FYI - Our Accepted Proposal

Rehabilitating Scholarly Ethos: Theory and Practice In Hard Times

Since Bill Readings’ landmark _The University in Ruins_ (1996), a new area of academic inquiry has flourished, which Thomas Rickert recently termed "university studies” (293). Scholarship about the declining state of the university might be characterized, albeit sardonically, as a growth sector within an otherwise faltering enterprise. However, as Derek Bok points out, the majority of this scholarship comes from humanities disciplines that are “most widely accused of having lost their intellectual moorings” (_Universities in the Marketplace_ 5). For example Stanley Fish's 2008 screed about the effects of humanities study: “‘of what use are the humanities?’”, he asks and retorts, "the only honest answer is none whatsoever” (“Save Us”). Fish’s intentionally provocative point is that “the humanities are their own good" and do not necessarily correlate with positive effects measurable to the general public. In other words, one may (or may not) become a better thinker, writer, or person after sustained humanistic study, but these effects cannot be traced directly to the study of literature and may be achieved by any number of other activities.

Whether or not one agrees with Fish, it’s hard to deny that the humanities are steadily changing and losing support. Consider the following: Stephen Greenblatt’s well-known 2002 presidential letter to MLA members began a series of still-relevant discussions on the publishing crisis. The 2007 _Report of the MLA Task Force_ states that 66 percent of English and modern language PhDs are not awarded tenure in their initial appointments. The MLA also reports that as of 2008, nontenured faculty staff approximately seventy percent of all course sections in English (“Education in the Balance”). Furthermore, the 2004 _Digest of Education Statistics_ reports that since 1970 the number of English majors has dropped by more than half, while college enrollments increased by 101 percent (_Fast Facts_).

Given such conditions, it is understandable that a crisis mentality pervades within our scholarly ethos, such that Catherine Porter made issues of employment the center point of her MLA Presidential administration last year, and books and articles on the subject continue to proliferate. Indeed, university studies, so-called, has made our crisis the *subject* of much scholarly attention, as if it were a text or an author; however, it has not yet become a *catalyst* for changing our work and standards for measuring intellectual achievement. For this, the panelists take crisis as a point of departure for new conversations and new types of humanities work. In other words, said crises are not just the obvious negative effects of past changes, but also the causes of potential positive future developments.

In “A PhD is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Scholarship off the Tenure Track,” Peter H. Khost notes that while English and modern language programs graduate PhDs at a constant rate, the number of tenure-track positions continues to decline, creating a backlog of credentialed contingent appointees. Responses to this crisis from various professional organizations (e.g., AAUP, MLA, New Faculty Majority) focus on employment issues such as tenure, salary, and benefits; and individual scholars (e.g., Bérubé, Bousquet, Nelson) focus on exposing the problem and organizing faculty. Notably lacking in the literature on the jobs crisis are inquiries into the strong suit of the PhDs in jeopardy: their scholarship. After all, a PhD is still a research credential above all and regardless of one's tenure status. So although scholarship will likely adapt in the era of contingency, it isn’t going to disappear. Professor Khost discusses new directions in and reasons for scholarship by off-track PhDs, contending that if motivation exists to research and publish other than earning tenure or promotion, then contingents may want to better understand what to do in this way and how. Collaboration, emerging technologies, going public, and other non-traditional avenues in scholarship are considered.

In “The End of End Studies In Humanistic Writing,” Frank Gaughan suggests “university studies” might more accurately be termed “end studies.” By this term, he refers to scholarly projects–such as this panel–that take perceived crises in the academy (publishing, tenure, relevancy) as their subject. Such projects reflect on the end (or the purpose) of work in the academy, generally, or of a discipline such as English or composition, particularly. In doing so, these projects often suggest that the academy itself or a discipline or a practice within it are at an end. Robert Scholes' 1999 _The Rise and Fall of English_, for instance, does for English what Readings does for the entire university. Likewise, David Smit’s 2004 _The End of Composition Studies_ takes arguments about the so-called abolition of first-year writing to their logical extreme. Professor Gaughan conducts a meta-analysis of key end studies texts in order to identify critical aims and areas of overlap. If there is no end to end studies, the practice risks degenerating to self-defeating narcissism. If there is to be a practical end, reflection and analysis must segue to praxis.

In “‘But I Told the Tenure Committee I Was Creating a New Discourse!’: How Current Scholarship Standards Fail New Academics,” David Hyman argues that the rhetoric of postmodernism masks a regressive approach towards practice: while advocating new discursive approaches, it does so by way of dismissing teaching and scholarship as unworthy of “serious” attention. However, since academics are all required to do this work anyway, the result is not a new practice that lives up to the anti-foundational promise of theory, but an atavistic adherence to the most established conventions, perhaps especially the kind of hyper-specialization and esotericism that has led to the bifurcation of English department faculties into so-called "stars" and contingents. Thus, the paradox of the most radical ideologies clothed in the most conservative formal methodologies of teaching and research. Taking Richard Ohmann’s influential 1976 _English in America_ as a starting point, professor Hyman argues that the “academic humanities” ought to be more useful to “humanity.” In fact, standards for publication and tenure tend to reinforce this unfortunate divide. He argues for revised definitions of “radical” and “radical discourse,” definitions that engage rather than alienate broader publics.