. And just within the past two weeks, I’ve noticed a man who sets up an easel at the base of the Memorial Bridge and dabs away at an increasingly lovely painting of the Washington Memorial.
I let myself believe that one day he’ll ask to paint my picture; he just hasn’t worked up the courage yet. But to date, the most exciting—and most poignant—episode in my continuing bike tour is the hundreds of thousands of Harley Davidsons I rode past on the Sunday before Memorial Day.
My first experience with swarms of Harley Davidsons and their steel-bestudded owners came a year ago at the Outer Banks when they clogged all two roads and overran all of the steak houses. My roommates and I gawked at them behind rolled-up windows in Carren’s Honda Civic, and I wondered a little at how America could host such an alien population. The weathered men and bleached-blond women seemed more like some species of armored insect than people I’d recognize as neighbors, coworkers, fellow baseball fans. When Carren and I saw them again that Sunday before Memorial Day, we were absolutely flabbergasted. While I effused, Carren immediately pulled out her cell phone.
“Hey Sam—you know that hog rally you thought you saw last night? Well they’re all here in the Pentagon parking lot—thousands of them!â€
Carren was driving me up to campus so I could pick up my Schwinn and ride it home, and we rhapsodized on the thousands of bikers all the way up to Georgetown.
“What are they doing, why did they come here?†I kept asking, and Carren only shrugged and said, “It’s a hog rally!â€
By the time I was riding back along the Potomac River, though, I was thinking of other things. It was Sunday; I was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on my discman; and quite frankly, I was calculating how long it would take me to blow dry my hair and if I had time to go to choir. I heard the parade before I saw it. Crossing the George Washington Parkway and leaving behind the bucolic scene of cyclists and strollers along the Potomac River, I heard the sirens, the strident music, the trademark roar before I actually saw the slow-moving river of Harley Davidsons that filled all lanes of traffic on Route 27. The parade was headed up by a police car and two mammoth Harleys rigged up with an enormous American flag and an equally enormous POW flag. I found out later that the procession had been organized to commemorate Vietnam veterans and POWs; at that moment I just rode along in amazement and delight at this lucky spectacle. Some of the bikers nodded or waved at the sparse crowd watching from the bike path, and one bleached-blond woman held a boom box broadcasting “I’m Proud to be an American.†The crowd gave her scattered applause, but she, like her hundreds of helmeted compatriots, just looked straight ahead, solemn. There were hundreds of them riding ten wide across the highway. I rode slowly past them, trying carefully to taxonomize all the different varieties—the Harleys with trailers and dogs, the Harleys with sidecars and kids, the Harleys with 1950s fenders, and all of them, every single one, with patriotic paraphernalia draped on both bike and biker.
At the turn-off down into the acres and acres of Pentagon parking lot, I got off my bike and joined the spectators. Below me, a vast spread of Harleys waited in orderly lines for their turn to join the parade. I was still giddy with the novelty of it all, but after a few high-pitched messages left on my family’s answering machine, I calmed down and became more solemn myself. For 15 minutes I stood there watching. I stopped keeping track of the different species of bikers. I stopped trying to remember weird things to tell my roommates. I just watched as hundreds and hundreds of bikers sped past me, flags snapping, gunning their engines to get up the hill and be part of the parade.
Most often, I’m either suspicious or dismissive of patriotism. At the Fourth of July parade in Provo, I look at the rows of identical American Flag T-shirts on identical blond siblings, and I think about how much money Old Navy must make every year. When I get goose bumps at fireworks displays, I laugh at how susceptible I am to emotional manipulation. It’s not that I don’t love my country—I do, and I sincerely want to be sufficiently grateful—it’s just that I wonder how genuine most displays of patriotism are, and I worry that patriotism can bleed into arrogance, self-complacency, chauvinism. But I felt rebuked on that Harley Davidson Sunday. These highway warriors believed in something deeply enough to countenance the sneering curiosity of bystanders like me. Was I as brave in the things I believed? Yesterday, Flag Day, I rode home like always past the Pentagon. No Harleys, just the usual zip of traffic along Route 27. Convertibles with tops rolled back, lots of drivers inscrutable behind sunglasses. A Jeep honked at me as it passed by, and I straightened up and felt slightly more attractive as I bounced over the sidewalk and into the Pentagon parking lot. I was thinking about Visiting Teaching that night, class the next day, this post that I’d intended to finish before I left work. But I wish I had thought about those thousands of flags whipping along behind those thousands of Harleys. Because it seems to me that of anyone else, the bikers in that parade had earned the right to their patriotism.
Here on the West Coast, I get the same thrill watching the Blue Angels perform over San Francisco or Seattle. Once, when crossing the Bay Bridge, I saw a couple of A-6’s doing a slow climb over the Bay, then zooming over the bridge and heading out to sea. It brought patriotic tears to my eyes …
I am confused. If I wear sufficiently non-middle class looking clothes as part of my patriotic display, can I also earn the right to be patriotic?
Only if you ride a motorcycle, Nate. And get some really mean-looking tattoos.
So hey, you’re halfway there. 🙂
I’m interested as to why you found this particular show of patriotism any more sincere or valid than Old Navy’s American Flag T-Shirts. Is it because there is a cultural assumption that those riding Harley Davidsons are “non-conformist,” and thus patriotism from a non-conformist is somehow more effectual? Is it because of the Vietnam Vet angle (perhaps the idea of recognizing Vietnam POWs is more emotion-stirring than traditional forums of patriotic celebration)?
Without taking anything away from their attempts to be genuine, I wonder to what degree this isn’t much different than the Provo Freedom Festival. After all, as you yourself point out, it was thousands of flags whipping behind thousands of motorcycles. It may be repackaged, but it still seems like the new packaging was the result of the same forces at work in “traditional” displays of patriotism–conformity to one’s sphere of social influence, heavy use of images and sounds with no real substance, and a genuine lack of individual expression of conviction as to what (if any) value comes from said patriotic display.
Not to be cynical or anything.
If Naomi’s argument is the Freedom Festival is false but the Harley’s are genuine, and you find that they are actually indistinguishable, Jarom, why is it that you conclude that both are false? Why can’t both be genuine?
You’re right, Adam, in that I’m conflating two trains of thought into one.
To back up, my first point is that Naomi mentions her distrust of the “freedom festival” type of flag waving, and so I’m pushing for a clearer distinction that she sees in the Harley Davidson parade as compared to the things she finds harder to swallow in traditional forms of patriotic expression.
Second, if someone were to ask me that question, I’d have to first of all answer that the word “genuine” is a difficult one to pin down. Do I see those participating in the Harley Davidson rally (this is something they do every year, isn’t it? I seem to remember all the DC news stations mentioning something about it each of the past few years) as genuinely feeling something for their country and trying to express it? Sure. And, for the most part, I think this is the case when my wife goes to Old Navy (or, if she happened to be visiting Utah before July 4th, Downeast Outfitters) and buys family T-shirts with the flag on it. I don’t doubt her genuine desire to show love of country.
What I do doubt, however, is the efficacy of such displays, in any form. Outward signs of patriotism and the symbols they so often invoke–flags, Uncle Sam, war references, etc.–have a tendency to blur towards emptiness in actual meaning. There’s a disconnect between what people feel in terms of an American ideology of “freedom” and the visual/aural language which has evolved culturally to express those feelings. The real problem that has created such a disconnect is the fact that these same symbols have been used so many times for so many different purposes–some good, altruistic, humanitarian, adventurous, and so forth, and some imperialistic, tyrannistic, racist, and so forth–that they end up, in the end, devoid of meaning. That’s a real problem with symbols in general (but of course, you could make the same argument about language–see Modernist writers such as Stein and Hemingway, for example).
My point in this tirade against patriotism? Nothing, really, because I grant that if the “traditional” form of patriotism is just as genuine in intent as the sight Naomi witnessed, then I must also grant that the analysis I make in thinking about the emptiness of the symbols themselves are not a part of the consciousness of those practicing displays of patriotism. And therefore, I can’t take away from their expressions of “love of country” any more than them waving a flag at me can elicit emotional responses out of me.
This is something I always have a hard time explaining to the deacons who come by on the 4th of July wanting to put a flag in the yard, though…
It might have something to do with the fact — as I understand it — much of modern literary theory is obsessed with marginal voices and the other. Hence, Naoimi may be educationally predisposed to grant legitimacy to the Other while being at the same time educationally predisposed to look for the illegitimacy of the Established Discourse. Harleys, being defined in the Other category, gain legitimacy by virtue of their status. The Freedom Festival, because Naomi identifies with its culture, becomes the suspect Established Discourse. This is, of course, a horribly cartoonish portrait at best of the lit crit world and Naomi’s potential thinking, but I can’t help but think that any sort of serious training in the humanities today will lead one to reflexively grant the legitimacy of the Other or at the very least creat very strong assumptions against its illegitimacy.
Nate, of your #7: I’d write off a comment as contemptuous and misinformed from any other commenter as a bad day at the office or a poorly digesting dinner. But you have a fairly extensive history of denigrating both the practitioners and the practice of literary studies at every possible turn, and of doing so with the greatest possible derision–and all this while you freely admit that you rarely read literature and know very little about either the theory or the practice of literary studies. And then you expect to be excused because you concede your ignorance, after you’ve slung your arrows. You’ve absorbed or imagined some whacked version of “modern literary theory,” and then you insist on misreading any expression on the topic to fit your preconceptions; and even though you’ve had to back off your assertions at the end of nearly every encounter, still you persist. I ask you to desist forthwith, scoundrel!
Listen, Nate, you’ve just got a skewed picture, you really do. Here’s an unedited list of the most recent twenty “Call for Paper” notices in my inbox, a fair stab at a data set for the “obsessions” of contemporary literary studies:
Okay, so even construing “marginal” quite broadly, I come up with four out of twenty–hardly an overweening obsession. If anything, this particular list seems heavy on popular culture topics, the sociological antagonist of “marginal” cultures.
But you’re right, literary studies do theorize about and handle specific instances of marginality and alterity. And they do this not because of some morbid critical pathology, but because literature itself has defined itself in opposition to and undertaken for itself ideological work that undermines prevailing social arrangements for at least the the last hundred years, and, less consistently, for much longer still. To accuse literary theorists of obsessing about alterity is like accusing lawyers of obsessing about, say, rules of conduct: this is unfair, because that’s what law is about.
I’ll tell you one thing, though. If I had to have someone next to me in a foxhole, I’d choose a Harley guy rather than a literature professor. Not to disparage the real contributions of literature professors. It’s just that in the foxhole, with the enemy coming…that’s no time for argument about the influence in literature of Kierkegaard confronting Hegelism.
Bravo, Rosylande! I once wrote in a response to one of Nate’s comments (on one of your posts, no less), “you have an amazing propensity to make unwarranted assumptions about your argumentative opponents, to swiftly burn straw men instead of asking serious questions, and then to blame your opponents for not having been clearer.” To which he responded that it was, “A skill carefully honed with many years of practice.” After your post, I wonder if he won’t be a step or two closer to unlearning that practice.
Whenever I think of Harley Davidsons, I think of Pulp Fiction (Q: Whose motorcycle is this? A: It’s a chopper, baby. Q: Whose chopper is this? A: It’s Zed’s. Q: Who’s Zed? A: Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead). Whenever I try not to think of Pulp Fiction, I think of the Fletch. When I try not to think of Fletch, I think of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. When I try not to think of that, it occurs to me that many of the people on these bikes are doctors, lawyers, etc. who enjoy donning leather and hopping on a motorcycle that costs as much as most BMWs.
That said, I don’t begrudge anyone their patriotism any more than I begrudge people their testimonies.
Hi Naomi!
It’s fun to bump into you again, even if it’s just a virtual bump.
<Intellectual Weakling’s Comment>All of the philosophizing (perhaps due to the Naomi’s high-falootin’ voice. I love it when you can actually use “bucolic scenes” in a sentence) aside, perhaps Naomi’s point has more to do with the quite visceral nature of the patriotic display. I mean, it seems to me that there is a difference (though slight, perhaps) between wearing a flag shirt to a parade and organizing and participating in a hog rally, even if it is only the oodles of horse-power involved…
I think her point about the otherness of the display is obvious: these are people who are willing to be stared at in all their tatooed goodness in order to make a point, which, once again, is, in my opinion, at least slightly more than putting a yellow-ribbon-shaped bumper sticker on the back of your SUV…
</Intellectual Weakling’s Comment>
Fratello Huff
Snap! Dr. Welch 1, Nate Oman 0. Wow. Italics and everything. I don’t want to get in the way of the knock-down drag-out fight I am hoping ensues, but let me just say that I enjoyed your personal essay, Naomi. Why people are treating it like it was a work of literary criticism is beyond me? The only reason seems to be to criticize literary theory itself, which seems silly, so I guess that shows what side I’m on.
And secondly, there’s a huge difference in patriotic commitment between putting on a flag T-shirt and strolling to Center Street to wave at the Timpview High Marching Band and riding your Harley across the country to make a statement about Vietnam Vets. The two acts are incomparable in the degree of time and dedication they require. I would think it would be obvious.
First, thanks, everyone, for reading and responding to my first post. I’m teaching a summer writing class, and we’re working on autobiographical essays right now, so I brought in a draft of this yesterday only to have it torn apart by a bunch of 18 year olds. “Bucolic,” by the way, was the suggestion of one of the more cerebral among them; I can’t take credit for summoning that word from my own brain. Your responses are valuable, all of them.
Second, if any of you mess with me again, I’m sending my sister Rosalynde after you. Her response, in addition to being a vigorous defense of a field she’s given over 12 years to mastering (well, doctoring, I guess), is the equivalent of me getting my big brother to beat you up.
Third, specific responses to some of the points you raise (in the next comment).
Rosalynde,
If Nate’s “skewed view” is like mine, it’s probably due to the composition of college English readers — all of which have multiple essays on queer theory, gender theory, and other celebrations of “marginalized classes,” and none of which have essays on Sea Literature or World’s Fairs and Expositions. If our perceptions are skewed, don’t blame us, blame your colleagues that edit Ways of Reading and The New Humanities Reader. You should also feel free to blame the English professors who select these texts for their students for whom they know the course would likely be their only formal experience with literary studies.
Rosalynde: I am a bit confused as to the precise nature of my misapprehension, however. It seems to me that you are suggesting both that literary theory has lots of interests other than the relationship between margin and center and that the study of margin and center is what literature is about. For what it is worth, I don’t think that I was imputing to Naomi any set of pathologies, only a set of reactions that is embedded in her intellectual training; rather, like a lawyer looking at Harley Davidson riders and thinking, “If that guy in the front wiped out and was run over by the guys behind him, who could he sue?” Obviously, intellectual training runs the risk of creating blinders, but I don’t think that the fact that it effects one’s perceptions is wrong per se. That, after all, is the point of education in the first place.
As for my criticisms of literary theory, I think that in the past they have focused mainly on what I see as its inadequacies as a method of understanding social, political, and economic power. This is not to say that understanding stories doesn’t illuminate social, political, or economic power, but only that for many (and perhaps most) of the questions related to these issues other intellectual tools will serve us better. I don’t think that I have ever denigrated the practioners of literary theory as personally stupid, mendacious, etc. Nor have I ever suggested that literary theory doesn’t provide a useful set of tools for examining and understanding literature.
Matt,
That’s an extraordinarily weak comeback, and I’m surprised that you would bother to even make it.
First, your rebuttal raises probably insurmountable book-by-its-cover concerns.
Would it be fair to judge the whole field of economics, based on the text of your Econ 101 textbook? Or to judge law, as a discipline, on some survey course taught to freshmen?
Or to judge all of philosophy based on a primer course taught to freshmen? (“We spent a week on this Kant guy and I don’t understand a thing — clearly all philosophy is garbage.”)
Second, you ignore the possibility that there is some good reason to put certain material in early textbooks. You’re unlikely to get essays about intertextuality in a freshman course, for a reason.
Third, I think that you’re drastically wrong on the empirical side. I’ve taken a few college English courses, and I don’t recall queer theory essays being involved. I did write papers on Eldridge Cleaver, Geoffrey Chaucer, and (of all things) gun control.
I majored in Spanish, and wrote an honors thesis discussing a number of works, including Quijote and Celestina. The most modern of the bunch was Emilia Pardo Bazan’s novel Los Pazos de Ulloa, which dates to 1886.
I didn’t see the queer theory or gender theory obsessions that you are claiming are universal. I didn’t write a single paper on queer theory. Nor did I do anything focused on gender issues (though the topic of gender was probably mentioned, it was never a focus).
Fourth, are you even speaking from experience, or from random things you’ve read on NRO and John Leo? You went to U of U, for heaven’s sake — how much queer theory can there be in the state of Utah? Plus, I’ve got to suspect that you were (like me) an AP baby who skipped out of most freshman english requirements anyway.
Nate Oman, my essay might reflect my training in literature, but it probably reflects even more my long history of romanticizing/sentimentalizing (I use that word consciously, Rosalynde) virtually every memorable encounter in my life (which I’ve done before). I think it would be unfair to my colleagues and the discipline if I let you think my essay is a thoughtful reflection on literary theory. I didn’t set out to do that, and quite frankly, I am completely daunted by that thought (that’s why I’ve been putting off writing my thesis). It’s a story that draws rather sloppily from a miscellaneous well of my prejudices and musings.
But I don’t want to back away from the points you raise. You asked in #2 if being non-conformist would grant you genuine patriot status in my eyes. No. I was moved by the element of sacrifice that these vets and POWs represented, and it was the element of sacrifice that I was suggested made their display patriotism more powerful to me. This is an admittedly simplistic view. I doubt that all of those bikers were vets–in fact, certainly they weren’t–and perhaps the significance of the parade as a tribute to POWs was lost or not honored by some of the people participating in it. Further, I don’t want to suggest that those families in Old Navy T-shirts haven’t sacrificed in meaningful ways for their country, because I don’t know that either. Raising strong families, teaching children to be responsible, thoughtful, good citizens, paying taxes, serving in a community–these are all things that would certainly “qualify” someone (I’m uneasy with that word) to display their patriotism and earn it too.
No, the real thing that was going on in my essay–at least, as I undertook it–was my confrontation with my own prejudice. Jaron, you asked me in #6 what I saw in that H-D parade that I didn’t see in the Freedom Festival. I saw my own prejudice being dismantled. I saw a group of people I’d always looked at behind rolled up windows in a context both admirable and familiar. This was big for me. And because my previous quibbles with patriotic displays had been how commercialized and commodified they’d become, this strong display of non-Old Navy patriotism was refreshing, enlightening. I realize that driving a Harley that costs tens of thousands of dollars isn’t without its own commercialization and commodification, but because it’s not mine, I think it taught me something.
Jarom, the sense I got from your response was that you are also ambivalent toward displays of patriotism. I’d like to know, if anyone would like to speculate, what you think about the value of patriotism. As for what constitutes a genuine display–I think it’s like what DKL says: as in testimonies, displays and feelings of patriotism are specific to the individual and subject to constant growth and change. You question the utility of those displays as symbols, and I agree with you. But I think a good-will belief can go a long way toward making those symbols meaningful. My next hurdle of prejudice, obviously, is to see value in the Old Navy T-shirts :).
Lastly, Nate, you might be right–there might be an element of self-hate at work in my essay. That which is other is more valid than that which is self. But if that tendency helps me to see the humanity in other people, to be more tolerant and thoughtful, then I don’t denigrate it. I don’t think it’s the most seasoned or mature view, but that’s okay for now.
Fratello Huff!!! So good to hear from you! And SeptimusH, thanks for your incisive observations. As usual (#34), you have valuable correctives to some of my views.
Kaimi: I’ve got to suspect that you were (like me) an AP baby who skipped out of most freshman english requirements anyway.
Wow, Kaimi. I don’t know how you managed it, but congratulations on making AP high school english! Since I failed out of high school, I’ve just got oodles of respect for you AP types. (And they give me a hard time for bragging about getting banned from T&S?)
DKL,
Drop it, dude.
In pointing out that Matt’s probably a bit unqualified to pass judgment on freshman English primers, I’m making full disclosure that I’m in the same boat. (Since Matt’s likely to ask that anyway, in a rebuttal). Is that a crime?
Kaimi,
I’ll bet that if we were to count the number of times they’re reproduced, we’d find that essays in college readers by Brazilian communists are more representative of literary studies than any essay about Sea Literature — even a SeaLit article published in the largest academic literary studies journal. This is the same logic that claims a Britney Spears song that’s played 16 times on 11 stations each week is more representative of “radio music” than is a jazz song that’s played once on NPR’s Hot Jazz Saturday Night.
I don’t know what you imagine the University of Utah to be, but it’s not at all averse to queer theory. The sociology and econ departments are among the most Marxist of any American faculties. The English reader assigned for my freshman English class was Celebrating Diversity: A Multicultural Reader. You can guess the distribution between articles on queer, race class and gender theories, and those on Sea Literature.
I can’t prove that my exposure to introductory English readers is
representative the class of readers — but besides those I used myself in Utah, I’ve bought several others, and they’re all love fests with The Other. If someone can show that the top-selling readers are different than I’ve assumed, I’m open to correction.
Naomi: Fair enough. I was confused at the nature of your respect for the Harley riders: if it came from their difference from yourself or from their association with POW and vets. If you are talking in terms of patriotism and sacrifice for country, it seems that you are going in a quite different direction than if you are talking about earning a right to patriotism by dressing in spike studded leather and driving a motorcycle. (For the record: I think dressing in spike studded-leeather and driving a Harley is WAY cool, but wife has worked with so many motorcycle-induced brain injuries that my chances of living the dream are nil!)
Matt,
You haven’t explained why you think it makes sense to judge an entire discipline based on the material given to freshmen.
I’ve read some Econ 101 books and all they do is use basic supply and demand curves. Clearly, all economists are morons. They must think that the world can be explained by a basic supply and demand curve.
If you want to judge the entire discipline of law, West puts out a primer called “Understanding the law.” I think it spends a page or two on Marbury. Let’s ask people to assess the usefulness and validity of law as a system of analysis, based on West’s primer.
Kaimi: What makes you think that the world cannot be explained with a supply and demand curve?
Furthermore, it would be absurd to claim that economics is not obsessed with the notion of market equilibrium, which is what you learn about in an Econ 101 class. In other words, it is probably not unjustifiable to make generalizations about economics as a discipline on the basis of a basic econ text book. What would be a mistake would be to think that such a basic text book accurately reflects the depth and complexity of what economists do, but it is probably not a mistake to think that it accurately shows the basic orientation of the discipline.
BTW, any untoward hostility that I might have toward English majors is entirely the result of being jilted by English majors in college.
Nate,
It depends on the level of generality we want to play at. Sure, you can say that Econ 101 is about “market equilibrium” and so are later courses.
Is saying “Econ 101 is about market equilibrium” the same level of generality as saying “some English 101 readers discuss queer theory”? I don’t think so myself. I think if we’re going back to a high level of generality, the analogue of “Econ 101 is about market equilibrium” is saying “English 101 is about analyzing literature.” Both true statements, and both pretty well generalizable to the entire discipline.
As far as the details, in Econ 101 you’re likely to handle extremely simple supply and demand curves, you’ve got essentially no math, definitely no calculus or statistics or econometrics, no behavioralism, etc. (Perhaps Frank can fill in the details, it’s been a while since I took Econ 101). Very little of that is generalizable to the entire discipline.
Many of the details of particular readers in English 101 are also probably not generalizable to the entire discipline.
I will agree with Matt and go further. Theory sucks. I hate it. It really is a rare moment when your not reading and discussing either marginalization or sexuality in some form. And it’s ridiculous.
The problem is the extraordinary liberal bias. I would be surprised if there were a stronger liberal bias in any other academic department (Except maybe theater. And Sociology is pretty liberal too, although they are somewhat bound to reality, so they stay fairly grounded.) It’s really sad. Being a conservative English grad student is a constant uphill battle. Ironically, as much as diversity is celebrated, diversity of fundamental worldview is not celebrated.
Nate: Harley’s are not “the other”; at least in the U.S., they are the dominant voice. Now, my 1200 CL BMW motorcycle…that is “the other” voice in U.S. motorcycle speak.
Kaimi,
I’ve owned four contemporary introductory English readers, and they are all consumed with the Other. No doubt there are dozens more, and I’ll modify my assumption that these four are representative of the class if someone can show that mine are all outliers.
My point to Rosalynde was that if she feels “Readings on The Other” are not representative of literary studies generally, she should direct her complaint at those compiling the introductory texts that form the basis of most people’s understanding of the field. If Frank were frustrated that most people think economics is largely about supply & demand, inflation, and interest rates, because that’s what they studied in their only econ class, it seems to me that he should blame those responsible for producing the introductory courses.
Nate, I came on a little strong (I just happened to read your recent exchange with Justin H on FMH last night—in which, if I recall, you said he was “full of crap”—right before I read your comment on this thread; it was an unfortunate juxtaposition.) But I stand by everything I said, and if you’re confused about the nature of your misapprehension, I’ll be happy to clarify: first, literary theory is not as overwhelmingly obsessed with otherness as you suggest; and second, to the extent that it is concerned with alterity, it is so as an adaptive critical response to the objects it studies.
Matt, I tried to take, as I said, as representative a data set of the state of the field as I could get offhand, and I think it supports my view. Why do you think freshman readers ought to be given more weight than “Call for Papers” notices in assessing the discipline?
Eric, it sounds like you’re a grad student in English, and it sounds like you’re having a tough time. I’m not sure what the dynamic is for you, although if you really feel that “theory sucks” and “you hate it,” I might suggest that you find another discipline. For me, also a conservative student in a heavily liberal department, I faced no problems that couldn’t be handled with tact, communication, and good thinking. I did good work, I didn’t go out of my way to insult people, and I faced absolutely no substantive resistance about my politics, my religion, or my family choices—all of which were unusual, to say the least, in the department.
Listen, the field is not perfect, by any means, and it’s usually at its worst, in my experience, at professional gatherings where there’s a really quite astonishing presumption of shared assumptions. But the MLA and freshman readers are not the measure of the discipline; alas, it takes a little bit more effort and expertise to reach an informed understanding of the project.
It seems that one of the biggest problems with Nate’s comments is the use of the word “obsessed”–a word which, through no fault of its own (I’ve always seen it as a perfectly benign word), connotes an unhealthy, narrow, out-of-control fixation. Literary Studies does not obsess about Queer Theory, any more than it obsesses about other methodologies or ideologies. I’ve never seen an introduction to Literary Theory text that gives more weight to Queer Theory than it does to Marxist reading practices, Gender studies, and so forth. And to label all such methodologies as “the Other” only perpetuates the problem that necessitates the real need for such reading practices to begin with. In fact, the goal of introductory texts in literary criticism is to demonstrate not just diversity, but representation. As a side note, the creation of introductory texts generally have very little to do with the state of the discipline, anyway, but have much more to do with administrative requirements, commercial interests, and a bunch of complaints like yours. If anything, I’d say that intro to Literary Studies texts do a remarkably good job considering all the power structures involved. And I’m not trying to remove individual professors from a position of culpability, but just suggest that blaming the academics practicing is a convenient but utlimately unconvincing position. The problem is that people who don’t study or practice literary criticism have a fundamentally dishonest habit of focusing in on the one or two ideologies they don’t agree with and trying to claim that these small points encapsulate the whole of the discipline. If anyone is obsessing about Queer Theory, its those who try to use one part to discredit the whole. To extend Rosalynde’s point, here’s a link to all the papers at the 2004 MLA conference that were in the field of “British Literature.”
Furthermore, to try to make an argument by saying there’s a lack of publications on “Sea Literature” is really a faulty comparison, because Sea Literature is not a description of a methodological standpoint. I’d venture to say that the Sea Literature conference would include a couple of papers that approach the topic from a Queer Studies point of view, several that look at multiculturalism and ethnicity in Sea Literature, some that deal with gender issues, and a whole slew that stick to the most basic tenets of formalistic literary study. Because if there’s anything that Literary Critics “obsess” about, it is text and narrative. At the heart of all ideological approaches to literature, whatever the values of that given ideology, is a belief that it is language and story that matters. Literary Criticism, contrary to what most outside of the field (and even some inside the field) is not really about theory, its about reading. Ways of reading. Assumptions we make (or fail to make) while reading. Questions we need to ask while reading. To miss that point is to miss what literature is about.
Now, to avoid threadjacking and bring the discussion back to patriotism, I think Naomi’s post, because it is so visibly and linguistically centered in a particular narrative, it invites discussions that tend to literary criticism. So, in answer to your question Naomi, I wouldn’t say that I’m abivalent about patriotic display, but instead that I’m deeply skeptical. Again, I must emphasize that it’s not because I doubt people’s sincere emotions, and I don’t begrudge anyone their patriotism. But do I think that such displays have any inherent value? I haven’t been convinced yet. And my primary reasons are this: 1) A “nation” is not real, in that there is nothing natural that ties an individual’s identity to those who happen to be living within the same artificial boundaries and who happen to be subject to the same set of governmental rules and regulations. Thus to say that you “love your country” doesn’t, to me, have any real significance, since a “country” is such an abstract, imagined idea (Benedict Anderson had a big effect on me as an Undergraduate). 2) In clarifying my criticism of the typical patriotic symbols, you’ll all have to allow that these symbols have been used, very often, for both good and evil practices or ideologies. And so many times, those who wave flags very purposefully try to ignore the horrors done “in the name of the flag” in hopes that by pretending they never happened, they never did. Now don’t take me too far–I’m only talking about the symbols themselves, not what they supposedly represent. I think it’s far more honest to claim allegiance to the ideals of religious freedom, freedom of speech, etc. that is at the heart of the Constitution. But we cannot honestly claim that the flag represents these and these only; we cannot pick and choose what we want our symbols to represent. Society has taken care of that for us.
I think this is one reason that the Church has really moved away from outward display of symbols as a sign of commitment to a particular belief. Obviously, we are strongly wedded to a notion of symbolisim as a teaching tool–the Savior very carefully chooses his symbols to illustrate a particular point or to encompass a plethora of meaning for a variety of people. The temples are fundamentally based in this form of symbolism, as are our ordinances. But these symbols are not meant for display; they are meant for religious instruction and remembrance. In fact, as Mormon commercialism seeks to indundate our culture more and more with “patriotic symbolism of Mormonism,” selling Angel Moroni ties, Temple baseball caps, and too many versions of CTR rings to number, the church separates itself more and more from this form of “love of religion.” They don’t even distribute CTR rings in primary anymore.
Would I stop my kids from getting caught up in patriotic fervor? Not while they’re young–there are bigger things to teach them, like shoe-tying and sharing. And like I said, my wife goes out each year to buy us all flag T-shirts. I rationalize this ritual by recognizing that it’s at least worth it for family togetherness. But I don’t say the pledge of allegiance or sing the national anthem. I won’t put a flag on my car. The best way to show that I am grateful for the people who have sacrificed so that I can enjoy the way of life that I have is to sacrifice myself for others, through family service, church service, and so forth.
Matt,
We seem to be talking past each other.
Nate: All literary theory is obsessed with others.
Matt: Yep.
Rosalynde: No, it’s not. Look, I’ve got empirical evidence that shows otherwise.
Matt: Well, it was a reasonable assumption for me to make. After all, it’s in my freshman English book.
Kaimi: So it’s reasonable to make broad generalizations based on English 101 books?
Matt: Hey, buddy — take it up with the book editors.
Your move to “is it reasonable to get this impression from English 101 books” is a clever way to avoid the main point: According to Rosalynde’s empirical evidence, your impression of the entire field (based on extrapolation from your Freshman book) is WRONG.
Yes, it may be reasonable to make extrapolations, absent better evidence. But you’ve got better evidence, in the form of Rosalynde’s list of what papers people are actually calling for. For you to defend your extrapolation-from-my-Freshman-English-book view of literary theory, in the face of Rosalynde’s evidence that that view is incorrect, is pretty bizarre.
To illustrate, using our economics example again:
Kaimi: So, Frank, whatcha studying?
Frank: Behavioral economics and econometrics.
Kaimi: No you’re not. You’re doing basic supply and demand curves. That’s all anyone ever did in my 101 class.
Frank: No, actually a lot of serious economists do other things.
Kaimi: I doubt it. My 101 book didn’t talk about behavioralism at all. Or econometrics. Neither did Nate’s.
Frank: But here’s an actual paper that I’m writing about econometrics. And a list of economists who study these things.
Kaimi: Take it up with the textbook editors, buddy. Until I see otherwise in an Econ 101 book, I’m assuming that econometrics doesn’t exist.
“Why do you think freshman readers ought to be given more weight than ‘Call for Papers’ notices in assessing the discipline?”
I’m not saying they’re representative of the entire discipline, they obviously aren’t, but essays in college readers must be read by 30+ times more people than essays in academic journals, and it makes sense to give weight to pieces in proportion to their publication or reading rates.
Matt,
Your position is getting more and more ridiculous as you go along.
Many more people listen to Rush Limbaugh’s or NPR’s 30-second soundbite of a case than actually read the case. Does that mean that we can accurately assess a case, or an entire field of law, by the condensed version of a case that we hear on the radio?
(If you really want to privilege the masses, you’ll note that more people saw Independence Day than work at NASA. Let’s start assessing space policy according to what Jerry Bruckheimer thinks of it!)
Rosalynde, I think you’ve given your call for papers analysis a bit too generous a gloss. Yes, you’ve outlined some topics being discussed in your field. But isn’t it likely that many ( I am not saying a majority, but certainly some) of the papers submitted on topics such as World War I and World War II, Internet Culture, World’s Fairs, etc. will focus on how those concepts are/were experienced by marginalized groups? I don’t think you can present the broad topics being discussed as evidence of a focus on majority-oriented themes, without at least looking at the actual papers written within the topics.
To the larger point: My own guess about Naomi’s differing reactions to the patriotism of the Provo community vs. that of the bikers boys is based on how I think i’d react, and it certainly doesn’t involve self-hate, as has been suggested.
I’m part of the bland crowd wandering around main street on the fourth of July. When I see others like me participating in similar demonstration, it is unsurprising, not poignant in any sense. Thus, my values are not reinforced in the slightest, because nothing is at stake in the sea of agreement.
Many people I know have expressed sentiments similar to Naomi’s on seeing the insignia of Bikers Against Child Abuse. Now, it’s a safe assumption that I am against child abuse, and I can assume that you are too, as well as my neighbor down the street and my home teacher. What is harder to assume is that this person whose outward appearances seem designed to throw me off balance and inspire distrust, will agree with the bread-and-butter values that are taken for granted in my own, uniform community. So when I see this value being touted as important by someone I’ve been trained to distrust or denigrate, both the value and the distrusted charicature go up a notch in my esteem. I see that my value is more universal than I’d thought, since it is cherished by those different from me. And I see that my prejudice is not completely well-placed, since its object has a laudable quality or two. A biker crusading against child abuse or for patriotism is simply more salient than a Relief Society President doing so. It’s about contrast, and any artist will tell that in contrast lies the power of a message.
I can’t leave this comment without linking to a jarring display of patriotism I wrote about last year.
Rosalynde in #8 says
I certainly don’t want to step in between Rosalynde and Nate in this fight–I have neither the qualifications nor the inclination.
I just wonder about Rosalynde’s use of the slang, and whether it accurately reflects current usage by the boys in the hood. Or (horrors)did the past participial form of “whack” sneak in because of some sort of slavish, perhaps subconscious, devotion to prescriptive grammar.
Here in the big city, the usual construct is “whack”, as in “That was whack, man.” Do they do things differently in the midwest, or what?
Besides, I sort of like the sound of “some whack version of modern literary theory.” Has a nice ring to it.
Kaimi,
Rosalynde’s “Call for Papers” is very unlikely to be representative of the discipline, because journals are most likely to call for topics preciesly because they’re not receiving scores of unsolicited papers about them. Far from being representative, the call for papers is a list of topics that have not yet been extensively covered and need prodding. Race, gender and queer papers do not need prodding. (Though apparently there’s a shortage about the specific issue of “The Queer Space of the Postcolonial.”)
Roslynde: Try thinking about my claim not in terms of a nuanced understanding of literary theory, but rather as a general point about intellectual habits. For example, I think that most people would think that legal education would habituate its victims to thinking in terms of rules, formalities, and confrontational argument. Now if this was offered as a theory of jurisprudence, it would be woefully inaccurate, but if offered as a statement about some of the mental habits of lawyers it wouldn’t be bad.
What sort of mental habits — as opposed to rigorous theories — might literary studies lead to? One might respond that it leads to a sensitivity to narrative, text, and the different possibilities of reading. Any other habits? Might it lead, in Naomi’s words, to a belief “that which is other is more valid than that which is self. But if that tendency helps me to see the humanity in other people, to be more tolerant and thoughtful, then I don’t denigrate it.”
I wonder if Naomi’s feelings as such were really just relative to the correctional nature of how she perceives the scene–i.e., along the lines of Ryan’s comment, the contrast made it seem that the scene was “more” valid. But given time, I’d be willing to bet that as she continues to experience more and more of the “other” (despite my dislike of that term), everything balances out and the actual result is that literary studies leads to a belief that that which is other is just as valid as that which is self.
And so, if history and society has perpetuated narrative and academic inquiry that values the self much more (the self meaning the self of the dominant power structure), then the seeming emphasis today on marginality is the corrective measure needed to bring things back into balance. Just as the patriotism of the Bikers helped Naomi recognize the salience of their devotion because of the contrast to the norm, we need more contrast in literary study to demonstrate that the voices and experiences of historically marginalized groups and voices also have validity. At least a validity that deserves our listening. Hence students in an intro to literary theory class must, out of necessity, have exposure to looking at texts written by, about, and from the perspective of groups that have never previously been a part of their consciousness.
Being one of the many drudges working towards a PhD in literary studies (and having already earned a MA), I can say that I feel Rosalynde in being too reflexively defensive, and that Nate and the “Others” have very good points.
Liteary studies are, currently, far too obsessed with the other, with deligitmizing mainstream discourse. The reflexive stance of literary studies seems too often to be “if its mainstream it’s automatically worthy of contempt.”
A list of topics from a Call to Papers list tells us nothing about HOW those topics are approached. Shakespeare may get studied a lot, but a mere listing of “Shakespeare” as a topic tells us nothing about the possibility that the conference and/or journal will publish more topic on “The Other in Shakespeare” or “Why Shakespeare is a sexist pig” or “Queerness in Shakespeare.” When doing Milton, too often the topic is “Milton’s Eve as sexist caricature” – in fact many of my professors who study Milton (or Shakespeare or Chaucer or T.S. Eliot) have little knowledge of Christianity, something they seem proud of, but which baffles me.
Far too much of what passes for Literary studies today is what I call “praise and blame” (or epideictic) – it gets buried in scholarly language and its often rigorous, but it boils down to “this author/text is enlightened because this author/text attacks prevailing social discourse” or “This author is sexist/racist/homophobic/some other horrid thing”
As for Rosalynde’s claim:
they do this not because of some morbid critical pathology, but because literature itself has defined itself in opposition to and undertaken for itself ideological work that undermines prevailing social arrangements for at least the the last hundred years, and, less consistently, for much longer still.
I take some exception to this, as there is plenty of “literature” that attmepts to buttress, uphold and/or aligns itself with “prevailing social arrangements” – but those in literary studies have deemed such work unworthy of study. Only “resisting” literature is worthy of study – unless you’re studying the other type in order to condemn it.
What is ironic is that the “resisting” literature is actually conformist – it conforms to the literary community. Litearture that “aligns itself with prevailing social arrangements” is the resisting literature when it comes to those in literary studies – but we literary scholars don’t like to admit that. Too many are stuck in what I call the “60s rock mentality” – a state of perpetual adolescence rebellion to “mainstream conformity” that is iteself a powerful conformity.
Me, I enjoy lots of mainstream discourse. I prefer 4th of July parades in Provo (and elsewhere) becuase they are about maintaining communities rather than tearing them down. Not that I think the communities are perfect or need no change – but I see no need to tear them down or reject them merely because they’re “typical” or part of the “prevailing social arrangement.” To me, that’s a plus.
I’m all about the “prevailing social arrangements” (I think they rock!!!!) – and I prefer literature that explores them without having the automatic knee-jerk reflexive response of resistance that characterizes the stuff my professors tell me I should like.
End rant.
And now, on a (once again) note completely unrelated to the refrain of “Critical Theory, Critical Theory”:
Looks like bikers, in addition to making good patriots, make good law enforcers.
BTW, bikers also apparently make great bill collecters. I remember reading about a dunning and repo agency that would ONLY hire people who wore spiked leather.
Great rant, Ivan. You have expressed much of my own experience with English Lit and Literary Criticism (though I readily admit that my experience is meager compared to most of you–I am only two classes short of a BA in English).
Kaimi: DKL, Drop it, dude.
The joke’s on you, Kaimi. It’s hardly your place to decide when it stops.
By the way, Naomi (and back on topic), I can completely understand your feelings about the parade. My heart also warms at the sight of that many Republicans.
Naomi,
Nice job on your first post. You managed to create controversy without even trying. See, those Harley riders are, in fact, nothing but trouble. Of course, so are we literary “scholars.”
Just for clarification, the Harley parade you witnessed is called “Rolling Thunder,” and is an annual event run by an incorporated non-profit that’s primary mission is to publicize the POW issue. I’m not suggesting this isn’t a legitimate patriotic endeavor, but it really is more of a political activist event than a spontaneous outpouring of patriotic expression.
Without sounding too critical, I think Nate might have been onto something in proscribing your admiration of the bikers to a somewhat naive (perhaps “romantic” is a better description) fascination with the spectacle of an unfamiliar other. I don’t, however, think that this involves any element of “self hate.” Instead, it is more the feeling of euphoria we get when we witness or comprehend something new–we often give that recently acquired knowledge a greater value or authority than it deserves simply because of its newness. In any case, what’s important is the fact that the bikers’ display stirred admiration and patriotic feelings in you, which may ultimately help you to resolve your own questions and concerns regarding patriotism.
Finally, I can’t go without at least commenting on the literary theory issue. Frankly, the discipline does have a liberal bent which tends to value the perspectives of “under represented” groups–the other. The practice of developing analyses through close textual readings has largely been abandoned for the theoretical prisms of Marxism, feminism, queer studies, African-American studies, and post-Colonialism, to name a few. The argument is that this is a balancing response to centuries of hegemonic dominance, but rather than seeking to produce modern scholars with balanced perspectives, universities are balancing the entire history of education by over-weighting the emphasis on cultural theory and the perspective of the other. The result is that generations of students are being taught a skewed and politically motivated view of literature, history, philosophy, and numerous other social sciences. Rosalynde is correct that one can effectively navigate through this overtly liberal landscape; it’s just a shame that one has to do so.
Kaimi, as usual, you’re dealing with straw man in your argument against Matt. Matt’s argument is a perfectly reasonable one. In fact, I’d argue that it’s certainly valid, and quite probably sound. A more charitable reading would distill the following:
Argument #1
Conclusion #1: It was unfair to expect Matt to have perceived literary theory (prior to Rosalynde’s comment) as not placing undo emphasis on “the other.”
Argument #2
Conclusion #2: Those who publish introductory texts to literary theory are responsible for creating the impression among the uninitiated that literary theory places an undo emphasis on “the other.”
Combine Conclusion #2 with premise #1 from Argument #1, and we get the following:
Conclusion #3: Those who publish introductory texts to literary theory are responsible for creating Matt’s impression that literary theory places an undo emphasis on “the other.”
Now I haven’t formalized this, so there probably remain a few gaps, but you get the idea. My question is, why do you find reasonable readings of other people’s positions so difficult to grasp?
I was moved by Naomi’s post (sorry, even though I was an English major, its only application to me a couple of decades later is that I am a more skilled reader and writer. I don’t remember a word of any criticism course I took. Of course I wasted all that literature training by afterward going to law school).
What made the post powerful to me was the contrast between the bikers and the Old Navy shirts. Having been in and around the military for over 17 years, I have seen the difference between patriotism that is in the form of a t-shirt from a trendy store at the mall and patriotism from someone who served under fire or who suffered a real loss while a loved one served overseas. Just as most of us who served on foreign missions learned to love the people and the country where we served, those who serve the country learn to love it more, too. I’ve been cold, tired, and hungry in Korea both as a missionary and as a servicemember. I’ve missed birthdays, Christmases, and even family funerals while I was over there for both purposes. I think I’ve earned the right to both love kimchee and to fly the American flag. Sure, I’m a lawyer now, in a cushy office, but I identify more with the patriotism on the Harley than the patriotism on the matching, color-coordinated t-shirts.
My roommate, Carren (you remember her–she told me, by the way, that my post made her cry–did it make any of you cry?), was quite taken with a show on Spike TV or something called “Dawg” (I think) about bounty hunters. The iconic image of studs and leather and motorcycles carries such social weight in our country. Rosalynde, perhaps this is relevant to your ongoing inquiry into masculinity.
This discussion has turned toward to nature of literary studies, and obviously there are different opinions within (Ivan Wolfe, Eric Russell, and Rosalynde. And me.) as well as without. I would like to reiterate that my feelings about the value of being brought into confrontation with someone who appears quite different from me is a personal rather than disciplinary matter. Yes, English literary studies concern themselves with the relation between margin and center, with how disenfranchised or unempowered groups use language and narrative in positioning themselves relative to the dominant culture, with the social relations theorized and problematized in, for example, late Victorian writers during the height of British imperialism and Carribean writers in the late 20th century. Why not? I think that stuff is interesting, and I’m the one paying to get a degree. I think my education has done good things for me, and frankly, I’m glad for the chance to think about race relations, gender relations, class relations. I might not, otherwise, and I think I should. But English is about much more than that, too. There’s been a resurgence in interest in religion, especially among New Historicists. One of my colleagues did a thesis on the Book of Mormon last year (a good will and interesting analysis). I personally am working with the Jewish Chronicle. My team teacher is reading Aeschylus. One of my favorite teachers is a structuralist and got me interested in national identity (Benedict Anderson has been influential for me, too, Jarom). So we like canonical works also. Anyway, that’s my $15 assessment of this conversation on literary studies (it’s almost exactly $15, too–I’ve been reading your comments and writing my own for almost an hour now).
Back to patriotism. I must have a different social make-up than you, Jarom, because I like crowds, ceremonies, the rhetoric and trappings of community. But ultimately, I think patriotism is not eternal. And, of course, family and our covenants with God are.
These theoretical “prisms” are still very firmly based in analysis and close textual reading, at least as practiced by those who know what they’re doing. One thing that sometimes happens in many undergraduate English classes is that students, grappling with theory, fail to learn how to apply these theories to actual reading. Because of this, there is a skewed sense that we, as Literary Scholars, only “do theory” and don’t actually read. But those who invest the time to read respected literary journals and attend credible literary conferences will see that the discipline itself is very good at policing its own prisms, in that close textual reading is always at the heart of each reputable argument. And the majority of literary studies is reputable, and is a valid way to approach reading and text.
Students are not being “taught” a skewed and politically motivated view–they’re offered positions that they haven’t normally experienced, most likely won’t, and may be hard for them to accept. But that’s because often the things that many see as missing in literary studies are already a part of a given reader’s mind set. Thus the “liberal” bent in the discipline is really a move to make people more complete readers. Without it, we’d end up with generations of students who only read from a white, straight, male point of view, because that is all that American culture has traditionally raised its citizens to know. When I started my studies, I already knew how I’d been brought up and what I believed; I’m grateful that my MA and PhD years, and yes–even my BA years at BYU–didn’t pander to what I’d always thought but instead pushed me to understand that there are things to say and stories to hear that might challenge my way of thinking.
I think Rosalynde would agree with me that she hasn’t had to “navigate through this overtly liberal landscape” as much as she has had to confront it head-on in an effort to expand her own ideological mind set (and, hopefully, to do the same with the professors and other students she interacted/interacts with).
Ivan, I’m sorry if you’ve had professors that tell you what to like. But to be fair, I’d wonder how many of them actually talked much about liking and disliking at all. More likely, they talk about importance and significance, which even they wouldn’t translate into issues of taste. For example, I don’t enjoy reading Gertrude Stein. I don’t like the things she writes. But I think it’s important to study what she’s written because it has a lot of significance for my chosen field.
When it comes down to it, they can no more dictate what you as an individual values any more than you or I can dictate what society values. But there’s a big difference between values and responsibility.
It’s silly not to factor one’s training into the developement of one’s world view (I’m talking in the extreme here). I think this can lead to the kind of blindness that can cause one to believe that one is void of any kind of prejudice at all whatsoever!
I remember once having a discussion with a good friend on a gospel topic. After I had said my piece an a particular point, he responded with sneer, “that’s because you’re a musician”. I was quite taken back by his response and in many subsequent discussions had the urge to shout, “that’s because you’re a damned philosopher!” (which he is–a tenured professor of educational philosophy)
Over the years I’ve come to see what a valuable lesson that little spat really was. There’s no getting around the fact that our views are prejudiced by how we are nurtured–and that includes how we nurture ouselves because of our natural inclinations.
I think Naomi says it all with the words, “Why not? I think that stuff is interesting.” Unlike her older sister she doesn’t feel a need to adopt a defensive posture. Why should she? All you lawyers and literary theorists work in fields that are respected and actually defensible. You should try working in something indefensible, like reality television.
I think it’s bad form to repeatedly assault the discipline of other people–and there’s no question it is a consistent and distasteful pattern that I’ve witnessed time and time again in the bloggernacle, but it’s also unproductive to get too defensive about it. Literary theorists shouldn’t need the approval of lawyers to feel good about themselves. In my eyes the two professions both equally need to justify their existence–not quite so much as entertainment professionals perhaps, but still…when people look down their noses at what I do, which I might add is quite common, I find the most healthy response is similar to Naomi’s. “Why not. I think that stuff is interesting.” Or in other words, I could give a crap what you think about what I do.
Jarom,
I don’t disagree that cultural studies is important to fleshing out one’s academic exposure; my objection is to the degree of emphasis placed on the perspectives of historically marginalized groups. There is an overt animosity in these departments toward the theories of “dead, white men,” and these theories are abandoned outright in the curricula. There wasn’t a single course in my MA program where the central emphasis of the class wasn’t Marxism, feminism, post-Colonialism, African-American perspectives, or queer perspectives. And, while, of course, close reading is essential to literary analysis, never once was it the central focus of a seminar, where together we would go word by word, sentence by sentence, discussing why an author chose the exact vocabulary he or she did. Close reading was a peripheral tool that we were expected to utilize on our own. Class discussions were saved for the constant reaffirmation of the preeminence of cultural theory. Trust me, the educational system is skewed and politicized.
Brian: Since I assume that I am the target of your post as the tasteless attacker of other’s disciplines, I wanted to point out that I have never argued that literary theory is not valuable, praise worthy, or worth while. I have at times suggested that it is not a useful intellectual tool for certain intellectual tasks. (This is rather like pointing out that reality TV is not the best way of learning about social patterns in Outer Mongolia. It is not per se an attack on reality TV.) I also suggested that what we spend a great deal of time thinking about has an impact on the way that we think.
Jarom – yes they used the terms “significance” or “relevance” or “imporatance” – perhaps “like” wasn’t the best choice of terms on my part – though, in the end, it amounted to the same thing. A literary critic may use language like “the transgressive modalities of uninterrelated gender prejudices that attempt to comingle with an inaccessible unity” – but they really mean “this author/text is sexist.”
I admit much of the cultural studies work is rigorous. But that doesn’t excuse it. Unethical scientific research can be rigorous. Someone doing an explotative reality show can be rigorous about it.
as for your comment Students are not being “taught” a skewed and politically motivated view–they’re offered positions that they haven’t normally experienced, most likely won’t, and may be hard for them to accept.
Wether intended or not, I read a slight disdain for the masses and their default positions in this comment. I also find it odd because, except at places like BYU, liberalism is the default position for freshman. Generally, they already think that way. Literary theory just reinforces their views. I would say: Expose them to Adam Smith, Aristotle, Plato, David Hume, John Locke – those are positions they haven’t normally experienced (but they’re dead white males and hence anathema, fit only to be condemed for their racist, imperalist, sexsist, homophobic attitudes). Most of my students are (due to pop media influence) semi-marxists and demi-feminists already.
Despite being in one of the premier graduate programs in the nation, I still have professors who assume we’re all good little liberals who relflexively accept the same politics they do. One professor, who is considered the top in her field, has openly referred to Bush as a “b*st*rd” and a “Son of a B***ch” in class and openly complained about the few religious students she has in her undergraduate classes.
I have exactly one professor who is Christian, and her church is one of the liberal, nearly unitarian kinds – the others see religion as (literally, in some cases) a mental disease to be cured.
Okay – that’s a bit far afield – back to the point.
Okay – one last repsonse to a comment by Jarom:
Without it, we’d end up with generations of students who only read from a white, straight, male point of view, because that is all that American culture has traditionally raised its citizens to know.
That I find to be patently false. When I attended High School, it was very muc a “liberalized” (in the political, not classical sense) education: America was a nation whose history was full of sexism and racism and imperalism and other bad stuff. From friends of mine in the college of Education, its gotten moreso. Secondary education in this country is more and more structured around the idea that white men are evil (or bad). Most pf pop culture is in thrall to liberal political positions that denigrate white men (especially fathers – I can’t recall the last time a white male dad was portrayed positively on a commercial).
Besides, that statement never says what is exactly wrong with the “white, male, straight” point of view. It just reflexively assumes that all things white, male and straight are inherently wrong – not incomplete, not in need of adjustment or refinement – but just wrong and that they need to be tossed out.
(I even had a professor once point her finger at me and say – YOU! all this is your fault! and I said “what?” and she replied “you are a straight, white male. All the oppression in society is your fault by your very existence.” She claimed this was a pedagogical point, and not meant as a personal attack, but it falls in line with what most literary criticism is doing lately).
Where was I? i can’t recall. I shall end this rant. have to go off and teach my freshman – most of whom are reflexively liberal, as I said above. Teaching them the straight white male viewpoint might open their minds a bit, but I’m forbidden from doing so by dept. guidelines, so there’s no danger there.
I should add quickly that I have had excellent professors here as well, and that I see nothing wrong with any given literary theory, if it is used carefully. But 80% of the discourse in literary studies, even amont the preminent theorists in rather sloppy (IMHO).
I don’t mean to be so negative, as I love literary studies (otherwise I wouldn’t be studying it) – but I see much wrong with the discipline as it currently stands, and think it needs a massive overhaul (but not outright revolution or replacement).
Nate, I personally think the documentary methods used in reality TV could reveal a great deal about social patterns in Outer Mongolia. Which is my point, you feel like the disciplines of others are ill-suited tools for certain tasks without knowing much about the tool (and I think sometimes the task) in question. However, what I find most confusing is your need to proclaim the unsuitability of the tool over and over in a public forum. Saying the intellectual equivalent of a wrench is better for loosening bolts than a screwdriver outloud to anyone in earshot over and over seems equal parts silly and obvious to me, that’s all.
I may not feel law, for example, is the best way to bring more mutual understanding between human beings from diverse backgrounds, but do I devote an inordinate amount of time to expressing that opinion? No. Why? Because I respect law and lawyers for what they can do and a) I don’t pretend to know better than lawyers the uses of the law and b) I wouldn’t proclaim publically that I do know better even if I did. I respect the field and its practitioners. I believe you express more disdain for literay theory than you realize.
You may feel I misrepresent what you’ve written about literary theory, but I don’t think I have. I guess we can both take comfort in the fact your words speak for themselves.
And no, I wasn’t thinking about you specifically, since you’re not the only one who recurrently argues that literary theory is limited and/or biased.
Adam L–thanks for commenting. But since we’re in the same grad program, I can quibble with you on a few things. Don’t you think that Leona and Patricia’s classes were largely apolitical? Not that the students in the class weren’t political–they certainly were–but I thought those classes weren’t overtly Marxist in organization or intent. And you weren’t in Ragussis’s Novel Forms, but it was EXTREMELY structuralist, and one of the best classes I had. Extremely close reading. Yes, other professors have been openly and unapologetically liberal, but I kind of knew that about the field before I went into it, and I like being the Other to all of my classmates (who know that I’m Mormon, republican, pretty traditional). I like showing that republicans can be smart too, and I hope I’m doing it well enough. You certainly have earned the respect of your peers.
Brian G, good to see you in this mosh pit of a post.
Ivan Wolfe–I’m glad your freshmen have you as a teacher. I think that’s probably good for them to see a diversity of positions within the discipline. And congratulations on getting so much farther in our field than I have. Your account of a professor pointing at you and saying that everything was your fault because you’re the iconic figure of power–male, white, straight–is striking; nothing like that has happened to me in exactly that way. But it makes me think about memory and history and responsibility to the past…maybe this will be another post.
Last nugget: the day after the Nov. 3rd election, I had “State, Text, and Critic,” a seminar exploring Marxism and post-colonialism that, to be honest, all the students hated because our teacher was brilliant but inept. Everyone sat around in an absolute depression, and for the first 30 minutes of class, our professor gave a stirring speech about how we were defeated for now, but this didn’t have to be the end of the Left. Lots of people swore and talked about getting stoned or drowning their sorrows. He then asked why it was that Bush won. People raised their hands and gave some half-hearted answers. I felt my heart pounding very fast and very loudly–like in testimony meeting–and I raised my hand too. When the professor called on me, everyone was absolutely silent and, I like to think, riveted on what I was saying. They knew that I wasn’t at all of those Kerry rallies, they knew that I was a practicing Christian (not the only one in the department, by the way; I have a religious bunch on fellow students), they probably suspected that I’d voted for Bush. I stammered out that maybe people voted for Bush because the debate had become so virulent and so ugly that they took recourse in what felt right to them rather than who clearly had the moral or rational upper ground. I don’t know if that was a good reason or not, but my professor took it very seriously and talked about it for a bit. Then we went back to discussing Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, and the class again became “us vs. the inept, conceited professor” rather than “us vs. the Republicans.”
A Reality TV show about Outer Mongolia…now that’s something to give American Idol a run for its money.
Ivan and Adam L.–one final comment. What it appears to come down to is that we’ve had radically different experiences in graduate school. I found both my M.A. classes and my PhD seminars quite diverse, both in the range of classes offered and the positions expressed in class. And I didn’t ever feel singled out for my identity, but instead felt that my genetics and environmental upbringing were treated as part of a community of discussion as we approached different texts. And I never once took a class where a text or an author was “condemned” for anything. Challenged, perhaps, and scrutinized, yes. Because that’s what all close reading ought to do. And gratefully, these professors were just as willing to challenge Toni Morrison and Mae Swenson as they were Henry James and F. Scott Fitzerald.
As far as the undergraduate students that I taught go, I saw a healthy mix of those that were, as you say, reflexively liberal, and those that were privileged in all senses of the word and didn’t understand a thing about the biases created by those privileges they were born into by virtue of their parents’ skin color, their family’s economic condition, or the chromosomes they inherited. Perhaps this is a product of the different universities we attended. What does it signify that my English PhD differs from yours? Perhaps that, as I’m insisting on again and again, there needs to be space made for all positions and experiences. I’m not negating any position, and agree that the white male stories need to be read and understood for their assumptions, as long as they are also considered in a dialogue with those who haven’t always enjoyed the privilege of being heard.
Ivan mentions commercial portrayals of the typical white male–and I grant that commodified media today is a very weighty power structure that, unfortunately, makes no attempts to be as responsible as the majority of academics (I say majority because, in order to qualify my experiences, just because I never had a professor akin to what Ivan or Adam L. experienced doesn’t mean I’m claiming they don’t exist. I’m just trying to make generalizations about the whole as best I can). But there are other power structures which express the white male’s “position” to a degree that continues to reinforce a lot of this country’s problems allowing for marginal voices. The presidency, for one. Corporate America, for another. And until society outside of literary study provides an equal balance, literary study will continue to try to counteract the inequalities.
Matt, perhaps I should have clarified: a “Call for Papers” is generally a notice of an upcoming conference or of a special festschrift edition of a journal or monograph series; it’s not an indication of the topics on which the major journals receive insufficient material (to my knowledge no serious academic journals solicit in this way, except for special themed editions; perhaps it’s different in legal studies).
Nate, of your #37: the sort of comparative discussion you suggest, looking at what you call “intellectual habits” or what I might call “adaptive critical strategies,” sounds interesting. As a first pass, I might suggest that training in critical reading inclines one to be sensitive to contradiction–in rhetorical strategy, thematic development, stylistic choice, etc.
Ivan, you make some fair points about how literary fiction has defined itself and been defined, although in touching on literary canonicity we’re drifting rather far afield; me, I’m in favor of teaching the canon, in fact, while you sound like you’re in favor of an open canon—which would put us on the opposite sides of the disciplinary playing field than most observers might expect! When partisan politics are injected into academic inquiry, it can make for unlikely position-swapping. From previous comments you’ve made, I gather that much of your complaint stems from your own feeling of political marginalization within your department; that is, you seem to me to be indulging in precisely the same game of identity politics of which you’re accusing the discipline.
Adam L., you sound like an informed observer, so I won’t insult you by lecturing you on what “close reading” is. But when you say, for example, that “the practice of developing analyses through close textual readings has largely been abandoned for the theoretical prisms of Marxism, feminism, queer studies, African-American studies, and post-Colonialism,” I just have to note for other readers that this is a highly polemic statement that incorporates all manner of contested propositions about what reading is: to argue, as you do, that “close reading” is somehow of a different kind than theoretical reading–that “close reading” is apolitical, undriven by agenda, righteously pure of the pernicious modern “-isms”–is to insist on a description of reading that many literary scholars (myself included) would reject. Furthermore, to argue that postcolonial inquiry actively effaces dead white males is to show your unfamiliarity with the approach: my closest friend in grad school did a postcolonial dissertation focusing on Joyce, Seamus Heaney and V.S. Naipaul–and between the three of them, they’ve got “dead,” “white” and “male” covered!
Lastly, of my defensiveness, granted, particularly in the context of Nate’s single short precipitating comment on this thread. One must take into account, however, both Nate’s historical stance with regard to literary studies, and my own (undoubtedly morbidly pathological) desire for his approval, which I’ve certainly lost any chance of gaining here! 🙂
Naomi,
I’ll try to get back to patriotism here! Crowds, ceremony, and the rhetorical trappings of community… I like those ideas as they apply to patriotic display. To recognize that is much healthier than to not, wouldn’t you say? The fact that patriotism carries little weight in my book should not take away from you or others practicing it as best they know how (and sometimes Old Navy T-shirts is the best they know how). I just wish people would think more about it, and then make an informed decision as to whether or not they wish to accept something like patriotic expression as a valid and worthwhile activity.
One could make similar argument about other forms of communal involvement–take sport spectating, for example. Ultimately it is just as meaningless as patriotism, as that which we call a “team” is no more tangible than that which we call a “country.” So as long as I recognize that, critically assessing my own love of sport and the rhetorical trappings I’m participating in, I see myself free to do so without self-hate. That is, of course, until the Chicago Cubs fall victim to yet another tragic ending, in which case the self-hate flows endlessly until Christmastime.
Naomi,
Patricia & Leona did admirable jobs at keeping cultural theory to a reasonable limit, but I’d be hard pressed to say there wasn’t a Marxist, class conscious, tint to both classes. Actually, Particia’s class was such a mess that any political or cultural bias (like the entire course) didn’t matter much at all. In the future, if you (or anybody) are looking for a true display of patriotism in DC, I recommend spending Memorial or Veteran’s Day down at the monuments (rather than the popular beach & bbq options). A more patriotic, moving scene I can’t imagine.
Rosalynde, even if the call for papers coincides with a special symposium or periodical, my guess is that organizers/publishers tend to choose topics that haven’t already been beaten to death.
“a ‘team’ is no more tangible than that which we call a ‘country.'”
Say it ain’t so, Jarom. Do you really think my Washington Nationals are no more tangible than that which we call the United States?
Speaking of the Nationals, I’ve been quite impressed the past few weeks. But my one night at RFK (last month when the Cubbies came to town) left me pining for Camden Yards.
I was almost accused of blasphemy when I expressed that sentiment in EQ, and was subject to the story of how someone’s 10th birthday party was held in RFK in 1971, just before the old Senators moved, and how he can now finally recapture the childhood that the Texas Rangers stole away from him.
Jarom,
I find it strange that you can identify the ways in which patriotic symbols are tainted because of the abuses perpetrated by the political entity which they represent, and then, turn around and say that the political entity in question is intangible.
Obviously, your training in literary theory is coloring your take on political science.
Sorry, just had to say that. You know–more fuel for the fire.
Rosalynde,
One clarification and then I’ve got to tear myself away from this thread. I did not claim that “postcolonial inquiry actively effaces dead white males.” What I wrote was that “there is an overt animosity in these [English] departments toward the theories of ‘dead, white men.'” I stand by this statement and base it on my experience at Georgetown as well as by contrasting it to my experiences in two other graduate programs I’ve taken in other disciplines. The field of literary academia currently happens to be incredibly liberal and errantly imprints this ideology on its students in the name of historical balance.
Matt,
You’re being silly. You know how academic journals and conferences work. A call for papers means that there is interest and (if it’s a conference) money behind the idea. A school doesn’t spend its conference budget on topics that no one cares about.
For comparative purposes, the most recent calls for papers at the Legal Scholarship Network, http://www.ssrn.com/update/lsn/lsnann/lsn_ann.html , are:
Boundaries of SEC Regulation
Con/Texts of Invention
Exploring the Boundaries of Contract Law
Assessing the Future of the Legal Profession
Banking, Corporate Finance and Intermediation
International Conference of Cyberlaw
Third Annual Chinese Internet Research Conference
58th Annual New York University Conference on Labor
The Legacy of John Courtney Murray for Law and Politics
IP@work
15th Annual Conference for Law School Computing 2005
Judicial Ethics in the Spotlight: Balancing Judicial Independence and Judicial Accountability After Republican Party of Minnesota v. White
4th Annual Conference of the Israeli Association of Law and Economics
Conference for Promotion of Entrepreneurship and Human Rights
p.s. Rosalynde, what are you doing wasting time in the bloggernacle? You need to be writing about Sea Literature, Science Fiction and Popular Culture, and Space, Haunting, Discourse!
🙂
Jarom re: #58 – fair enough, and I actually found myself agreeing with 89.537% of what you said there.
Rosalynde:
I’m not so much in favor of an open canon so much as an abandonment of a canon of texts in favor of a canon of rhetoric. But that’s a 50 page essay waiting to be written. Robert Scholes The Rise and Fall of English makes the same kind of argument I do about the canon, but I only agree with around 50% of that book (though it is an excellent book).
And I’m not sure what to make of this statement: From previous comments you’ve made, I gather that much of your complaint stems from your own feeling of political marginalization within your department; that is, you seem to me to be indulging in precisely the same game of identity politics of which you’re accusing the discipline.
Not really. My main complaint is that English departments have marginalized themselves and have become ineffectual because they marginalize politically conservative and moderate positions. I want nothing more than English (and Comp Lit, Humanities, etc.) to become effective outside their narrow fields – but they can’t. Jarom’s claim that “ until society outside of literary study provides an equal balance, literary study will continue to try to counteract the inequalities” doesn’t wash with me because literary studies can’t truly “make up” for anything or counteract any inequality elsewhere. What they need to do is be a model of the balance that should exist in society. Instead, literary studies has become just another voice screaming in the dark at abstractions.
I want literary and rhetorical studies to be THE model for society – not some extreme reaction against it. By going in the opposite direction, they have in essence gone so far left they’ve become right (or vice versa – the directions aren’t necessarily meant to be political). Rather than modeling a way to include marginalized voices, literary studies has become just another group that marginalizes some voices and privileges others.
Jack (#65),
I don’t say that patriotic symbols are tainted because of “the abuses perpetrated by the political entity which they represent”–in fact, a “political entity” didn’t do anything. These symbols are tainted because real, tangible human beings perpetrated abuses “in the name of” the abstract political entity. This is one of the profoundly troublesome aspects of nationalism, that actual human beings commit certain acts but when it comes to responsibility, it shifts to “in the name of” America. That way, people aren’t held accountable for their choices. “Let’s conquer Mexico for America’s sake.” “Let’s push the natives aside so that ‘American’ people can live here.” “All these immigrants need to realize that this is ‘America.'” “You can’t express such an ‘un-American’ thought.”
There is no inherent ‘Americanness.’ It’s a construct, and only when we see it as such rather than trying to perpetuate it as having some sort of natural basis that we can make the constructed relationships between people calling themselves “American” work as a government ought to.
Someone once tried to tell me that my faith in the “Gospel” and my membership in the “Church” was built upon the same logic of attempting to cling to a tangible, “natural” relationship among people when said relationship is just as imaginary or constructed as national identity is. My answer is that, in some ways, perhaps this might be true. But there is also something markedly different in our allegiance to the “Church” that has never been a part of being “American.” I’m convinced that the reason why physical baptism and the physical laying on of hands are the two steps for membership in the gospel is in some way related to our notions of ancestry and heritage. Taking upon ourselves the name of Christ, by virtue of the physical ordinances, is in a way that I can’t really comprehend the way that the Lord connects us to the Church, just as the sealing ordinances are the methods he uses for connecting us to each other. We are, literally, a Church “family.” But the same literal relationship cannot be posited in our allegiance to a country (or, even further removed, in our pledging allegiance to a flag).
“Rather than modeling a way to include marginalized voices, literary studies has become just another group that marginalizes some voices and privileges others.â€
Ivan, that’s it exactly.
Jarom,
“Students are not being “taught” a skewed and politically motivated view–they’re offered positions that they haven’t normally experienced, most likely won’t, and may be hard for them to acceptâ€
I understand what you’re saying and to an extent can agree. But it seems as if you’re suggesting that disagreement with a perspective is merely a result of failing to understand or reflective of an intellectual challenge that is simply too difficult to grasp. Not true. The fact is that these views – like all views – have a fundamental bias, and more often than not it’s a strongly liberal one.
And by the way, just out of curiosity, what is your chosen field for which Gertrude Stein’s work is significant?
Kaimi, law isn’t like literature. The law is dynamic and constantly changing, allowing fresh juice to be squeezed from the same topics every few years. Because literature is comparatively static, to maintain interest literary studies of necessity invents new modes of criticism. That’s why Rosalynde’s list is comprised of novel topics that haven’t been addressed before. I’ll hazard a guess and speculate that there’s not an abundance of literary studies articles addressing the issue of Popular Culture in the Age of Teddy Roosevelt, for example. Last year they probably investigated Popular Culture in the Age of Benjamin Harrison, and this year everyone was ready to move on to something new. That’s why I don’t think her list is representative of the corpus of literary studies — it’s a map of fresh territory.
And as others pointed out, the topic headings themselves tell us nothing about the prisms through which the topics will be explored.
Jarom,
You are a fellow countyman whether you like it or not. Because whether you like it or not, you are bound by a set of “covenants”, or perhaps I should say “obligations”, which you inherited upon being born/immigrating here. And if you violate those obligations then the state has the power to pursue corrective measures in order to preserve it’s own identity–which identity is not merely an inert scaffolding of sorts erected for the purpose of propping up an ideology. It’s more organic than that. In the most ideal sense, it would be the living collective body of constituents who are unified under a common political ideology–“living” because a constituent must rely on the whole in order to reap the benefits of identifying him/herself with it. Granted, this can easily degenerate into a formula for producing great evil. The great evil being that the needs of the state are considered as separate from the needs of the constituents.
Sorry pal, we’re in this together. And that power which keeps us “together” cannot merely be attributed to individuals.
I’m not going to use motorcycle gangs as a catalyst to talk about approaches to literary theory. I’ll just say that with all of those greasy, hairy, tattooed bikers, it couldn’t have been a pretty sight.
I found the story touching. Often, it seems like those with the roughest exteriors have the biggest hearts.
Naomi,
I didn’t quite cry when I read your post, but my eyes weren’t exactly dry either. You write beautifully, and the way you described your experience was very moving. Thanks for sharing.
re: Mark B., comment 35: “Here in the big city, the usual construct is “whack”, as in “That was whack, man.” Do they do things differently in the midwest, or what?”
Mark, for someone who lives in Bklyn you gotta get wise! It’s wack, not the onomatopoeia.
Adam L., I hope you check this thread at least once more! You’re absolutely right; I misread your comment about post-colonialism and its attitude toward dead white males, and I apologize. You’re also surely right that a preponderance of the faculty in most literature departments is politically liberal; why this is so, what effect it has, and whether artificial political parity in departments is desirable are questions for a braver soul than I!
Why Rosalynde,
The answer is really quite simple. Literature isn’t merely literature. It’s art!
Sorry Steve. I know it’s pronounced “Wack” but I just figured that was a lazy pronunciation.
Just listen to how we say “whale” and “wharf” and “what”.
This isn’t entirely on topic, but if I ever end up working in the BYU Rel. department, I really really REALLY want to commute to work on a Harley. A loud one. Preferably with “Bad to the Bone” playing. She-who-must-be-obeyed has already veto’d said plan, even if I turn the music down. Sigh…
“But I don’t say the pledge of allegiance or sing the national anthem. I won’t put a flag on my car.”
Disgusting. If we ever meet, I’m sure my self restraint will be adequate to the test, but just barely.
Now Adam, don’t forget that Jarom does show patriotism, just differently than you or I might.
I like saying the pledge. In homeschool, we say the pledge each morning with our kids. Even our two year old is learning it. It adds a feeling of patriotism in our home. But that pledge would indeed be empty without the community service mentioned by Jarom, which we also try to infuse as one of our family values.
Rosalynde,
Your apology is unnecessary, but more than accepted.
I know this is way past where the thread has since gone, but on the Harley guy vs. lit. professor dichotomy, you should all meet my office mate, who, “steel-bestudded,” tatooed and hog-borne, attends Sturges every year. He is currently finishing his dissertation in literature.
I wonder if he’d be suitable for a foxhole companion?
Naomi,
I didn’t quite cry when I read your post, but my eyes weren’t exactly dry either. You write beautifully, and the way you described your experience was very moving. Thanks for sharing.