Philosophical Meta-Reflections on Literary Studies

Jibu Mathew George

Description

An examination of key meta-questions in the humanities, with focus on literary studies

‘Philosophical Meta-Reflections on Literary Studies: Why Do Things with Texts, and What to Do with Them?’ takes up key meta-questions in the humanities, with focus on contemporary literary studies, philosophically examines the nature of knowledge therein as well as the implications of certain popular critical approaches, and addresses the effervescent question of ‘relevance’. In contrast to usual works on literary theory, or on philosophy of literature for that matter, this book presents an integrated meta-reasoning on the foundational questions of literary studies from an interdisciplinary perspective – in a manner of intertextual informality. It endeavours to articulate a rationale for the humanities in general and literary studies in particular. It philosophically examines the implications of, and assumptions behind, three popular tendencies in contemporary literary criticism – textual deconstruction, ideological criticism and constructivism. It also introduces the reader to possibilities of non-reductive reasoning with regard to the relation between the aesthetic and the political. With his multidisciplinary background, doctoral degree on an encyclopedic author who extended the frontiers of fiction with his highly experimental writings (James Joyce) and past engagements with vital issues in the humanities/literature, Jibu George is in a position to deal with foundational questions therein. The book endeavours to fill the gap between theory and practice; its metacritical reflections redefine the way critics interpret texts, teachers teach them, students study them and researchers grapple with their research problems. It also proposes an array of new concepts for the understanding of literature which have a significance beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; The Why and Wherefore of Academic Disciplines: The Humanities and the Human World Process; If Literature were to Disappear from the Spectrum of Disciplines…; Beyond for and Against: Tendencies of Contemporary Criticism; The Aesthetic and the Political; References; Index.

Sujets

• PHILOSOPHY
• Aesthetics

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 29 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785271731
• Langue: English

Extrait

Philosophical Meta-Reflections on Literary Studies
Philosophical Meta-Reflections on Literary Studies
Why Do Things with Texts, and What to Do with Them?
Jibu Mathew George
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2020
by ANTHEM PRESS
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Copyright © Jibu Mathew George 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019949651
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-171-7 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-171-7 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
To the One who engages me on larger questions and for Appa, Amma, Celine, Eugene and Juanita
If you do not feel a generalized intellectual anxiety, if you feel no need to find and make explicit and to evaluate the basic premises of your activities, why the devil philosophize in the first place?
Ernest Gellner

‘Iinterpreting’ is an intellectual sport […] one that is good for clever people […] who can read and write books about Black sculpture or twelve-tone music but who never get to the heart of a work of art because they stand at the gate fumbling with their hundred keys, blind to the fact that the gate is not really locked.
Hermann Hesse
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The Why and Wherefore of Academic Disciplines: The Humanities and the Human World Process
1.1 The Humanities – An Ugly Duckling among Alma Mater’s Pets
1.2 The Nature of Knowledge in the Humanities
1.3 Obscure or Irrelevant?: The Bogey of ‘High Funda’
1.4 Implementational and Reflective Intelligence
1.5 The Human World Process
1.6 An Abstraction Theory of Knowledge
1.7 Ontology of the Intangible
1.8 Scientistic Aspirations of the Humanities
2 If Literature were to Disappear from the Spectrum of Disciplines …
2.1 Why Do Things with Texts?
2.2 Is ‘Life’ a Humanist Abstraction?
2.3 Delicate Epistemes of Literature
2.4 Templates of Significance
2.5 World-Appetite
2.6 Reader-Text Symmetry
3 Beyond for and Against: Tendencies of Contemporary Criticism
3.1 What to Do with Texts?
3.2 The Return of Deductive Reasoning
3.3 Facts and Frames
3.4 The Enterprise of Ideological Criticism
3.5 Constructivism
3.6 Ce Qui Arrive (réellement): What Does Deconstruction Actually ‘Mean’?
3.6.1 The Auto-Epiphany of Western Thought
3.6.2 ‘Put a Pin in That Chap, Will You?’: Deconstruction in Critical Practice
3.7 Why not ‘Work’ and ‘Text’?
3.8 From Textual Being to Avant-Textual Becoming: A Temporal Ontology for Texts
3.9 The Calculi of Reasoning in Literary Studies
4 The Aesthetic and the Political
4.1 The Scandal Called the Aesthetic
4.2 What Is a Classic?
4.3 ‘Keep the Professors Busy for Centuries’
4.4 A Milestone Approach
4.5 Ever-Changing Domains of Knowledge
4.6 Negotiated Possibilities
References
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the journey which produced this book, I have accumulated several scholarly and personal debts. I am deeply grateful to everyone with whom I interacted – sometimes in ‘virtual space’ – in the last four years, since my quotidian reflections began to cross disciplinary boundaries and became self-conscious of domain-specific canons of reasoning.
I am indebted to the reviewers of the manuscript, who provided insightful comments; and Tej P. S. Sood, Megan Greiving, Abi Pandey, Kani and Kyra Droog at Anthem Press, for their support throughout the process of publication.
I am particularly thankful to:
Prof. Christian Tapp, Department of Christian Philosophy, University of Innsbruck, the magnanimous well-wisher whose interventions have helped me see clearly the intersections and divergences of philosophy and literature;
Prof. E. Suresh Kumar, the honourable Vice Chancellor, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, for convincing me how important it is to collaborate, and for granting me the time and impetus to focus on research;
Prof. T. Sriraman, an early reader of the manuscript in its original form;
Prof. T. Samson, Dean, School of Literary Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, for his insightful observations on post-structuralism and the intellectual antecedents of several contemporary ideas;
Prof. Pramod K. Nayar, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, for his encouragement;
Prof. Udaya Kumar, Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, whose observations on James Joyce for ever changed my views on doing things with texts;
Dr Mathew John Kokkatt, Department of German, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, my constant interlocutor;
Prof. D. Venkat Rao, Department of English Literature, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, brief meetings with whom redirect me to matters that matter;
Prof. Syed Sayeed, Department of Aesthetics and Philosophy, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, for the immensely fruitful conversations;
Prof. Mahasweta Sengupta, who made available to me her excellent collection of books;
Prof. Gautam Sengupta, whose statements from an analytic philosophy perspective turned my thoughts in a new direction;
Dr Rajiv C. Krishnan, Department of English Literature, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, whose sharpest editorial criticism in the past made me an author;
Prof. Arnar Árnason, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, whose feedback on an earlier article – ‘James Joyce and the “Strolling Mort”: Significations of Death in Ulysses ’ – I shall cherish;
Dr Rahul Kamble, friend and colleague, the lunchtime conversations with whom have been a great source of encouragement;
Dr Kshema Jose, Department of Training and Development, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, whose averment concerning the exclusively ‘practical’ requirements of knowledge and ‘dissection’ of texts finds a response in this book;
Eugene and Juanita, who irreversibly changed the coordinates of my existence and have taught me how closely continuous, as opposed to popular pronouncements, the academic and the experiential realms are;
Jeena Elizabeth George, my sister, who took the time to enquire about the progress of my various manuscripts;
Rev. Zachariah Alexander, who provided me forums outside academia to articulate my thoughts and
My students, for being the interlocutors I have desired and needed.
I owe a lot to Prof. Babu Thaliath, Centre for German Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. C. T. Indra, retired Professor and Head, Department of English, University of Madras; Prof. Lee Irwin, Department of Religious Studies, College of Charleston; Prof. Geert Lernout, Department of Literature, University of Antwerp; Prof. Anne C. Fogarty, School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin; Prof. Roland Greene, Department of English, Stanford University; Prof. Galin Tihanov, School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London; Prof. Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov, School of Arts, Languages and Culture, The University of Manchester; Prof. Lakshmi Chandra, School of Distance Education, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad; Prof. T. Nageswara Rao, Department of Indian and World Literatures, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad; and Prof. Anna Kurian James, Department of English, University of Hyderabad.
A part of Chapter 3 , dealing with deconstruction, has appeared in an earlier version in the collection of essays entitled Structure and Signs of Play: Derrida/Deconstruction@50 guest edited by Prof. Pramod K. Nayar and published by Padma Prakash for Iris Knowledge Foundation, Mumbai. I am grateful to the editor and the publisher in this endeavour to republish the material in a larger context.
INTRODUCTION
This book takes up key meta-questions in the humanities, with a focus on contemporary literary studies, philosophically examines the nature of knowledge therein and addresses the effervescent question of ‘relevance’. Its subtitle is a variation on the title of M. H. Abrams’s collection of essays and reviews Doing Things with Texts (1989), which in turn echoes J. L. Austin’s influential work How to Do Things with Words (1955). Effective research and teaching in any discipline depend upon being able to understand its raison d’être and the modes of reasoning possible in it. Chapter 1 endeavours to articulate a philosophical rationale for the existence of the humanities with reference to what it calls the human world process. The purpose of theory and philosophy lies in offering a conceptual grasp on the world and a clarification of our implicit assumptions. The chapter argues that knowledge in the humanities is of a different order from that in the sciences a