{"title":"Teaching Guide for: ‘Chaucer's gender-oriented philosophy in The Canterbury Tales’","authors":"Malek J. Zuraikat","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12758","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140297352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article seeks to account for the phenomenon where cultural productions are able to transcend different chronotopes and masquerade in myriad forms while sustaining an illusion of itself as a text. Using the Barthian distinction between work and Text as its framework, the article argues that multimodal semiotics offers a theoretically viable perspective on the global circulation of cultural artifacts by way of the concepts of memes, distribution, resemiotization, and assemblage. The central argument is this: what we call a text in common parlance is in fact a node within a networked assemblage of individually constituted works loosely connected through a substrate recognizability of memes. Operating at the level of this network is the Barthian Text that is always in-progress and can never really be completed. The article concludes by proposing that with the imminence of Web 5.0 and in light of the ever-pervasive influence of artificial intelligence in cultural production, it is imperative that we adopt nonlinear thinking to understand the shifting semioscapes in digital space and their impact on contemporary textuality.
{"title":"Illusions of textuality: The semiotics of literary memes in contemporary media","authors":"Tong King Lee","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12759","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article seeks to account for the phenomenon where cultural productions are able to transcend different chronotopes and masquerade in myriad forms while sustaining an illusion of itself as <i>a</i> text. Using the Barthian distinction between work and Text as its framework, the article argues that multimodal semiotics offers a theoretically viable perspective on the global circulation of cultural artifacts by way of the concepts of memes, distribution, resemiotization, and assemblage. The central argument is this: what we call a text in common parlance is in fact a node within a networked assemblage of individually constituted works loosely connected through a substrate recognizability of memes. Operating at the level of this network is the Barthian Text that is always in-progress and can never really be completed. The article concludes by proposing that with the imminence of Web 5.0 and in light of the ever-pervasive influence of artificial intelligence in cultural production, it is imperative that we adopt nonlinear thinking to understand the shifting semioscapes in digital space and their impact on contemporary textuality.</p>","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lic3.12759","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140291442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social network analysis that draws upon the correspondence of writers has the potential to indicate aspects of the writers' habitus, that is, the economic, social and cultural capital represented by the relations between authors, poets and dramatists, and their correspondents. Social network analysis can visualise and reveal otherwise covert aspects of the field of literary activity. In particular, it can show the flow of cultural, symbolic, social and economic capital through the literary ecosystem. The article presents an introduction to social network analysis, describes a modest case study, and identifies possible future research directions.
{"title":"Social network analysis, habitus and the field of literary activity","authors":"Li Li, John Corbett","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12757","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12757","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Social network analysis that draws upon the correspondence of writers has the potential to indicate aspects of the writers' habitus, that is, the economic, social and cultural capital represented by the relations between authors, poets and dramatists, and their correspondents. Social network analysis can visualise and reveal otherwise covert aspects of the field of literary activity. In particular, it can show the flow of cultural, symbolic, social and economic capital through the literary ecosystem. The article presents an introduction to social network analysis, describes a modest case study, and identifies possible future research directions.</p>","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lic3.12757","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140015064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Based on the question of the representability of economy and economics in audiovisual media, developments on the financial markets have often been discussed as a depiction problem. The abstractness and complexity of economic interrelations seem to defy classical modes of storytelling and dramatization. Nevertheless, public opinion about economic changes and dependencies crucially relies on audiovisual media. But how can the public communicate in images, sounds, and words about forces that are out of sight and out of reach, and can supposedly only be adequately grasped by experts? In a case study on audiovisual images of the global financial crisis (2007–), this paper tracks and analyzes a recurring motif: the staging of expert knowledge as close-ups of expressive faces vis-à-vis computer screens in television news, documentaries, as well as feature films. It draws on the use of digital tools for corpus exploration (reverse image search) and the visualization of video annotations. By relating and comparing different staging strategies by which these “broker faces” become embodiments of turbulent market dynamics, the paper proposes to not regard them as repeated instantiations of the same metaphor, but as a developing web of cinematic metaphors. Different perspectives (news of market developments or historical accounts of crisis developments) and affective stances toward the global financial crisis are expressed in these variations of the face-screen constellation. The paper thus presents a selection of different appearances of “broker faces” as a medium for an audiovisual discourse of the global financial crisis. A concluding analysis of a scene from Margin Call focuses on its specific intertwining of expert and screen as an ambivalent movement figuration of staging insight. Between the feeling of discovery (of a potential future threat) and the sense of being haunted (by a menacing force), the film stages the emergence of a “broker face” in an atmospheric tension between suspense and melancholy. We argue that the film thereby reframes the motif and poses questions of agency, temporality, and expert knowledge.
{"title":"Can't read my broker face?—Tracing a motif and metaphor of expert knowledge through audiovisual images of the financial crisis","authors":"Thomas Scherer, Jasper Stratil","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12756","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Based on the question of the representability of economy and economics in audiovisual media, developments on the financial markets have often been discussed as a depiction problem. The abstractness and complexity of economic interrelations seem to defy classical modes of storytelling and dramatization. Nevertheless, public opinion about economic changes and dependencies crucially relies on audiovisual media. But how can the public communicate in images, sounds, and words about forces that are out of sight and out of reach, and can supposedly only be adequately grasped by experts? In a case study on audiovisual images of the global financial crisis (2007–), this paper tracks and analyzes a recurring motif: the staging of expert knowledge as close-ups of expressive faces vis-à-vis computer screens in television news, documentaries, as well as feature films. It draws on the use of digital tools for corpus exploration (reverse image search) and the visualization of video annotations. By relating and comparing different staging strategies by which these “broker faces” become embodiments of turbulent market dynamics, the paper proposes to not regard them as repeated instantiations of the same metaphor, but as a developing web of cinematic metaphors. Different perspectives (news of market developments or historical accounts of crisis developments) and affective stances toward the global financial crisis are expressed in these variations of the face-screen constellation. The paper thus presents a selection of different appearances of “broker faces” as a medium for an audiovisual discourse of the global financial crisis. A concluding analysis of a scene from <i>Margin Call</i> focuses on its specific intertwining of expert and screen as an ambivalent movement figuration of staging insight. Between the feeling of discovery (of a potential future threat) and the sense of being haunted (by a menacing force), the film stages the emergence of a “broker face” in an atmospheric tension between suspense and melancholy. We argue that the film thereby reframes the motif and poses questions of agency, temporality, and expert knowledge.</p>","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lic3.12756","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139676566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines David Lodge's novel Deaf Sentence (2008), which focuses on the life of Desmond, a retired professor of linguistics. I argue that this text offers a standpoint through which readers can visualise the global phenomenon of population ageing and address the question of global responsibility. I look at Deaf Sentence within the tradition of the Bakhtinian polyphonic novel and through the lens of the campus novel that Lodge discusses in his critical writing. The analysis of dialogism and self-reflexivity illuminates the reverberations of global ageing on the life of Desmond, situating questions of wellbeing and demography within a narrative perspective. Detailing their struggles with isolation, incontinence and erectile dysfunction, the narration of Desmond and his father growing older sheds light on the limitations of biomedical scripts for older men based on bodily control and sexual performativity. Considering the tension of biomedical discourses and gender expectations informing the cultural construction of ageing in the global North, I contend that Lodge's writing exposes the limits of the neoliberal ideals of self-sufficiency and individual responsibility at the heart of the notion of successful ageing. Echoing Desmond's self-reflection, Deaf Sentence offers its reader a standpoint through which to reflect on his problematic participation in the neoliberal, patriarchal regimes that marginalise him. Interpreting the novel as a space for deconstructing the ideal of an autonomous and independent subject postulated by neoliberal discourses, I read Deaf Sentence as an invitation to its readers to embrace their own vulnerability, fostering ethics of care towards themselves and the other.
{"title":"A novel for an ageing population? Masculinity and demographic shift in David Lodge's Deaf Sentence (2008)","authors":"Stefano Rossoni","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12755","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines David Lodge's novel <i>Deaf Sentence</i> (2008), which focuses on the life of Desmond, a retired professor of linguistics. I argue that this text offers a standpoint through which readers can visualise the global phenomenon of population ageing and address the question of global responsibility. I look at <i>Deaf Sentence</i> within the tradition of the Bakhtinian polyphonic novel and through the lens of the campus novel that Lodge discusses in his critical writing. The analysis of dialogism and self-reflexivity illuminates the reverberations of global ageing on the life of Desmond, situating questions of wellbeing and demography within a narrative perspective. Detailing their struggles with isolation, incontinence and erectile dysfunction, the narration of Desmond and his father growing older sheds light on the limitations of biomedical scripts for older men based on bodily control and sexual performativity. Considering the tension of biomedical discourses and gender expectations informing the cultural construction of ageing in the global North, I contend that Lodge's writing exposes the limits of the neoliberal ideals of self-sufficiency and individual responsibility at the heart of the notion of successful ageing. Echoing Desmond's self-reflection, <i>Deaf Sentence</i> offers its reader a standpoint through which to reflect on his problematic participation in the neoliberal, patriarchal regimes that marginalise him. Interpreting the novel as a space for deconstructing the ideal of an autonomous and independent subject postulated by neoliberal discourses, I read <i>Deaf Sentence</i> as an invitation to its readers to embrace their own vulnerability, fostering ethics of care towards themselves and the other.","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139052256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay argues that English departments in India have had two advantages that their counterparts in the west lack. First, the ability to speak and write correctly in English is understood as a social and professional resource and this prompts large numbers of college students to opt for an English major. Second, English literature has unfolded, historically among several highly developed literatures in our regional languages and this, in conjuction with post‐colonial theory, has opened up vast new fields of research for English professors in India. Improved salaries and research facilities after the mid‐eighties began attracting excellent faculty to our best English departments and, by the end of the twentieth century, some of these were poised to compete with the best departments of the world. Despite this, Indian universities are perenially plagued by political interference and corruption and this has made it impossible for several excellent departments and indeed entire universities to sustain excellence.
{"title":"English studies in India: Its past and its future","authors":"Sambudha Sen","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12753","url":null,"abstract":"This essay argues that English departments in India have had two advantages that their counterparts in the west lack. First, the ability to speak and write correctly in English is understood as a social and professional resource and this prompts large numbers of college students to opt for an English major. Second, English literature has unfolded, historically among several highly developed literatures in our regional languages and this, in conjuction with post‐colonial theory, has opened up vast new fields of research for English professors in India. Improved salaries and research facilities after the mid‐eighties began attracting excellent faculty to our best English departments and, by the end of the twentieth century, some of these were poised to compete with the best departments of the world. Despite this, Indian universities are perenially plagued by political interference and corruption and this has made it impossible for several excellent departments and indeed entire universities to sustain excellence.","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138947761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Will students raised on social media still read English literature? What is the role of English/American literature in the PRC, India, Australasia, the USA? What is the role of English language in relation to other global and local languages? What is the role of decolonising efforts? How do our respective state apparatuses affect language and literature teaching? Part I ‘International Perspectives on English Language and Literature’ summarises the global spread of English since the eighteenth century and outlines the concerns of the special issue: the global futures of English language and literature in information society in Africa, Australia, India, the PRC, Europe and the UK, and the USA; the role of decolonising efforts; and the role of our respective state apparatuses in higher education policy. Part II, ‘English Studies in Britain Today’, discusses the findings of the recent (June 2023) British Academy report English Studies Provision in UK Higher Education, including the decline in literary studies among students and the rise of Creative Writing in part in response to political‐economic rhetoric. Part III, ‘Global and World Englishes’, returns to global and transnational practices beyond Britain and Europe to argue for more inclusive, decolonising practices around world literatures. We might take the lived histories of global and world Englishes to transcend both romantic revolutionary and far‐right exclusionary nationalisms in literary and language studies in favour of more cosmopolitan, multilingual, and convivial approaches.
{"title":"The Futures of English: Introduction from the UK","authors":"R. Gagnier","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12752","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12752","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000\u0000Will students raised on social media still read English literature?\u0000What is the role of English/American literature in the PRC, India, Australasia, the USA?\u0000What is the role of English language in relation to other global and local languages?\u0000What is the role of decolonising efforts?\u0000How do our respective state apparatuses affect language and literature teaching?\u0000Part I ‘International Perspectives on English Language and Literature’ summarises the global spread of English since the eighteenth century and outlines the concerns of the special issue: the global futures of English language and literature in information society in Africa, Australia, India, the PRC, Europe and the UK, and the USA; the role of decolonising efforts; and the role of our respective state apparatuses in higher education policy. Part II, ‘English Studies in Britain Today’, discusses the findings of the recent (June 2023) British Academy report English Studies Provision in UK Higher Education, including the decline in literary studies among students and the rise of Creative Writing in part in response to political‐economic rhetoric. Part III, ‘Global and World Englishes’, returns to global and transnational practices beyond Britain and Europe to argue for more inclusive, decolonising practices around world literatures. We might take the lived histories of global and world Englishes to transcend both romantic revolutionary and far‐right exclusionary nationalisms in literary and language studies in favour of more cosmopolitan, multilingual, and convivial approaches.","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138994510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article mounts an initial exploratory engagement with the weird fiction of Henry S. Whitehead, framed by American imperial expansion into the Caribbean in the interwar years. It situates Whitehead and his work within the wider historical context and shows how Whitehead himself used and played with history as part of his fiction. The article considers the role of light in Whitehead's fiction and imperial projects, as well as the way that Whitehead's work, as horror fiction, both shapes and seeks to dispel notions of the Caribbean as a space of horror. As well as offering some initial conclusions, the article seeks to open further lines for future investigation.
本文对亨利·s·怀特黑德(Henry S. Whitehead)的怪诞小说进行了初步探索,这些小说是在两次世界大战期间美国帝国主义向加勒比海扩张的背景下创作的。它将怀特黑德和他的作品置于更广阔的历史背景中,并展示了怀特黑德本人如何将历史作为其小说的一部分。这篇文章考虑了光在怀特黑德的小说和帝国计划中的作用,以及怀特黑德的作品,作为恐怖小说,塑造并试图消除加勒比海作为恐怖空间的概念的方式。除了提供一些初步结论外,这篇文章还试图为未来的调查开辟进一步的思路。
{"title":"‘Delicate ironies quite imperceptible on its surface’: Henry S. Whitehead's weird tales and American empire in the Caribbean","authors":"Michael Goodrum","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12751","DOIUrl":"10.1111/lic3.12751","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article mounts an initial exploratory engagement with the weird fiction of Henry S. Whitehead, framed by American imperial expansion into the Caribbean in the interwar years. It situates Whitehead and his work within the wider historical context and shows how Whitehead himself used and played with history as part of his fiction. The article considers the role of light in Whitehead's fiction and imperial projects, as well as the way that Whitehead's work, as horror fiction, both shapes and seeks to dispel notions of the Caribbean as a space of horror. As well as offering some initial conclusions, the article seeks to open further lines for future investigation.</p>","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/lic3.12751","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138526757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This introductory essay offers a theoretical framework for discussing the relationship between contemporary literature and global responsibility. After surveying recent conceptualisations of collective responsibility, the introduction presents the definition of global responsibility that frames the Special Issue. ‘Global’ is understood here in the double sense of worldwide and comprehensive: it draws attention to our global relations of interdependence and to the complex networks of actions and inactions that create the conditions of possibility for structural violence and injustice. Literature is a powerful tool for thinking about the challenges and questions that characterise our interconnected world, as well as for developing a sense of responsibility that transcends national and cultural boundaries. Having reflected on the ethico‐political role and potential of literature, this introduction summarises the articles that constitute this Special Issue. While the five essays that follow cannot possibly address all the problems that affect our globalised world, they offer a set of concepts, narrative explorations, and hermeneutical readings that help us to reassess critically our compromised positions, thus creating the pre‐conditions for transformative interventions.
{"title":"Literature and global responsibility: Narratives, questions, and challenges","authors":"Stefano Bellin","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12750","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12750","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This introductory essay offers a theoretical framework for discussing the relationship between contemporary literature and global responsibility. After surveying recent conceptualisations of collective responsibility, the introduction presents the definition of global responsibility that frames the Special Issue. ‘Global’ is understood here in the double sense of worldwide and comprehensive: it draws attention to our global relations of interdependence and to the complex networks of actions and inactions that create the conditions of possibility for structural violence and injustice. Literature is a powerful tool for thinking about the challenges and questions that characterise our interconnected world, as well as for developing a sense of responsibility that transcends national and cultural boundaries. Having reflected on the ethico‐political role and potential of literature, this introduction summarises the articles that constitute this Special Issue. While the five essays that follow cannot possibly address all the problems that affect our globalised world, they offer a set of concepts, narrative explorations, and hermeneutical readings that help us to reassess critically our compromised positions, thus creating the pre‐conditions for transformative interventions.","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135137718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In the United States, student eagerness to pursue concentrated study in English literature as well as in other humanities fields has plummeted after the financial crisis of 2008. Envisioned strong career demand and high wages upon graduation are major drivers of program choices, and such demand is articulated through wealthy industries that can also offer funding to universities. That said, it becomes self‐fulfilling to contribute to the cliché of the humanities perpetually being in crisis, which occurs when humanities specialists begin valuing their own fields by the measures celebrated by other programs. Is it possible to take the current situation and leverage our strengths toward constructive innovations in English studies that remain true to our own values? To address this question, we first summarize three key ways in which the situation in the United States is distinct from, yet connected to, that of most other countries: extensive decentralization of education policy and funding; high student debt; and opposition to education in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the humanities in general. After reflecting on the opportunities for greater global connection posed by the pandemic‐driven shift to online learning, we discuss some of our own efforts to build a sense of local and international responsibility in our students. The skills, knowledge, and openness to other cultures and identities that we nurture through the literature we teach and the socially invested pedagogy we practice allow us to incorporate ethics and empathy into the design of international economics and to help ensure that a sense of local and global responsibility is part of its operation.
{"title":"The “practical mode of teaching” and the state of English studies in the United States","authors":"Dennis Denisoff, Laura M. Stevens","doi":"10.1111/lic3.12748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12748","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the United States, student eagerness to pursue concentrated study in English literature as well as in other humanities fields has plummeted after the financial crisis of 2008. Envisioned strong career demand and high wages upon graduation are major drivers of program choices, and such demand is articulated through wealthy industries that can also offer funding to universities. That said, it becomes self‐fulfilling to contribute to the cliché of the humanities perpetually being in crisis, which occurs when humanities specialists begin valuing their own fields by the measures celebrated by other programs. Is it possible to take the current situation and leverage our strengths toward constructive innovations in English studies that remain true to our own values? To address this question, we first summarize three key ways in which the situation in the United States is distinct from, yet connected to, that of most other countries: extensive decentralization of education policy and funding; high student debt; and opposition to education in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the humanities in general. After reflecting on the opportunities for greater global connection posed by the pandemic‐driven shift to online learning, we discuss some of our own efforts to build a sense of local and international responsibility in our students. The skills, knowledge, and openness to other cultures and identities that we nurture through the literature we teach and the socially invested pedagogy we practice allow us to incorporate ethics and empathy into the design of international economics and to help ensure that a sense of local and global responsibility is part of its operation.","PeriodicalId":45243,"journal":{"name":"Literature Compass","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135928761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}