WEBVTT

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Prof: We've been passing
through a variety of discourses

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concerning the nature of
identity,

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the way in which identity is
constructed--

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incidentally with varying
degrees of emphasis,

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the way in which identity is
constructed in literature.

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I'm going to come back to this
perhaps missing link,

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literature, in a minute.

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In the meantime,
I just wanted to point out

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something that I'm sure you've
inferred for yourselves:

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namely that each one of these
approaches to identity has a

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history,
and that the history results in

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a recent chapter which is
something like what you might

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call a deconstructive moment,
signifying on theory itself

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such that the claim of theory as
a mainstream discourse to hold

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certain views is something that
in and of itself,

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from a subversive perspective,
needs to be deconstructed and

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undermined.

01:11.219 --> 01:12.089


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There is the idea in
postcolonial studies of

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hybridity as the undermining of
cultural binaries--

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that is, the double
consciousness in which one

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experiences simultaneously a
kind of identification with a

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state apparatus and a will to
subvert it.

01:34.030 --> 01:38.380
By the way, I thought I'd give
you another example of how that

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works because it applies to me.

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I don't actually watch talk
shows very often,

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but should I be watching a talk
show,

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they often invite people on to
these shows whom they call

01:52.263 --> 01:53.133
professors.

01:53.129 --> 01:57.109


01:57.110 --> 02:02.340
I just wanted to point out to
you the degree to which the sly

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civility,
the hybrid sly civility with

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which people are called
"professors,"

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is for a professor one of the
most discouraging sounds in the

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language,
because they know very well

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when someone is addressed by a
talk show host as

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"professor"
what they mean is you are a

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pedant.

02:22.800 --> 02:25.300
You don't know how to park a
bicycle straight.

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You have no understanding of
the real world.

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I don't know why I've invited
you on this show in the first

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place, >

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except somebody told me you
were an expert.

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That's what it means in the
public sphere to be a professor.

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Bhabha perhaps exaggerates a
little bit when he says the

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discourse of hybridity has an
element of terrorism about it.

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Bhabha is writing long ago
before 9/11 and so on and

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perhaps uses the term a little
loosely,

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but I have to say when I hear
somebody addressing me,

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someone not in the
academy--because of course,

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people have contempt for me in
the academy,

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too, but it's a more
complicated thing.

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They may not have contempt for
other professors,

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if you see what I mean,
so that's more complicated.

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But when someone not in the
academy addresses me as

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"professor,"
I suppose I can't say that I

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feel terrorized exactly,
but I do feel depressed.

03:26.770 --> 03:28.160
>

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That's an important part of the
double consciousness of the

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subaltern, as Bhabha expatiates
on it.

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Then in any case,
finally there is the

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deconstructive moment of gender
theory in which gender is

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understood not as something
essential but as something

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performed--
something brought into

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existence not just by verbal
discourse but by all the

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semiotic systems,
including gesture,

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dress, and all the rest of it
that constitutes the way in

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which gender comes into being.

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Now in each case you have
instances of knowledge as

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negation.

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I'm just trying to pull this
back into the perspective of

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what we recognize perhaps more
readily as literary theory.

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By "knowledge as
negation"

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I mean semiotic knowledge,
something that I've been trying

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to stress really as a central
theme throughout this course.

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"I am--well,
I don't know what I am,

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but I'll tell you this:
I'm not that."

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In other words,
the way in which I come to

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understand myself as not that--
and I, of course,

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am the person who possesses
hegemonic discourse,

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so I see myself,
I come to understand myself for

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the first time in the argument
of a Toni Morrison or an Edward

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Said or,
in a certain sense,

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of a Judith Butler.

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I come to understand,
in a way, for the first time

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when I reflect on what I'm not--
that is to say,

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when I try to objectify or to
pigeonhole that which I'm not,

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which is of course not what I'm
really not but what I suppose

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myself not to be.

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In all of these ways then,
you can see that the way in

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which,
according to the sorts of

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thinking we have been reviewing
in recent weeks,

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one comes to understand oneself
is precisely negative in the

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tradition of semiotic and
formalist understandings of

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language.

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I am not at all necessarily
what I am.

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I am precisely as I understand
it not that, not the other;

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and I grasp myself perhaps in
ways that deepen my alleged

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understanding of myself as a
result of this negative process.

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All right.

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So I say all these things again
to reassure you that we still

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are talking about literary
theory,

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that the ways of thinking about
things that we've encountered

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recently really do arise out of
issues given to us by

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deconstruction and by negation
in the semiotic and formalist

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tradition.

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We can understand what has
happened basically--

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this in terms of the overall
structure of the course--

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not as a change in the
structure of thought we examined

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when we took up language as the
primary determinant of

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understanding,
but as a transformation of

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language--
the determinant of social

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understanding--
into what we call "a

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social text";
so that our head now is not the

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repository of Saussure's
langue,

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that is something that just
sits there in and of itself as a

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system,
but rather it's full of other

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people's language.

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It is a space in which society
itself understood as discourse

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jostles for attention and
struggles somehow or another to

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shape itself into
intelligibility.

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That's the fundamental change.

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Language is still preeminent in
the kinds of thinking that we've

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been doing.

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We haven't really gotten away
from language,

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but we have altered our
understanding of language.

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Language is now a social text.

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It is now, in Bakhtin's words,
other people's language,

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and we understand it therefore
not--

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and of course,
semiotics and deconstruction

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don't understand it as our own
either,

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because language always
precedes us;

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but we understand it more
clearly as something that is

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given to us as a social
formation that in turn forms us.

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In a way that does bring us to
our topic today because this

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topic,
almost the last topic of the

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course,
has to do with the

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preconditions of interpretation.

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What makes it possible for us
to think something?

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How is it that we come to think
one thing as opposed to another

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thing?

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How is it that there are areas
of agreement among us?

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How is it, for that matter,
that there are areas of

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disagreement among us and indeed
that these areas

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characteristically seem to be so
nonnegotiable?

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>

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The point arises at which we
just can't find ourselves in

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agreement on things just as the
point arises when we realize

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that we are in some profound way
in agreement about other things.

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How is it that all of this
comes to be?

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In order to do that,
let's first go back to Tony

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the Tow Truck.

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Because we've said all along
that it's about whatever it is

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that we happen to be talking
about,

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let's think about Tony
once again as being about

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the things we've been discussing
recently.

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We can say, for example,
that Tony is a Marxist

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contestation of the social
determinacy of identity in other

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forms.

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It's a realist text because,
as we've said before,

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nothing happens.

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There is no change in the
social formations that are the

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givens of the story,
but it nevertheless does lay

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out the relationship among
social norms in ways that show

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that life goes on despite social
inequality,

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despite--of course here I'm
going to throw something at you

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that you perhaps hadn't thought
of so much in terms of Tony

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before--
despite ethnic and gender

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difference.

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Now what happens then in
Tony, to move to a

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slightly different way of
thinking about it,

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is we can see that it's a
global story masked as a story

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of hybridity in the American
melting pot.

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It should have been perfectly
plain to you all along that Tony

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is an Italian American with the
complex personality of the

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subaltern.

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On the one hand,
he believes in the American

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dream.

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He likes his job.

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He buys into the system,
in other words,

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but on the other hand he
recognizes that he has his own

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place in the world,
the little yellow garage.

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It's his niche in the world and
it's something that is partly

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what affords him his identity.

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Neato, of course,
on the other hand is the

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neurotic WASP in the manor
house,

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sort of representing that sort
of class,

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and Speedy very interestingly
is a member of what John

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Guillory calls "the
professional/managerial

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class."

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What's interesting about Speedy
is that suddenly we realize that

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his ethnic origins,
his class origins,

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and even his gender--
because he may be a woman--are

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not perhaps as relevant as one
might have imagined them to be

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because the
professional/managerial class is

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interesting--
as Guillory's source,

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Alvin Gouldner,
points out at length--precisely

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as the emergence of a body of
people with common interests who

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really can't be said,
at least, to derive from,

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or perhaps in a way even to
belong to,

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a common class.

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Speedy is certainly in Tony
the Tow Truck a

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representative of this new
emerging class.

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Perhaps it's no accident that
Neato comes first.

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I think memory serves me in
saying that Neato comes first in

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the sort of folkloric triad
because Neato represents an

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older class,
a class which in a certain

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sense is giving way to the
professional/managerial class.

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It makes sense that first you
get Neato and then you would get

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Speedy.

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So then we can also think of
Tony the Tow Truck,

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of course,
in terms of gender.

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We've said there are no women
in it,

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and yet at the same time you do
have those frowning and smiling

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houses sort of embodying the
angel in the house,

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but it's not just that.

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Obviously, Neato--I've never
drawn a picture of Neato but

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with his little bow tie and his
prissy "Oh,

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I don't want to get dirty"
he's just a bundle of gay

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stereotypes.

13:04.840 --> 13:06.080
>

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Then obviously with Bumpy,
he pushes and pushes--you don't

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even want to go there.

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>

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In any case,
this is plainly a story about

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gender, and so you can see that
it's about all these things.

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So then here is the question,
and it really does provide us

13:29.671 --> 13:34.621
with our transition to today's
materials: what have I been

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doing all this time with Tony
the Tow Truck?

13:39.038 --> 13:43.238
I've been doing exactly,
as you can see now,

13:43.238 --> 13:47.168
what Fish does with Jacobs,
Rosenbaum, Levin,

13:47.168 --> 13:49.848
Thorne, Hayes,
and Ohmann.

13:49.850 --> 13:53.560
I've been showing that if you
bring a certain supposition to

13:53.562 --> 13:56.932
what you're reading,
you're going to perform a

13:56.928 --> 14:01.898
certain kind of hermeneutic act,
not with any particular strain

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but more or less spontaneously
because that's what you are

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conditioned to do.

14:08.028 --> 14:13.748
Now Fish's class had no trouble
construing the assignment for

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his previous class as a poem,
and you can see,

14:17.602 --> 14:20.572
of course, that it was sort of
ready to hand to be construed

14:20.567 --> 14:21.167
that way.

14:21.168 --> 14:24.238
Fish admits that,
but he's lecturing some people

14:24.244 --> 14:28.244
in Kenyon College and he just
sort of runs his finger down the

14:28.235 --> 14:32.005
list of faculty names and says,
"Look what I could do with

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these names."

14:32.889 --> 14:37.009
I think he does make his point
because you can do it with

14:37.010 --> 14:38.630
absolutely anything.

14:38.629 --> 14:42.159
We can see, of course,
that his class actually missed

14:42.160 --> 14:43.180
a few points.

14:43.178 --> 14:47.348
It forgot to mention that an
ancient and important meaning of

14:47.350 --> 14:50.340
the word "Levin"
is lightning,

14:50.340 --> 14:56.010
so that a flash of revelation
is entailed in any religious

14:56.013 --> 14:58.803
understanding of the poem.

14:58.798 --> 15:01.688
It's almost impossible to
understand why his class was

15:01.687 --> 15:03.647
stumped by the word
"Hayes"

15:03.649 --> 15:07.149
because "Hayes"--
well, we see things through a

15:07.147 --> 15:08.017
glass darkly.

15:08.019 --> 15:12.239
We see them in a haze,
and that's exactly the way in

15:12.241 --> 15:16.711
which we're likely to respond to
instances of religious

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revelation as they are given in
the devotional poetry of the

15:21.596 --> 15:23.746
seventeenth century.

15:23.750 --> 15:26.600
In any case,
what we've been doing with

15:26.604 --> 15:29.914
Tony the Tow Truck is of
this kind.

15:29.908 --> 15:32.568
We've taken a text with a--by
the way,

15:32.570 --> 15:37.070
you may want to know whether I
think Tony is really

15:37.073 --> 15:41.423
about something as opposed to
about all those things.

15:41.418 --> 15:44.268
Well, I actually do,
and I mentioned it in passing,

15:44.269 --> 15:49.359
but it's only an intuition and
it really doesn't arise out of

15:49.361 --> 15:54.201
any particular predilections I
have for psychoanalysis.

15:54.200 --> 15:58.320
It does seem to me,
however, that a story written

15:58.317 --> 16:03.117
to that age group in which the
climactic line is "He

16:03.120 --> 16:08.520
pushed and he pushed and I'm on
my way" is pretty obviously

16:08.524 --> 16:13.504
about one thing as opposed to a
lot of other things.

16:13.500 --> 16:18.500
If you really pushed me about
what Tony the Tow Truck

16:18.495 --> 16:20.985
is about,
I would say,

16:20.993 --> 16:25.693
"Well, I think it's an
anal phase parable and that

16:25.688 --> 16:30.558
Robert Kraus very possibly wrote
it for that purpose.

16:30.558 --> 16:33.688
In other words,
this would engage the attention

16:33.688 --> 16:37.838
of the toddler who is having the
story read to him or her,

16:37.840 --> 16:42.500
and its meaningfulness probably
is going to come across to the

16:42.496 --> 16:47.146
toddler in that way perhaps in
more pronounced fashion than in

16:47.154 --> 16:49.964
any other--
certainly and obviously in a

16:49.956 --> 16:53.446
more pronounced fashion than
most of the ways in which we've

16:53.446 --> 16:55.276
been talking about the text.

16:55.279 --> 17:00.759
So that's what I think.

17:00.759 --> 17:03.889
Of course, I've disclaimed any
connection with psychoanalysis

17:03.889 --> 17:06.289
but nevertheless I know
something about it,

17:06.288 --> 17:09.188
and so that's part of my
interpretive community.

17:09.190 --> 17:10.990
We'll get back to that.

17:10.990 --> 17:15.380
In any case,
we've been treating Tony the

17:15.375 --> 17:20.065
Tow Truck in this way and we
have been,

17:20.068 --> 17:22.568
well, nodding our heads and
saying,

17:22.568 --> 17:24.188
"Yeah, yeah,
it's about that,

17:24.190 --> 17:26.320
too," and "Guess so,
yeah.

17:26.319 --> 17:27.539
Interesting, isn't it?

17:27.538 --> 17:30.048
Wonder what it's going to be
about on Thursday."

17:30.048 --> 17:35.218
We've been doing this because
we belong to an interpretive

17:35.221 --> 17:36.311
community.

17:36.308 --> 17:40.348
Now I want immediately to add
here two caveats.

17:40.348 --> 17:43.778
I would say that within the
interpretive community that

17:43.780 --> 17:46.860
makes up this room,
a community of people who are

17:46.856 --> 17:50.556
interested in interpretation,
you probably have suspected all

17:50.558 --> 17:54.378
along that interpretation was a
mug's game and therefore wanted

17:54.376 --> 17:58.376
to take a course of this kind to
find out just how bad it was.

17:58.380 --> 18:03.170
All of us at least have in
common a concern with the

18:03.167 --> 18:08.427
potential complexity of those
circumstances that surround

18:08.425 --> 18:10.205
interpretation.

18:10.210 --> 18:14.350
We are an interpretive
community that's interested in

18:14.346 --> 18:17.366
interpretation,
so we play the game.

18:17.368 --> 18:21.288
However, I would hazard that
within this interpretive

18:21.288 --> 18:25.658
community there are two
sub-communities which probably,

18:25.660 --> 18:28.620
in a certain sense,
while they see the significance

18:28.615 --> 18:32.315
of the exercise,
nevertheless want to hold out

18:32.320 --> 18:33.390
against it.

18:33.390 --> 18:39.740
One of them is the community
which either always has or has

18:39.741 --> 18:44.751
now come to have a very,
very strong commitment to one

18:44.747 --> 18:48.977
or another point of view that's
been passed in review in this

18:48.983 --> 18:53.153
course and who therefore finds
it demeaning of the important

18:53.148 --> 18:57.458
point of view that it would be
treated simply in a survey in a

18:57.455 --> 19:01.685
serial way with all sorts of
other points of view that may or

19:01.692 --> 19:04.802
may not supplant or jostle with
it.

19:04.798 --> 19:09.198
Now this takes us back to the
remarks I was making at the

19:09.200 --> 19:14.150
beginning about the way in which
one can perhaps acknowledge the

19:14.151 --> 19:18.791
usefulness of a survey course
but nevertheless bridle at the

19:18.788 --> 19:22.008
very idea of a survey course
when,

19:22.009 --> 19:25.279
after all, the only thing that
matters is Marx's thought.

19:25.278 --> 19:29.078
Why do we spend any time with
all of these other approaches to

19:29.083 --> 19:32.713
things and so on--
just sort of whichever form of

19:32.710 --> 19:36.440
thought is the only thing that
matters to you.

19:36.440 --> 19:41.290
This would probably lead you to
say not so much that Tony

19:41.285 --> 19:45.305
is only about this one thing
but "Oh,

19:45.308 --> 19:49.818
this is a really facile and
irrelevant exercise because the

19:49.821 --> 19:54.491
important thing is to take this
one thing seriously."

19:54.490 --> 19:58.700
The implication is that if you
take a lot of other things in

19:58.703 --> 20:02.493
review, you're not taking this
one thing seriously.

20:02.490 --> 20:05.400
So that might be one
sub-community within our

20:05.403 --> 20:07.063
interpretive community.

20:07.058 --> 20:09.858
Another one might be a
sub-community that is still

20:09.856 --> 20:12.706
committed,
as one's tempted to say,

20:12.708 --> 20:17.008
to high culture and says,
"I think we should have

20:17.005 --> 20:20.715
used 'Lycidas' or 'The Rhyme of
the Ancient Mariner.'

20:20.720 --> 20:24.220
It was demeaning to high
culture to use Tony the Tow

20:24.222 --> 20:28.182
Truck and furthermore,"
this sub-community might very

20:28.181 --> 20:31.231
well say,
"if we had used 'Lycidas'

20:31.230 --> 20:35.510
or 'The Rhyme of the Ancient
Mariner,' a certain approach,

20:35.509 --> 20:39.229
a certain way of reading either
of those poems,

20:39.230 --> 20:42.810
would have made sense
self-evidently--

20:42.808 --> 20:46.408
meaning that all of the other
approaches are trivial."

20:46.410 --> 20:50.350
If your commitment is not so
much to one point of view as to

20:50.345 --> 20:54.045
some idea of high culture,
you're not going to say in

20:54.054 --> 20:58.074
advance which approach it is,
but you're going to suppose

20:58.067 --> 21:02.207
that somehow or another such is
the value and nature of high

21:02.214 --> 21:06.714
culture that it will be possible
to arrive at a sort of consensus

21:06.713 --> 21:10.373
view of what's going on in one
of its products.

21:10.368 --> 21:14.748
This is what Guillory is
talking about at least in part

21:14.753 --> 21:18.733
in his review of defenses of
Western civilization,

21:18.732 --> 21:21.172
Western culture and so on.

21:21.170 --> 21:22.350
They have a meaning.

21:22.349 --> 21:23.989
They have a continuity.

21:23.990 --> 21:28.270
They have a stability which is
worth preserving and which ought

21:28.272 --> 21:32.282
to be the central business of
the schools to promulgate.

21:32.278 --> 21:36.788
So those are possible
sub-communities within our

21:36.785 --> 21:41.215
interpretative community,
but we all do have in common

21:41.218 --> 21:44.588
the recognition that it's
possible to riff on a text in

21:44.589 --> 21:45.339
this way.

21:45.338 --> 21:49.118
If somebody does it,
we recognize that whether we

21:49.121 --> 21:53.461
like it or not,
we ourselves could probably do

21:53.463 --> 21:55.383
it ,too--
which is proof,

21:55.384 --> 21:58.604
from Stanley Fish's point of
view and also from John

21:58.601 --> 22:02.971
Guillory's point of view,
because we're in a school that

22:02.970 --> 22:05.680
we have a great deal in common.

22:05.680 --> 22:11.070
It's what we have in common
that brings the text into

22:11.074 --> 22:17.614
visibility in the variety of
ways that we've performed on it.

22:17.608 --> 22:22.648
Now with all of this said,
let's talk a little bit more

22:22.647 --> 22:27.217
about what an interpretive
community is first,

22:27.220 --> 22:31.410
according to Stanley Fish,
and then move to the point

22:31.412 --> 22:36.492
where we may wish to suggest one
form or another of criticism of

22:36.490 --> 22:37.620
this idea.

22:37.618 --> 22:44.188
Let's begin with Fish's first
sentence, which is on page 1023,

22:44.186 --> 22:47.306
the upper left-hand column.

22:47.308 --> 22:50.698
This is a series of lectures,
and so he begins by saying:

22:50.700 --> 22:55.570
Last time I sketched out an
argument by which meanings are

22:55.567 --> 23:00.777
the property neither of fixed
and stable texts nor of free and

23:00.775 --> 23:05.635
independent readers but of
interpretative communities that

23:05.642 --> 23:10.602
are responsible both for the
shape of a reader's activities

23:10.595 --> 23:14.945
and for the texts those
activities produce.

23:14.950 --> 23:17.950
I don't know that he really
carries his argument all that

23:17.948 --> 23:20.088
much farther forward in this
lecture,

23:20.088 --> 23:23.798
which is why I think it's
worthwhile to begin with this

23:23.798 --> 23:27.918
sentence because in some ways it
does anticipate what he then

23:27.920 --> 23:30.600
lays out once more in this
lecture.

23:30.598 --> 23:35.448
Now an interesting thing about
the career of Stanley Fish is

23:35.453 --> 23:39.103
that he actually,
in the course of that quite

23:39.104 --> 23:44.604
high-visibility career,
changed his mind twice.

23:44.598 --> 23:49.528
His changes of mind are
actually recorded residually in

23:49.531 --> 23:53.041
this essay that you read,
"How Do We Recognize a

23:53.037 --> 23:54.017
Poem when We See One?"

23:54.019 --> 23:56.719
which, by the way,
is a completely disingenuous

23:56.717 --> 23:58.767
title because we don't see
poems.

23:58.769 --> 23:59.669
>

23:59.670 --> 24:02.320
That's the whole point.

24:02.319 --> 24:05.019
There is no poem there.

24:05.019 --> 24:07.049
If it's there,
it's because you put it there.

24:07.048 --> 24:11.698
In any case,
these changes of mind are

24:11.698 --> 24:15.968
residually present in this text.

24:15.970 --> 24:19.490
They are actually manifest in
the peculiar vagary of the

24:19.488 --> 24:23.448
argument of an earlier essay he
wrote called "Interpreting

24:23.454 --> 24:26.654
the Variorum,"
which is what was in the second

24:26.653 --> 24:29.153
edition of
>

24:29.150 --> 24:33.050
the Richter anthology and the
one that I used to teach,

24:33.049 --> 24:37.309
but I think it's still worth
harkening back to those changes

24:37.313 --> 24:38.183
of mind.

24:38.180 --> 24:42.520
When I was his student at the
University of California,

24:42.519 --> 24:44.769
he held his first opinion.

24:44.769 --> 24:48.359
This was just before he
published Surprised by Sin:

24:48.356 --> 24:50.926
The Reader in Paradise
Lost,

24:50.930 --> 24:56.430
a book for which a seminar
that I was in was a kind of

24:56.433 --> 24:57.693
guinea pig.

24:57.690 --> 25:03.170
To give you an example of what
he meant by saying that a stable

25:03.171 --> 25:08.231
text produces a reader,
which was his first belief,

25:08.230 --> 25:14.270
I give you an example that he
uses from Milton about Satan's

25:14.267 --> 25:15.287
spirit.

25:15.288 --> 25:18.858
This is Satan standing by the
fiery lake.

25:18.858 --> 25:21.618
He's just pulled himself up to
his full height,

25:21.618 --> 25:24.078
he has a spear,
and Milton writes about it

25:24.078 --> 25:27.548
[points to board]:
His Spear, to equal which the

25:27.545 --> 25:30.775
tallest Pine [okay:
spear, pine about the same

25:30.781 --> 25:33.351
size]
Hewn… to be the Mast

25:33.348 --> 25:37.168
of some great Ammiral [well,
let's see, mast-pine-spear]

25:37.172 --> 25:40.512
were but a wand…
Then you realize that the

25:40.509 --> 25:44.429
sequence of sizes is completely
reversed and what you thought,

25:44.430 --> 25:46.770
what you'd already filled your
consciousness with--

25:46.769 --> 25:52.059
the tallest pine--is just a
wand compared with the size of

25:52.056 --> 25:53.536
Satan's spear.

25:53.539 --> 25:54.689
So what's he saying?

25:54.690 --> 26:00.760
He's saying you think that your
mind can grasp the magnitude of

26:00.759 --> 26:04.149
Satan,
you think you know how big

26:04.154 --> 26:07.674
Satan is,
but the language of Paradise

26:07.665 --> 26:12.205
Lost is going to teach you,
is going to educate you into

26:12.213 --> 26:16.383
realizing that you shouldn't
mess with Satan because Satan is

26:16.380 --> 26:18.880
much bigger than you think he
is.

26:18.880 --> 26:23.140
What I didn't write here,
and what continues the passage,

26:23.143 --> 26:27.563
shows that even here Satan is
absolutely at his weakest.

26:27.558 --> 26:31.718
The passage continues [points
to board]: "He walkt with

26:31.724 --> 26:34.274
to support uneasy
steps…"

26:34.267 --> 26:37.167
In other words,
he's just risen from the fiery

26:37.171 --> 26:37.471
lake.

26:37.470 --> 26:39.550
He's as weak as he's ever going
to be right now

26:39.553 --> 26:40.643
>

26:40.640 --> 26:44.980
and yet he's already a lot more
than you can handle.

26:44.980 --> 26:50.520
That is the way the syntax of
Paradise Lost educates us

26:50.519 --> 26:56.149
into realizing that every time
we think we grasp the point of a

26:56.151 --> 26:59.211
text,
we prove that we are fallen

26:59.211 --> 27:02.131
readers,
that we have prematurely

27:02.125 --> 27:06.925
understood what's there,
and that only understanding it

27:06.928 --> 27:11.608
in the long run can prevail upon
us to realize the fallen

27:11.608 --> 27:14.708
condition,
which the text is obviously

27:14.705 --> 27:15.915
after all about.

27:15.920 --> 27:18.420
That was Fish's first opinion.

27:18.420 --> 27:21.340
Not too long after that,
in the course of writing a book

27:21.335 --> 27:24.195
called Self-Consuming
Artifacts, he began

27:24.196 --> 27:27.266
to have a different opinion
which more or less reversed the

27:27.270 --> 27:28.120
first one.

27:28.118 --> 27:31.978
He decided it isn't the text
that brings the reader into

27:31.978 --> 27:33.358
being--
that is to say,

27:33.355 --> 27:35.735
brings about the
self-realization on my part that

27:35.743 --> 27:38.683
I'm a fallen being in the case
of Paradise Lost.

27:38.680 --> 27:42.480
It isn't the text that brings
the reader into existence.

27:42.480 --> 27:45.670
It's the reader that brings the
text into existence.

27:45.670 --> 27:49.050
It's the reader,
after all, who performed this

27:49.048 --> 27:52.608
act of reading,
and it's the reader who made

27:52.611 --> 27:56.721
visible in the text the
possibility that this is what

27:56.719 --> 27:58.219
Milton is doing.

27:58.220 --> 28:02.690
So he reverses his field while
retaining the same structure of

28:02.685 --> 28:07.215
argument and the same range of
insight about what one can think

28:07.224 --> 28:08.474
about a text.

28:08.470 --> 28:13.350
Well, that was fine until he
realized that a reader has to

28:13.346 --> 28:15.226
come from someplace.

28:15.230 --> 28:21.230
A reader isn't just an
autonomous being.

28:21.230 --> 28:26.160
This is where he realized that
the third step in his

28:26.160 --> 28:30.150
development,
his second change of mind,

28:30.153 --> 28:35.733
means this: it's not the text
that produces the reader,

28:35.730 --> 28:38.980
it's not the reader that
produces the text,

28:38.980 --> 28:43.950
but it's the community that
produces the reader who in turn

28:43.953 --> 28:45.673
produces the text.

28:45.670 --> 28:52.430
Those three points in other
words map the progress of his

28:52.430 --> 28:55.690
thinking on these issues.

28:55.690 --> 28:59.790
Take a quick look at page 1025,
the right-hand column.

28:59.788 --> 29:04.218
He says, bottom of the
paragraph: "Interpretation

29:04.219 --> 29:09.149
is not the art of construing but
the art of constructing.

29:09.150 --> 29:12.220
Interpreters do not decode
poems;

29:12.220 --> 29:14.090
they make them."

29:14.088 --> 29:18.718
When he says that,
he's only at phase two of his

29:18.718 --> 29:21.738
thinking,
because there is still the

29:21.740 --> 29:26.130
possibility open to the reader
of thinking that the interpreter

29:26.126 --> 29:29.096
is an autonomous being whose
thoughts,

29:29.098 --> 29:32.668
whose interpretive powers,
and whose strategies of reading

29:32.671 --> 29:34.991
emanate from something from
within.

29:34.990 --> 29:39.830
Then on page 1027 he clarifies,
toward the bottom of the

29:39.832 --> 29:43.532
right-hand column:
"This does not,

29:43.529 --> 29:46.239
however, commit me to
subjectivity..."

29:46.240 --> 29:48.910
In other words,
it's not just a question of

29:48.913 --> 29:51.783
whatever I think is in a text is
in a text.

29:51.779 --> 29:54.499
I'm the one who makes the text,
and you make the text,

29:54.499 --> 29:56.449
and the other person makes the
text.

29:56.450 --> 29:59.480
We all make different texts
because we all have different

29:59.480 --> 30:01.970
subjectivities--that's not what
he's saying.

30:01.970 --> 30:04.960
This does not,
however, commit me to

30:04.958 --> 30:09.738
subjectivity because the means
by which they are made are

30:09.739 --> 30:12.129
social and conventional.

30:12.130 --> 30:16.610
In other words,
I can't have an off-the-wall

30:16.607 --> 30:22.647
interpretation of anything if
anyone else ever hears it.

30:22.650 --> 30:26.020
Yeah, if I'm
>

30:26.019 --> 30:28.969
just in my room,
surrounded by yellow wallpaper

30:28.971 --> 30:32.341
or something like that,
I suppose I can have an

30:32.336 --> 30:35.506
off-the-wall interpretation of
something,

30:35.509 --> 30:38.279
but if I try to publish it,
forget it.

30:38.279 --> 30:42.779
When I try to publish,
when I try to express myself,

30:42.779 --> 30:49.149
when I expose myself to any
aspect of the public sphere,

30:49.150 --> 30:54.940
my interpretation--if it's to
be judged as an interpretation

30:54.938 --> 30:57.268
at all,
if it's to count as an

30:57.268 --> 30:59.868
interpretation,
and if it's to count as an

30:59.868 --> 31:03.258
opinion--
must already be enmeshed in the

31:03.256 --> 31:07.746
interpretative community to
which it's addressed.

31:07.750 --> 31:11.350
It must have some sort of link
with that community.

31:11.348 --> 31:17.218
It must involve some sort of
membership or relationship with

31:17.219 --> 31:22.249
that community,
so that what Fish concludes is

31:22.252 --> 31:27.122
that there are neither subjects
nor objects.

31:27.118 --> 31:29.948
In other words,
this is Fish's way,

31:29.948 --> 31:32.938
following Derrida and
deconstruction,

31:32.942 --> 31:37.272
of attacking the Western
metaphysical tradition.

31:37.269 --> 31:41.239
As long as we suppose that
understanding is a matter of

31:41.243 --> 31:45.663
parsing or coming to terms with
subject-object relations,

31:45.660 --> 31:48.960
we're on the wrong track to
understanding.

31:48.960 --> 31:53.740
We have to understand the way
in which neither the subject nor

31:53.738 --> 31:57.888
the object can be said to have a
stable existence,

31:57.890 --> 32:02.590
to have integrity of any kind,
before we can come closer to

32:02.586 --> 32:06.556
grasping how it is that
interpretation is made and

32:06.557 --> 32:07.607
achieved.

32:07.608 --> 32:13.238
We've seen this before all the
way back at the beginning of the

32:13.240 --> 32:18.420
semester when we talked about
fore-having in Heidegger and

32:18.419 --> 32:21.479
Gadamer,
about the way in which we

32:21.476 --> 32:25.596
always see something as
something: we never see it as an

32:25.604 --> 32:28.364
object,
we never see it in and of

32:28.361 --> 32:28.981
itself.

32:28.980 --> 32:32.380
We've seen this before,
but there is a slight

32:32.375 --> 32:37.305
difference because Heidegger and
Gadamer hold out the object as a

32:37.314 --> 32:42.334
standard against which one's
opinions about it can be tested.

32:42.328 --> 32:45.498
In other words,
the hermeneutic circle is a

32:45.501 --> 32:50.181
movement back and forth between
interpretation and what's being

32:50.184 --> 32:52.884
interpreted,
so that what's being

32:52.878 --> 32:57.318
interpreted is a constant check
on the process of interpretation

32:57.317 --> 33:00.767
just as interpretation,
as it deepens,

33:00.770 --> 33:07.420
is a finer and finer outlining
of the nature of the object.

33:07.420 --> 33:11.160
So the hermeneutic circle which
resembles,

33:11.160 --> 33:15.420
which anticipates the thinking
of Fish in that it insists on

33:15.420 --> 33:18.600
the way in which all
interpretation begins as

33:18.596 --> 33:22.396
preconception,
nevertheless does also entail

33:22.396 --> 33:26.746
that subtle difference in that
the object is there.

33:26.750 --> 33:29.990
It's not that Fish denies the
existence of objects--although

33:29.986 --> 33:32.616
sometimes his rhetoric makes it
seem that way.

33:32.618 --> 33:38.958
He simply denies that we can
know them as objects at any

33:38.958 --> 33:39.878
point.

33:39.880 --> 33:44.740
We bring them into being,
and in bringing them into being

33:44.743 --> 33:49.613
we construct them in whatever
way it is that we construct

33:49.607 --> 33:50.387
them.

33:50.390 --> 33:52.320
Okay.

33:52.319 --> 33:53.879
Interpretive community.

33:53.880 --> 33:56.770
What do we make of this idea of
interpretive community?

33:56.769 --> 34:00.519
I have just said we all belong
to an interpretive community.

34:00.519 --> 34:03.229
We sitting here all belong to
an interpretive community.

34:03.230 --> 34:05.910
There may be a couple of
sub-communities here,

34:05.910 --> 34:08.770
but basically we're an
interpretive community.

34:08.768 --> 34:13.508
We understand each other,
and yet at the same time it's

34:13.512 --> 34:16.362
equally the case,
as I'm sure all of you are

34:16.360 --> 34:20.040
thinking to yourselves,
that no one of us has exactly

34:20.039 --> 34:23.759
the same set of opinions as
anyone else.

34:23.760 --> 34:27.290
We say we belong to an
interpretive community.

34:27.289 --> 34:29.909
We can in fact,
according to a certain weak

34:29.905 --> 34:32.925
form of the argument,
understand the way in which

34:32.929 --> 34:35.989
yes, we do bring things into
being according to certain

34:35.987 --> 34:39.157
habits that have evolved through
our membership in such a

34:39.159 --> 34:41.759
community;
but at the same time we say,

34:41.762 --> 34:42.892
"Guess what?

34:42.889 --> 34:46.329
I don't quite interpret
>

34:46.329 --> 34:50.699
Jacobs, Rosenbaum and the rest
of them in the way Fish's class

34:50.699 --> 34:51.129
did.

34:51.130 --> 34:53.990
I still don't interpret it in
the way that Professor Fry

34:53.987 --> 34:55.857
supplemented their
interpretation.

34:55.860 --> 34:59.310
I interpret it a little
differently, and furthermore I

34:59.313 --> 35:01.533
knew all along it wasn't a poem.

35:01.530 --> 35:08.210
You can't fool me,"
and so on.

35:08.210 --> 35:10.690
Each of us says to ourselves,
"Okay.

35:10.690 --> 35:13.740
Yeah, we have certain things in
common, but there are also ways

35:13.740 --> 35:15.070
in which we differ."

35:15.070 --> 35:17.870
What would Fish say to that?

35:17.869 --> 35:23.139
I think what he would say is
this, and I do think this needs

35:23.135 --> 35:27.235
to be acknowledged:
it weakens his position.

35:27.239 --> 35:31.719
He would say, "All right,
granted: in a rough sense,

35:31.724 --> 35:35.544
we belong here--
just as John Guillory says in a

35:35.536 --> 35:37.876
rough sense we're all in a
school--

35:37.880 --> 35:42.320
we belong to an interpretive
community;

35:42.320 --> 35:46.870
but there's another sense in
which we are each of us the sum

35:46.865 --> 35:48.815
total,
the composite,

35:48.824 --> 35:53.624
of all the interpretive
communities to which we now in

35:53.617 --> 35:58.677
some way or another have an
affinity and from which,

35:58.679 --> 36:01.299
in all the variety of ways one
can mention,

36:01.300 --> 36:02.770
we have emerged.

36:02.768 --> 36:05.708
Yes, we're each different
because the sum of the

36:05.710 --> 36:08.650
interpretive communities to
which we belong,

36:08.650 --> 36:12.320
constituting the ultimate
interpretive community that

36:12.320 --> 36:15.590
indeed we are,
is always going to be a little

36:15.586 --> 36:19.376
different from the sum of the
communities to which other

36:19.378 --> 36:20.548
people belong.

36:20.550 --> 36:24.430
This reduces the idea of
interpretive community to a kind

36:24.434 --> 36:27.554
of atomism whereby we all
concede and all say,

36:27.554 --> 36:29.294
"Yes, it's true.

36:29.289 --> 36:32.389
I am in a certain sense a
community."

36:32.389 --> 36:36.069
That's all Bakhtin said:
"I am a community.

36:36.070 --> 36:38.590
I am a community and,
of course, what communities do

36:38.585 --> 36:40.405
when they think is
interpret."

36:40.409 --> 36:42.329
Thinking is interpretation.

36:42.329 --> 36:45.569
But at the same time
"What's the point,"

36:45.568 --> 36:47.978
we then say,
"of saying I'm a community

36:47.980 --> 36:49.410
if,
in fact I'm a little different

36:49.409 --> 36:50.489
from everybody else?"

36:50.489 --> 36:54.029
Why not retain a certain sense
of subjectivity,

36:54.030 --> 36:59.370
or why not at least retain that
sense of individuality which

36:59.373 --> 37:04.903
results from the fact that none
of us ultimately or completely

37:04.900 --> 37:09.340
on every particular agree with
anybody else--

37:09.340 --> 37:12.890
the reason being that the sum
of our interpretative

37:12.894 --> 37:17.164
communities that makes up that
fundamental community to which

37:17.161 --> 37:21.431
we say we belong is always a
little bit different?"

37:21.429 --> 37:26.159
Now there is another argument
against this position which

37:26.157 --> 37:29.617
might be called radical
constructivism.

37:29.619 --> 37:35.119
We hear very frequently from
sociobiological thinkers like

37:35.123 --> 37:35.993
Edward O.

37:35.992 --> 37:39.662
Wilson, for example,
who point out that

37:39.661 --> 37:45.651
consciousness is hard wired to
do and to recognize all sorts of

37:45.648 --> 37:46.998
things.

37:47.000 --> 37:52.510
It has been shown in the lab
that aesthetic preference,

37:52.510 --> 37:56.400
which of course was always held
up to derision as anything like

37:56.400 --> 38:00.240
an objective standard--
"There is no disputing

38:00.237 --> 38:02.757
tastes,"
we always say--

38:02.760 --> 38:06.070
but even aesthetic preference,
it's been shown in the lab,

38:06.070 --> 38:09.810
involves certain predilections
we all do have in common.

38:09.809 --> 38:13.079
We all prefer the so-called
golden section,

38:13.081 --> 38:16.511
we love arches,
and this can explained in all

38:16.507 --> 38:17.907
sorts of ways.

38:17.909 --> 38:20.959
The most common explanation has
to do with what's called shelter

38:20.963 --> 38:21.403
theory.

38:21.400 --> 38:24.300
We like shapes that somehow or
another offer shelter or

38:24.300 --> 38:25.000
protection.

38:25.000 --> 38:28.340
In any case,
the fairly conclusive evidence

38:28.340 --> 38:33.030
is that in a variety of ways,
we are hard wired to recognize

38:33.034 --> 38:33.914
things.

38:33.909 --> 38:38.369
Darwin's last book is all about
how we recognize each other's

38:38.373 --> 38:41.393
expressions,
we recognize the expressions of

38:41.391 --> 38:44.581
animals with which we have a
great deal in common,

38:44.579 --> 38:48.139
and that we do this from
infancy--in other words,

38:48.139 --> 38:51.329
all sorts of evidence to this
effect.

38:51.329 --> 38:55.009
I'm not sure Fish's argument is
vulnerable to that position

38:55.012 --> 38:58.252
because, after all,
hard wiring is communitarian.

38:58.250 --> 38:59.260
>

38:59.260 --> 39:02.550
The point is precisely that we
all have it and that it's not

39:02.545 --> 39:04.825
something that we can call
individual,

39:04.829 --> 39:09.899
not something that we can call
autonomous to any one of us as

39:09.896 --> 39:11.076
individuals.

39:11.079 --> 39:16.009
So it seems to me that although
the argument against so-called

39:16.012 --> 39:20.382
radical constructivism usually
does take this form,

39:20.380 --> 39:22.400
it actually is not a very good
argument,

39:22.400 --> 39:27.320
and that the argument objecting
to the mere weakness of the way

39:27.320 --> 39:32.240
in which interpretive community
as a concept ultimately becomes

39:32.242 --> 39:35.182
atomistic is a stronger
argument;

39:35.179 --> 39:41.239
because what does it matter if
I'm an interpretive community if

39:41.239 --> 39:44.269
I'm still a community of one?

39:44.268 --> 39:47.798
In some measure,
it's something that seems less

39:47.798 --> 39:52.018
worth talking about once one's
put it in those terms.

39:52.018 --> 39:57.818
Very quickly then on Guillory
whose argument actually ended

39:57.820 --> 40:03.720
the very debate that he thinks
is going to intensify and get

40:03.719 --> 40:04.719
worse.

40:04.719 --> 40:07.909
In other words,
he thought that the big,

40:07.909 --> 40:12.679
hot-button topic in the
academic world for the next

40:12.681 --> 40:17.361
twenty-five years or more would
be the canon wars:

40:17.358 --> 40:19.638
canonical,
non-canonical,

40:19.644 --> 40:23.394
cultural, and multicultural--
he thought this would be the

40:23.389 --> 40:27.139
fundamental point of contention
in the academic world.

40:27.139 --> 40:29.549
Well, it wasn't,
and the reason it wasn't is

40:29.548 --> 40:32.408
that his argument was so
brilliant everybody came to

40:32.405 --> 40:35.315
their senses and realized
>

40:35.320 --> 40:38.430
that they were barking up the
wrong tree, literally.

40:38.429 --> 40:41.789
His book, Cultural Capital,
simply silenced not the

40:41.793 --> 40:44.633
public, because nothing ever
silences the public,

40:44.626 --> 40:46.276
>

40:46.280 --> 40:53.270
but simply silenced the debate
about the culture wars in the

40:53.273 --> 40:54.463
academy.

40:54.460 --> 40:59.990
In some ways Guillory amusingly
undermines his own prophecy,

40:59.992 --> 41:05.152
which by the way is on page
1477 in the upper right-hand

41:05.150 --> 41:08.340
column if you care to read it.

41:08.340 --> 41:13.280
Now Guillory's main
preoccupation--

41:13.280 --> 41:17.380
which he takes largely from
Pierre Bourdieu but also,

41:17.380 --> 41:20.390
as he argues in a long
constructive digression,

41:20.389 --> 41:25.499
from Antonio Gramsci--his main
preoccupation is with the school

41:25.501 --> 41:30.121
as a means of establishing and
proliferating what Gramsci

41:30.121 --> 41:32.761
called "hegemony."

41:32.760 --> 41:37.670
The school, in other words,
on this argument doesn't

41:37.668 --> 41:40.638
typically--
and we'll come back to the

41:40.639 --> 41:43.549
exception that Guillory himself
does make--

41:43.550 --> 41:50.320
doesn't typically send out into
the world minds armed with

41:50.324 --> 41:56.034
specific bodies of knowledge or
understanding.

41:56.030 --> 41:59.180
It sends out into the world,
especially when it's a question

41:59.179 --> 42:01.769
of the humanities--
which Guillory thinks are

42:01.768 --> 42:05.178
painting themselves into the
corner in their obtuseness--

42:05.179 --> 42:11.049
the school sends out into the
world people endowed with a

42:11.054 --> 42:15.044
certain quantum of cultural
capital.

42:15.039 --> 42:18.219
It repeats, in other words--in
Bourdieu's term it

42:18.224 --> 42:22.104
"reproduces"--
a structure of class,

42:22.103 --> 42:27.653
but really class in the sort of
super-structural sense:

42:27.646 --> 42:32.566
class superiority that
regardless of the specific

42:32.570 --> 42:39.550
content that a person supposes
himself to have been mastering,

42:39.550 --> 42:45.020
simply replicates an
orientation to the ruling class

42:45.021 --> 42:49.101
that the school in Western
culture,

42:49.099 --> 42:51.319
according to Guillory,
has always had.

42:51.320 --> 42:57.300
What the school reproduces is
not knowledge so much as itself,

42:57.300 --> 43:01.720
the attitude that it embodies,
its reason for being,

43:01.719 --> 43:07.669
its reason for continuation,
and its relation to power and

43:07.670 --> 43:09.550
state apparatus.

43:09.550 --> 43:15.100
That's Guillory's basic
position and it's why he says

43:15.099 --> 43:20.859
that the culture wars simply
play into the hands of the

43:20.864 --> 43:24.924
monolithic ideology of the
school.

43:24.920 --> 43:29.250
What happens when you embrace
multiculturalism as the only

43:29.250 --> 43:33.580
means of inculcating what
Guillory calls "progressive

43:33.579 --> 43:36.749
pedagogy"--
what happens when you embrace

43:36.748 --> 43:39.548
multiculturalism,
according to Guillory,

43:39.548 --> 43:43.928
is that you deracinate the
objects of your intention from

43:43.925 --> 43:48.685
the culture to which they belong
in precisely the way that the

43:48.693 --> 43:52.913
great monuments of Western
civilization have long since

43:52.914 --> 43:56.824
been deracinated from their
historical and cultural

43:56.822 --> 43:58.622
circumstances.

43:58.619 --> 44:07.249
You reduce both Western Civ and
alternative canons to the same

44:07.251 --> 44:15.601
deracinated, rootless sort of
nature as cultural capital.

44:15.599 --> 44:17.809
"I have read this.

44:17.809 --> 44:23.299
I have a certain status and
negotiability in the world as

44:23.298 --> 44:25.748
having read this."

44:25.750 --> 44:29.540
In the case of Western Civ,
it's quotations from the poets

44:29.538 --> 44:31.398
and after-dinner speeches.

44:31.400 --> 44:34.180
In the case of multicultural
curricula,

44:34.179 --> 44:38.419
it's the opportunity to allude
in precisely the same way on

44:38.423 --> 44:42.153
largely the same occasions,
and in either case it has

44:42.146 --> 44:44.526
nothing to do with learning
anything,

44:44.530 --> 44:49.010
according to Guillory,
about the historical and social

44:49.010 --> 44:53.830
circumstances in which any kind
of cultural production are

44:53.829 --> 44:54.929
grounded.

44:54.929 --> 45:01.119
Now the argument depends,
of course,

45:01.119 --> 45:07.349
on supposing that the way in
which the great works are taught

45:07.349 --> 45:13.059
is as though they embody certain
ideas of principles.

45:13.059 --> 45:16.189
That is to say,
they're taught as messages,

45:16.190 --> 45:19.620
in Guillory's view,
whatever form of message it

45:19.619 --> 45:20.589
might be.

45:20.590 --> 45:25.370
The Western canon has a message
about the importance of being an

45:25.365 --> 45:26.195
American.

45:26.199 --> 45:31.989
The multicultural canon has a
contestatory message about the

45:31.989 --> 45:37.289
importance of being whoever
happens to be speaking,

45:37.289 --> 45:40.429
but in each case they're merely
messages.

45:40.429 --> 45:42.399
They're not cultural artifacts.

45:42.400 --> 45:47.560
They don't emerge from the real
sort of historical and living

45:47.561 --> 45:51.261
circumstances in which they are
written,

45:51.260 --> 45:55.190
which of course is,
most broadly speaking,

45:55.190 --> 45:59.260
simply an appeal to method,
a new way of teaching.

45:59.260 --> 46:02.090
Guillory's own deepest
commitment is,

46:02.090 --> 46:04.450
in fact, to the great works.

46:04.449 --> 46:06.969
Guillory began as an early
modern scholar.

46:06.969 --> 46:10.029
He wrote a very,
very fine first book on Spenser

46:10.032 --> 46:10.882
and Milton.

46:10.880 --> 46:15.910
His later work in literary
sociology in no ways discredits

46:15.905 --> 46:20.745
or undermines the fact that
earlier in his career he was

46:20.753 --> 46:23.843
interested in a cultural canon.

46:23.840 --> 46:27.490
In fact, probably the most
interesting chapter in

46:27.487 --> 46:31.517
Cultural Capital is maybe
not this introductory

46:31.516 --> 46:35.996
theoretical one but an amazing
chapter in which he shows how

46:36.000 --> 46:40.100
Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a
Country Churchyard"

46:40.103 --> 46:44.513
came to predominate in English
curricula even though it was

46:44.512 --> 46:48.162
written in the vernacular,
in English.

46:48.159 --> 46:51.219
He shows in other words how
"Elegy in a Country

46:51.215 --> 46:54.085
Churchyard,"
in the way in which it situated

46:54.092 --> 46:59.052
itself in culture at that time,
actually undermined the premium

46:59.050 --> 47:02.680
place on the classics,
on Latinity,

47:02.681 --> 47:10.231
and helped the emergence of a
vernacular national curriculum.

47:10.230 --> 47:13.680
It's an absolutely brilliant
argument in which "Elegy in

47:13.675 --> 47:16.545
a Country Churchyard"
is itself constantly and

47:16.548 --> 47:18.788
steadily and fascinatingly
invoked.

47:18.789 --> 47:22.219
In other words,
Guillory himself likes the

47:22.219 --> 47:23.139
classics.

47:23.139 --> 47:26.819
Perhaps the most interesting
part of this argument is the way

47:26.824 --> 47:30.514
in which the Western Civ mavens
are simply fooled about their

47:30.510 --> 47:34.320
own understanding of what a
canon is because perpetually,

47:34.320 --> 47:35.980
history changes canons.

47:35.980 --> 47:38.640
The more books you get,
the fewer you can read,

47:38.643 --> 47:41.363
and the more gets dropped out
of any curriculum,

47:41.364 --> 47:43.744
including the Western Civ
curriculum.

47:43.739 --> 47:48.919
Today we're proud if we're
proponents of great books.

47:48.920 --> 47:51.290
We're proud of reading Plato
and Aristotle.

47:51.289 --> 47:54.109
In the old days,
people didn't stop with Plato

47:54.108 --> 47:55.108
and Aristotle.

47:55.110 --> 47:58.130
They read everything there was
to read in Greek and Latin

47:58.128 --> 48:01.198
culture and then they read such
few books as may have been

48:01.202 --> 48:02.552
published in English.

48:02.550 --> 48:07.470
Well, a great deal has happened
since then, and perforce modern

48:07.472 --> 48:12.322
languages and literatures have
altered the canon always to the

48:12.315 --> 48:14.455
end of thinning it out.

48:14.460 --> 48:17.150
More and more gets left out.

48:17.150 --> 48:20.170
This is an inevitability even
in the so-called

48:20.173 --> 48:23.533
"canonical"
and therefore itself needs to

48:23.534 --> 48:27.034
acknowledge the centrality of
historical change.

48:27.030 --> 48:30.240
Guillory's argument obviously
hinges on the failure of anybody

48:30.239 --> 48:33.129
involved in these debates to
distinguish between the two

48:33.134 --> 48:34.034
forms of culture.

48:34.029 --> 48:35.449
>

48:35.449 --> 48:38.769
There is culture,
the kind of culture on which a

48:38.769 --> 48:42.019
person without any education at
all and the new

48:42.021 --> 48:45.131
professional/managerial class
can meet,

48:45.130 --> 48:48.390
the kind of culture in which
precisely literature doesn't

48:48.385 --> 48:48.905
matter.

48:48.909 --> 48:49.939
Who needs literature?

48:49.940 --> 48:52.120
"I'm running
Hewlett-Packard.

48:52.119 --> 48:54.319
Do I need literature?"

48:54.320 --> 48:58.370
At the same time,
there is the kind of culture

48:58.369 --> 49:03.099
with a capital K,
as we say, which is all about

49:03.101 --> 49:05.571
the great books,
high culture,

49:05.572 --> 49:08.942
the monuments of civilization,
and so on.

49:08.940 --> 49:12.810
Guillory says the total
disconnect in the way in which

49:12.813 --> 49:16.693
we understand the relations
between these two forms of

49:16.688 --> 49:20.488
culture is what leads to the
kinds of deracination in

49:20.489 --> 49:23.339
teaching that he complains
about.

49:23.340 --> 49:28.040
He himself finally thinks that
anything is fair game to be

49:28.036 --> 49:30.076
taught,
and it can be taught

49:30.083 --> 49:33.693
progressively as long as it is
taught in terms of its social

49:33.692 --> 49:35.652
and historical circumstances.

49:35.650 --> 49:40.740
He points out that a great
book--I will quote this and then

49:40.739 --> 49:44.319
I'll leave you--
is great in part because it

49:44.317 --> 49:48.977
can't possibly be reduced to the
silliness that the advocates of

49:48.978 --> 49:51.048
Western Civ attach to it.

49:51.050 --> 49:53.530
He says, page 1482,
right-hand column:

49:53.530 --> 49:57.740
No cultural work of any
interest at all is simple enough

49:57.737 --> 50:00.947
to be credibly allegorized in
this way,

50:00.949 --> 50:05.289
because any cultural work will
objectify in its very

50:05.293 --> 50:10.013
form and content the same social
conflicts that the canon debate

50:10.010 --> 50:13.680
allegorizes by means of a
divided curriculum.

50:13.679 --> 50:18.219
The Odyssey is full of
lying, trickery,

50:18.215 --> 50:19.925
class betrayal.

50:19.929 --> 50:21.839
In The Iliad,
perhaps the most

50:21.842 --> 50:25.232
interesting character,
as I'm sure you'll all agree,

50:25.231 --> 50:29.571
is Thersites who is scarcely an
advocate of the values that we

50:29.570 --> 50:31.990
associate with Western culture.

50:31.989 --> 50:35.079
In any case,
this is what Guillory means by

50:35.077 --> 50:38.897
saying that you cannot
monumentalize anything in this

50:38.902 --> 50:43.022
way if you read it carefully and
attentively enough.

50:43.018 --> 50:46.138
So ultimately it's simply a
program for reading.

50:46.139 --> 50:47.039
Okay.

50:47.039 --> 50:50.709
Next time we'll talk about the
idea that we shouldn't have

50:50.708 --> 50:51.738
theory at all.

50:51.739 --> 50:56.999