Again re: "Klanderud's List"

[Jason Pontius]

I would like to make a brief comment on the discussion that Paul
Klanderud's recent postings have provoked.  I think there is a bit of
confusion in the debate between two separate issues:  on the one hand, the
failure of the "common man" to understand the field of literary criticism,
and on the other hand, the marginalization of Slavic within academia in
general.  I won't say much about Professor Beard's posting (Tony has taken
care of that ably) but when he writes

>Literary criticism is something only literary critics
>(dilletante and professional) do...  For every
>deserving writer in the world there are probably 10,000 literary critics.
>Is every one of them essential to the functioning of society?

it is perhaps a valid point from a non-academic point of view (though very
surprising from an academic)-- but it has nothing to do with the imminent
closure of Cornell's Russian Literature department.

The "anti-intellectualism" that Paul Klanderud correctly cites as a
characteristic of the outside world is not closing Slavic departments. The
MLA-type "deconstruction and nothing means anything and all that stuff" is
actually quite popular right now in the world of academe (the only world
that
matters with regard to department closings).   I'm a linguist myself, but I
keep up with literary studies (my wife's in Czech literature) -- and I
could name five to ten conferences calling for papers on literary theory
and criticism off the top of my head.

What is needed in the field of Slavic studies specifically is a greater
emphasis on integration not into *public* life (it's been decades since
academia spoke to the "common man" in any meaningful way) but into
*academic* life.  With the fall of the "evil empire", the rise of "cultural
studies", and a host of other changes in the modern American university,
those of us in Slavic (literature and linguistics alike) must do some
serious thinking about how we are to remain vital to the changed academic
landscape.

Jason Pontius

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jason allen pontius    slavic    university of chicago
7 7 3 . 3 2 4 . 7 1 7 3   japontiu at midway.uchicago.edu