The Rise and Fall of Spending Way Too Much Time Writing This.
with my book review of Robert Scholes' THE RISE AND FALL OF ENGLISH: RECONSTRUCTING ENGLISH AS A DISCIPLINE.
And it ONLY took me FOUR hours!
*headdesk*
And I have no idea if it's good or bad, but if anyone's read it (or not read it and just interested),
The Rise and Fall of Enlgish: Reconstructing English as a Discipline - Review
Cindy Kelly
The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline by Robert Scholes. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998.
The title of Robert Scholes book, The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline, assumes two things. First, it makes the assumption that English as a discipline has fallen by the wayside. Second, it assumes that a major reconstruction of English Studies is in order. It sounds a little bit presumptuous.
Surprisingly, the book is not as dry as most textbooks, if you could categorize it as one at all. It is a collection of five essays, with assignment interludes, prefaced by an intriguing introduction in which Scholes identifies himself as having been a "boy who loved language." As a girl who loves language, or as anyone who loves language, we form an immediate bond with Scholes. We can take the criticism and the negativity that casts shadows throughout the book because we know where he's coming from. We're familiar.
In essay one, "The Rise of English in Two American Colleges," Scholes explores the history of English as a field of study at University, using Yale and Brown as his backdrop. It is a fishing expedition, and we catch the notion that the good old days when students wrote correctly "never existed."
Scholes explains that English Studies as we know it today was borne out of the study of rhetoric, oratory, and belles letters, and that these are "different beasts" than written language. He blames specialization and professionalization, Latin and Greek influence, and "doctorate and Germanic methods [beginning to] dominate instruction" for the movements in English Studies from Philology to New Criticism, and then to Theory.
At the end of the first essay, Scholes defines the "sickness" from which English Studies currently suffers as a loss of hope. He says that the engaging professors of English, who profess their love for, and can explain that love to their students, are functionally gone. They have been replaced by theorists. He even describes theories, like deconstruction, as a "more desperate and constricted attempt to keep the transcendental aura of literature alive." The way he describes this sickness is nostalgic and moving, and though he includes many long quotations from other sources, it may be a subliminal reminder of how much he "loves language."
In the second essay, "No Dog Would Go On Living Like This," Scholes explains the "fall" of English studies, building a definition of the "fall" by picking up the pieces left over from the whittling and decay of the idea of "truth" in Literature and its study. He says "We live in an academic world in which we are rewarded not so much according to how well we teach or how much we learn but by the amount we publish and the attention it attracts from others." He explores the essence of "teaching, learning, and truth," by introducing a paradox. He exposes the disparaging difference between accuracy in writing about and respect for the existing body of knowledge about literature, evidenced by the "way we teach now" and the difficulty that comes with trying to reconcile literary and cultural studies.
In his third essay, "What is Becoming an English Teacher," he describes the teacher and his profession through an educational, or academic, lens. He says that the English teacher, as a prototype, does not "constrain to an ideal" and therefore must be a "weaver" and not just a "wearer" of words when it comes to texts. The importance here is that through his discourse, he provides the catalyst for change: that as English students, professors, consumers, we must separate the study of English into two parts - the study of literature and the study of composition.
The first three essays, then, focus on what is wrong with English Studies. In the fourth essay, "A Flock of Cultures," Scholes begins to shed light on the changes he prescribes to heal the "sickness." he describes a necessary movement back to the roots of the study of English, in the "liberal arts tradition," to bring back the values on which the discipline was founded: "grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric." He says that the process is more important than the canon. He places importance on reading to develop skills, rather than reading for the sake of reading.
Finally, in his fifth essay, "A Fortunate Fall," he recommends reform to the current English field of study, in which English majors learn from professors who subscribe to a new attitude about English Studies - one that incorporates a new definition of literature that includes non-traditional texts, multi-media, and a "broad range" instead of a strict canon of "great books." This new English major, he says, should be 'based on rhetoric and… reading and writing."
As interludes, Scholes wrote four "assignments" between each of the essays, which apply the essays to autobiographical instances providing a context to his criticisms and questions. These reflective essays provide evidence of his life as a teacher, as the teacher's job is one of reflection and re-education. They also provide readers with insight, that his book is an honest critique, based on his experience and expertise, of where English Studies has been, where it is going, and where it should go.
In this book, Scholes relates a story of English - one that started out well-received and entertaining. It transformed, eventually, into a pedantic Marxist social construct in which scholars write to publish, which in turn allows them to market themselves based on the worth that such publishing accomplishments prove. In a sense, this only serves to diminish and further complicate the academic community, and this is the essence of the "fall" of English that Scholes describes. In a frenzy to become better, English has lost "truth" and meaning, and has become a "different beast."
What he actually proposes is not revolution, but the next logical step in the evolution of English Studies. He advocates a compromise in which the pedantics come down off their pedestals and reincorporate the good parts of what has been lost, making the field of English Studies more attractive, accessible, and relevant to the general public once again.
Scholes' proposal, though unrealistic as it may seem, should serve as a catalyst. Yes, this book is important, but not just to its intended audience of scholars and professors of English. No, it is important to students of English as well.
Teachers and professors may pick up this work and find a kindred spirit in it - a book through which Scholes can hold one's hand and say, "Yes, I've thought these same things, felt these same frustrations. We're in this together, you and me." It can provide inspiration for teachers, plant seeds in their minds that might grow to influence their specific students in their specific classes. In this way, Scholes might affect change, but it will take a very long time.
But it holds equal importance for English majors and students. The book focuses on how they are educated, after all. Further, if this change is going to happen quickly, it will have to happen because students demand it. The bureaucratic organization of English Departments at University will probably prevent the professors of English from starting the revolution that's necessary here, but students can provoke the change by demonstrating dissatisfaction for how they are taught to study English.
This book is a must-read for anyone who cares to discuss what was wrong with how English was taught in high school or college. This book is especially important to people who want to know what is wrong with English education, and how to go about improving it, even in small ways. This book is for educators and professors and scholars, but this book is for students and parents of students, writers, and bibliophiles, too. How can people fix something if they don't know how to define how it's broken? This book "unmuddles" that crisis, and gives us the terminology for discussing it. Scholes introduced his book by saying he was a "boy who loved language." This book is for people who, like Scholes, love language, who want a concise, clear, honest definition of what is wrong with the way we study it, and how to affect a change.
And it ONLY took me FOUR hours!
*headdesk*
And I have no idea if it's good or bad, but if anyone's read it (or not read it and just interested),
The Rise and Fall of Enlgish: Reconstructing English as a Discipline - Review
Cindy Kelly
The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline by Robert Scholes. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998.
The title of Robert Scholes book, The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline, assumes two things. First, it makes the assumption that English as a discipline has fallen by the wayside. Second, it assumes that a major reconstruction of English Studies is in order. It sounds a little bit presumptuous.
Surprisingly, the book is not as dry as most textbooks, if you could categorize it as one at all. It is a collection of five essays, with assignment interludes, prefaced by an intriguing introduction in which Scholes identifies himself as having been a "boy who loved language." As a girl who loves language, or as anyone who loves language, we form an immediate bond with Scholes. We can take the criticism and the negativity that casts shadows throughout the book because we know where he's coming from. We're familiar.
In essay one, "The Rise of English in Two American Colleges," Scholes explores the history of English as a field of study at University, using Yale and Brown as his backdrop. It is a fishing expedition, and we catch the notion that the good old days when students wrote correctly "never existed."
Scholes explains that English Studies as we know it today was borne out of the study of rhetoric, oratory, and belles letters, and that these are "different beasts" than written language. He blames specialization and professionalization, Latin and Greek influence, and "doctorate and Germanic methods [beginning to] dominate instruction" for the movements in English Studies from Philology to New Criticism, and then to Theory.
At the end of the first essay, Scholes defines the "sickness" from which English Studies currently suffers as a loss of hope. He says that the engaging professors of English, who profess their love for, and can explain that love to their students, are functionally gone. They have been replaced by theorists. He even describes theories, like deconstruction, as a "more desperate and constricted attempt to keep the transcendental aura of literature alive." The way he describes this sickness is nostalgic and moving, and though he includes many long quotations from other sources, it may be a subliminal reminder of how much he "loves language."
In the second essay, "No Dog Would Go On Living Like This," Scholes explains the "fall" of English studies, building a definition of the "fall" by picking up the pieces left over from the whittling and decay of the idea of "truth" in Literature and its study. He says "We live in an academic world in which we are rewarded not so much according to how well we teach or how much we learn but by the amount we publish and the attention it attracts from others." He explores the essence of "teaching, learning, and truth," by introducing a paradox. He exposes the disparaging difference between accuracy in writing about and respect for the existing body of knowledge about literature, evidenced by the "way we teach now" and the difficulty that comes with trying to reconcile literary and cultural studies.
In his third essay, "What is Becoming an English Teacher," he describes the teacher and his profession through an educational, or academic, lens. He says that the English teacher, as a prototype, does not "constrain to an ideal" and therefore must be a "weaver" and not just a "wearer" of words when it comes to texts. The importance here is that through his discourse, he provides the catalyst for change: that as English students, professors, consumers, we must separate the study of English into two parts - the study of literature and the study of composition.
The first three essays, then, focus on what is wrong with English Studies. In the fourth essay, "A Flock of Cultures," Scholes begins to shed light on the changes he prescribes to heal the "sickness." he describes a necessary movement back to the roots of the study of English, in the "liberal arts tradition," to bring back the values on which the discipline was founded: "grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric." He says that the process is more important than the canon. He places importance on reading to develop skills, rather than reading for the sake of reading.
Finally, in his fifth essay, "A Fortunate Fall," he recommends reform to the current English field of study, in which English majors learn from professors who subscribe to a new attitude about English Studies - one that incorporates a new definition of literature that includes non-traditional texts, multi-media, and a "broad range" instead of a strict canon of "great books." This new English major, he says, should be 'based on rhetoric and… reading and writing."
As interludes, Scholes wrote four "assignments" between each of the essays, which apply the essays to autobiographical instances providing a context to his criticisms and questions. These reflective essays provide evidence of his life as a teacher, as the teacher's job is one of reflection and re-education. They also provide readers with insight, that his book is an honest critique, based on his experience and expertise, of where English Studies has been, where it is going, and where it should go.
In this book, Scholes relates a story of English - one that started out well-received and entertaining. It transformed, eventually, into a pedantic Marxist social construct in which scholars write to publish, which in turn allows them to market themselves based on the worth that such publishing accomplishments prove. In a sense, this only serves to diminish and further complicate the academic community, and this is the essence of the "fall" of English that Scholes describes. In a frenzy to become better, English has lost "truth" and meaning, and has become a "different beast."
What he actually proposes is not revolution, but the next logical step in the evolution of English Studies. He advocates a compromise in which the pedantics come down off their pedestals and reincorporate the good parts of what has been lost, making the field of English Studies more attractive, accessible, and relevant to the general public once again.
Scholes' proposal, though unrealistic as it may seem, should serve as a catalyst. Yes, this book is important, but not just to its intended audience of scholars and professors of English. No, it is important to students of English as well.
Teachers and professors may pick up this work and find a kindred spirit in it - a book through which Scholes can hold one's hand and say, "Yes, I've thought these same things, felt these same frustrations. We're in this together, you and me." It can provide inspiration for teachers, plant seeds in their minds that might grow to influence their specific students in their specific classes. In this way, Scholes might affect change, but it will take a very long time.
But it holds equal importance for English majors and students. The book focuses on how they are educated, after all. Further, if this change is going to happen quickly, it will have to happen because students demand it. The bureaucratic organization of English Departments at University will probably prevent the professors of English from starting the revolution that's necessary here, but students can provoke the change by demonstrating dissatisfaction for how they are taught to study English.
This book is a must-read for anyone who cares to discuss what was wrong with how English was taught in high school or college. This book is especially important to people who want to know what is wrong with English education, and how to go about improving it, even in small ways. This book is for educators and professors and scholars, but this book is for students and parents of students, writers, and bibliophiles, too. How can people fix something if they don't know how to define how it's broken? This book "unmuddles" that crisis, and gives us the terminology for discussing it. Scholes introduced his book by saying he was a "boy who loved language." This book is for people who, like Scholes, love language, who want a concise, clear, honest definition of what is wrong with the way we study it, and how to affect a change.