Shumway, David R., and Craig Dionne, eds. Disciplining English: Alternative Histories, Critical Perspectives.
Albany: SUNY Press, 2002. Print.
Shumway, David R. and Craig Dionne. Introduction. Shumway and Dionne 1-18.
Print.
In their introduction to their collection about the
development and effects of English disciplinarity, David Shumway and Craig
Dionne work on establishing the value of exploring the current functions of
English studies that grew out of its history. In doing so, they consider first
what they mean by “discipline.” The first view of this term is that of a rating,
a valuation based on what a given field produces or studies. Instead, they use “discipline”
to refer to a socially constructed set of ideas and practices that establish a
field as coherent and engaged in the production of certain types of knowledge. This
more open definition allows them to consider English as a discipline in spite
of some external views that question whether English and other fields in the
humanities do, in fact, produce knowledge (5). They also examine “discipline”
in its Foucauldian sense. Viewed in this way, the socially constructed nature
of a discipline serves to create a system that determines how has the right to
speak and be heard within the discipline as well as a system of surveillance
that disciplines its members.
Of concern, though, is that disciplinarity leads to some
narrow work within the disciplines. Often, the goal of research becomes more
about adding new (and sometimes narrow) information to the field than
considering the broader applications of that knowledge. Citing Thomas Gieryn,
Shumway and Dionne refer to the “boundary-work” of the disciplines that
establishes and maintains the disciplinary divisions between and within
disciplines (6). At the same time this work entrenches the borders between
disciplines it also serves to establish public confidence in a particular
discipline to “perform the service it controls” (6-7). In other words, the
sometimes narrow and even esoteric issues of English studies prove to those
outside the field that those inside the field are capable of studying and
teaching these issues. While this serves to legitimate a discipline, it also
serves to fragment it, as different areas of interest and theories begin to
establish subdisciplines that may cordon themselves off from the objectives of
the larger discipline. As Shumway and Dionne note, this creates “the paradox
that within the field of English heterogeneity and hegemony exist
simultaneously” (9). In English’s case, the dominant subdiscipline is still
literature, despite an influx of theories and practices that would call such
hegemony into question, but by examining what they call the “the arbitrary and
constructed boundaries that constitute the field,” we might be better able to
understand and challenge the questions and concerns created by disciplinarity.
What Shumway and Dionne’s introduction calls upon readers to
consider is the ways in which disciplinarity shapes the work we do in the
academy but in ways that ask us to be mindful of the consequences of not
considering the roots and forces that shape our disciplines. Doing so may
provide us with a greater depth of understanding of our own work, and, for my
purposes, can bring to light spaces where disciplines and subdisciplines may
productively intersect.
Russell, David R. “Institutionalizing English: Rhetoric on the Boundaries.”
Shumway and Dionne 39-58. Print.
In David R. Russell’s contribution to Shumway and Dionne’s
collection, he examines the divide between literature and composition. This
split, which privileged literature as the research side of English and
relegated composition to a service role, was essential in developing English as
a discipline. Moreover, Russell argues that this marginalization actually
served to strengthen English as a discipline. Composition gave English a
presence in the other disciplines across the university. The problem Russell
addresses here, though, is how this disciplinarity created the illusion that a
discipline was self-developed and self-sustaining, despite its dependence on
and interactions with other disciplines. Such is the nature of the relationship
of literature and composition.
Russell briefly traces some of literature’s history,
especially its less prestigious times when rhetoric was privileged over the
written word. But as research became the dominant focus of universities in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century, more service-oriented courses
began to lose prestige. During this
period, Progressive reforms began to take hold, and these reforms particularly
valued the practical. The humanities,
including literature, positioned themselves as the anti-utilitarian
disciplines. English quickly separated literature (the elevated,
research-oriented side) from composition (the remedial, service-oriented side).
Doing so allowed those in literature to develop it as a research subject and
establish literary texts as its objects of study. At the same time, the heavy
workloads in composition and its mechanistic nature impeded its possible
development as a field of inquiry. And even though composition as controlled by
English departments connected composition to nearly every other discipline in
the university, the fact that composition existed removed writing instruction
as a responsibility of the disciplines, including literary study. Thus, composition’s
role as a service course allowed English to make its “serious” word the
reception and interpretation of texts and not their production.
While Russell recognizes recent efforts to recuperate the
interconnections of literature and rhetoric/composition, the discipline of
English developed and became established with the hierarchical divisions
Russell discusses here—and rather naively so. As Shumway and Dionne’s
introduction asks us to consider, Russell’s piece illustrates how disciplinary
divides can both rely on and elide interdisciplinarity, and English’s
long-standing acceptance of disciplinary divides within it as a discipline has
led to a hierarchical structure that is still in place and that, in my opinion,
has significant potential to limit the ways we educate students.
Wilson, Elizabeth A. “A Short History of a Border War: Social Science,
School Reform, and the Study of Literature.” Shumway and Dionne 59-81. Print.
Wilson’s article extends the arguments raised in Russell’s
article. She focuses on the interactions English (especially literature) had
with other disciplines as it was attempting to establish its own identity. She
argues that because English defined itself as a dealing with universals of
humanity, it put itself in direct contrast to social sciences and Progressive
education reforms. As such, it opened itself to critiques of elitism and of
impracticality. Progressive movements began to call for education that served a
broader population and that direct application to students’ everyday lives.
This pushed against the perceived elitism and classism implied in literature’s
attempts to develop “appropriate” tastes in students. As Wilson notes, the goal
of progressive education was “to undermine [liberal education] as a bastion of
social privilege and undemocratic ideals” (65).
Since Progressive education reforms were closely connected
to the developing social sciences, literary studies began distancing itself
from the social sciences. Its emphasis turned to developing the individual and
to “humane learning” as opposed to the types of problem-solving scholarship of
the social sciences (68). Literature was positioning itself as the explorer of
the “human experience” as opposed to “a scientific accumulation of facts” (69).
From both staffing and financial perspectives, these moves seemed to cost
literature in the shifting focus of the university. From 1920 to 1950, the
social sciences were adding faculty while faculty in the humanities (including
English) declined. In addition, government and private grants and other
financial support grew significantly for social sciences and concurrently
declined for the humanities (71-73).
Wilson contrasts the ideological moves made by English with those made
by history. Instead of distancing itself from social sciences, history embraced
the social sciences and its methods. As a result, history was more able to
legitimate itself as a practical field while it distanced itself from
literature. Thus, literary studies and other disciplines in the humanities that
took similar approaches to Progressivism and the social sciences came out
seeming less practical, a little out of touch. Wilson notes that the saving
grace of literature was New Criticism. New Criticism distanced itself from
social, biographical, political, and/or historical matters. Its emphasis on the
text required specialists, allowing literature to maintain some of its position
within the university.
In this ideological history sketched by Wilson, we can see a
discipline making quite conscious choices about the status it sought for
itself. But this maneuvering was not without consequences, and English,
particularly the literary side of the discipline, was left to defend its value
in an altered university. Though Wilson’s piece addresses this part of the
disciplinary history of English in rather general terms, the division of
literature from the social sciences also seems to speak to some of the tensions
with rhetoric and composition, especially as composition and rhetoric began
establishing itself as a discipline and often allied itself ideologically and
methodologically with social sciences instead of with the artistic and “culturing”
aspects of literature.
Schilb, John. “Composing Literary Studies in Graduate Courses.” Shumway and
Dionne 137-48. Print.
In the final selection from this collection I want to
address, John Schilb puts some of the history of English disciplinary divisions
into more current and tangible terms. Like the other works in this collection,
Schilb’s focuses on issues related to literature, but here he addresses a
problem in literary graduate studies that has been caused by the
marginalization of composition. Schilb argues that this marginalization left
literature faculty ill-prepared to expound on the writing and rhetorical
practices associated with their discipline. He develops this concern by
examining the rather readily-accepted notion that a discipline, “as a
regulative ideal” in the Foucauldian sense, makes use of discourse to initiate
members and determine authority and credibility (137). Despite this
recognition, he claims little has been done to instill this awareness in
literature students.
One reason for this oversight is an already overfull
curriculum. He claims the development of various theories and emphases of
different periods and different groups of people have done much to inform
literary studies but have also served to limit how much class time is available
for other discussions, such as those on writing practices. But beyond this,
Schilb says are reasons that connect more so to “the average English
department’s enduring failure to make composition studies truly integral to its
mission” (140). This may lead literature faculty to assume student preparedness
for writing in the discipline, to view writing skills as more associated with
talent than teachable methods, and to emphasize published texts over students'
works-in-progress. Schilb sees the
emphasis of rhetoric and composition faculty on writing and rhetorical practices
(from which he claims literature faculty have become distanced) as inviting
stronger considerations of disciplinarity and what makes up the discourse of
literary studies. Drawing on an example of a literary analysis, he sketches how
an instructor might demonstrate the rhetorical moves of the author and thereby
teach students how to think more rhetorically about their own writing. But he
also argues that literature faculty should not just teach students how to
replicate the dominant discourses of literary studies. To this, he adds rhetoric
and composition’s recent attention to developing approaches that teach students
to use rhetorical conventions and to
question their dominance and the consequences of their dominance over other
forms of discourse.
What is striking to me about Schilb’s discussion here is the
interdisciplinarity it encourages within English departments. While he focuses
on graduate work, addressing the rhetorical considerations of discourse is
readily applicable to undergraduate courses as well. And this not only better prepares
students for work in the field; it also calls upon faculty to work together to
institute such practices. If literature faculty are more removed from
rhetorical terms and considerations, rhetoric and composition faculty may work
with them or hold workshops to help them consider these elements. Faculty may
also work together to develop undergraduate courses that address writing in the
discourses of various fields within English. Such integrative practices offer
the possibility for the productive intersections of disciplines that Shumway
and Dionne’s introduction suggested.
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