Pub: RECEPTION: TEXTS, READERS, AUDIENCES, HISTORY 2 (2010).

1. “Rhetoric, Ethics, Aesthetics, and Probability in Fiction and Nonfiction: Pride and Prejudice and The Year of Magical Thinking,” by James Phelan p. 1
2. “John Milton, Englishman: “Of the Devil’s Party” per the Spanish Inquisition,” by Angelica Duran p. 22
3. "Devouring Uncle Tom's Cabin: Black Readers Between "Plessy vs. Ferguson" and "Brown vs. Board of Education," by Barbara Hochman p. 48
4. “Gandhi vs. Mishima: the Politics of Critical Reception,” by John Howard Wilson p. 94

5. “Reflections on the Interplay of Race, Whiteness and Canadian Identity in a Film Studies Classroom,” by Lee Easton and Kelly Hewson p. 116
 
Download the essays here: http://www.english.udel.edu/rsssite/toc2010.html.

Bauerlein, Mark. "Diminishing Returns in Humanities Research." CHRONICLE REVIEW July 20, 2009.

In a working paper I wrote recently for the American Enterprise Institute, "Professors on the Production Line, Students on Their Own," I reported that over the past five decades, the "productivity" of scholars in the fields of languages and literature had increased hugely: from approximately 13,000 publications to 72,000 a year. Consider the output in literary studies. From 1950 to 1985, 2,195 items of criticism and scholarship devoted to William Wordsworth appeared. Virginia Woolf garnered 1,307, Walt Whitman 1,986, Faulkner 3,487, Milton 4,274, and Shakespeare at the top, with 16,771. Type any major author into the MLA International Bibliography database and more daunting tallies pop up. In each pile lies everything from plot summaries to existentialist reflections. But for all practical purposes, such as teaching an undergraduate class, they impart the meanings and representations to the full. The accomplishment of the enterprise, however, was a curse for young aspirants, the graduate student in search of a dissertation (like I was in 1985) and the assistant professor in need of a book. They had to write something new and different. Theories and valuations that displaced the meaning of the work and prized the unique angle of the interpreter didn't just flatter the field. They empowered novices to carry on. The long shadow of precursors dissipated in the light of creative, personal critique. The authors studied might remain, but there were new theories to rehearse upon them and topics to expound through them, controversies in which to "situate" oneself, and readerly dexterities to display. It was liberating and enabling, as subsequent outputs show. From 1986 to 2008, Wordsworth collected 2,257 books, chapters, dissertations, etc. Faulkner came in at 2,781, Milton at 3,294, Whitman at 1,509, Woolf at 3,217, and Shakespeare at 18,799. The model worked—astoundingly so. Degrees, grants, jobs, tenure, and raises rested on those publications, and if older criticism answered questions about the meaning of Paradise Lost, well, other questions had to be found. Something happened, though, in the process. As striving junior scholars and established seniors staged one reading after another, as advanced theories were applied and hot topics attached, the performances stacked up year by year —and seemed to matter less and less. Look at the sales figures for monographs. Back in 1995, the director of the Pennsylvania State University Press, Sanford G. Thatcher, asked who reads those books and revealed in The Chronicle, "Our sales figures for works of literary criticism suggest that the answer is, fewer people than ever before." Sixty-five percent of Penn State's recent offerings at that point sold fewer than 500 copies. A few years later, also in The Chronicle, Lindsay Waters, an executive editor at Harvard University Press, said his humanities monographs "usually sell between 275 and 600 copies." In 2002 the Modern Language Association issued a report on scholarly publishing that cited editors estimating purchases of as low as 200 to 300 units. Remember, too, that standing library orders account for around 250 copies. (That's my guess—also, a few librarians have told me that the odds that such books will never be checked out are pretty good.) Why the disjuncture? Because performance ran its course, and now it's over. The audience got bored. For decades the performative model obscured a situation that should have been recognized at the time: Vast areas of the humanities had reached a saturation point. Hundreds of literary works have undergone introduction, summation, and analysis many times over. Hamlet alone received 1,824 items of attention from 1950 to 1985, and then 2,406 from 1986 to 2008. What else was to be said? Defenders of the endeavor may claim that innovations in literary studies like ecocriticism and trauma theory have compelled reinterpretations of works, but while the advent of, say, queer theory opened the works to new insights, such developments don't come close to justifying the degree of productivity that followed. Also, the rapid succession of theories, the Next Big Thing, and the Next … evoked the weary impression that it was all a professional game, a means of finding something more to say. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/Diminishing-Returns-in/47107/.

O'Connor, David K. Review of Richard Deming's LISTENING ON ALL SIDES. NDPR (June 2009).

Deming, Richard. Listening on All Sides: Toward an Emersonian Ethics of Reading. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2008. Richard Deming's main project is to use the responsive openness called for in interpreting a text as a model for the ethical demands of human relationships. His secondary aim is to show that European literary theory and classical American literature are not strangers to each other, and in fact take up many of the same hopes and anxieties. The breadth and generosity of Deming's intellectual engagements are evident everywhere, and they account for the book's clear success in its secondary aim, as well as what I think are its interesting failures in its primary task. The author has done what his title asks, and listened on all sides, but his ethics is too undemanding to live up to Emerson's challenge. The "sociality" of language, writes Deming, "brings up close the issue of ethics" (14). In a way, it is no surprise that Ralph Waldo Emerson figures prominently in such a project. "I do then with my friends as I do with my books," Emerson said, and he meant it. For Emerson, reading and writing are the paradigm of all human life, and Deming does Emerson no violence in looking to him for an "ethics of reading," that is, to find guidance in our practices of attentive reading for how to treat people. Drawing the link between hermeneutics and ethics, however, may sound like rather a "continental" project, deriving as it does from early German Romantics such as the Schlegels and Schleiermacher, and having been given a major impetus by Gadamer (who quite surprisingly is never mentioned in the book). Indeed, Deming's theoretical orientation is much influenced by more recent heirs of this tradition: by Deleuze's Nietzsche readings, by Derrida, by The Literary Absolute of Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy, by Charles Altieri's critical work on modernism and its aftermaths. The Heideggerian gesture of the book's subtitle is also not out of place. However, after the introductory theoretical chapter, Deming focuses on classics of American literature to pursue his theme, devoting a chapter essay each to Emerson, Herman Melville, and the pair Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman all make more than cameo appearances. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16446.

Kirschner, Ann. "Reading Dickens Four Ways." CHRONICLE June 12, 2009.

Hardcover or paperback? Until recently those were our reading options. As with everything else, whether it's ice cream or television, things are much more complicated now. We are way beyond vanilla and chocolate, way beyond the corner bookstore and neighborhood library and into a multiplicity of forms and platforms and technologies and interfaces that could be dispiriting if you are inclined to worry about the death of the book. Do I love books or do I love reading? When my book group picked Little Dorrit, I found myself asking that question. Good old paid-by-the-word Dickens: I figured that it would take me months to finish nearly 1,000 pages. My reading would take place on the New York City subway, in cars and planes, on business trips and vacation, and (my all-time favorite) in bed at the end of the day. I went automatically to my old Penguin paperback, standing ready on the shelf. Never mind its familiar and friendly orange spine — I hesitated. Maybe it would make sense to read the book on the Kindle that my husband bought me last year. Then again, for my daily Manhattan life, I love audiobooks, the best choice for crowded public transportation and a wonderful companion for walking. And now that I use an iPhone, I have been surprised by the ease of reading its crisp, bright screen. I decided to read Little Dorrit four ways: paperback, audiobook, Kindle, and iPhone. It was often maddening to keep finding and losing my place as I switched from format to format. But as an experiment, it taught me a great deal about my reading habits, and about how a text reveals itself differently as the reading context changes. Along the way, I also began to make some predictions about winners and losers in the evolution of books. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i39/39b01601.htm.

Cfp: IGEL 2010, International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media, Utrecht University, July 7-11, 2010.

Debate about the relevance of both the Social Sciences and the Humanities is getting more pragmatic and businesslike. The Dutch Government, for instance, stresses that these Faculties should focus on making their research more useful and work on making research findings available to society (AWT, 2007). In the United Kingdom we hear similar voices calling for valorization. In its response, the British Academy has warned against evaluating Humanities and the Social Sciences purely on the basis of direct and economic profit. But there is much deliberation about how to define the desired (direct or indirect) impact of alpha and gamma research. A number of scholars reflect on what the social purposes of university research and training should be; some wonder what kind of edification the Humanities provide, and speculate on what graduates of for instance literature might contribute to society (e.g., Nussbaum 1997, Paulson 2001). However, few of the claims are supported by empirical research. IGEL’s unique combination of members from the Humanities (e.g., literary studies, media studies) and the Social Sciences (e.g., sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists) makes it an excellent forum for exchange and cooperation to make our research socially useful. Some use it to work together on testing hypotheses formulated by literary theorists. Others explore the relevance of laboratory studies for complex stimuli like movies and literary texts. Still others study behavior within social institutes in order to inform other disciplines like literary history. Most of these studies have a valorization potential, some more implicit than others. During the 2004 IGEL conference in Edmonton, Sybil Moser made this issue focal point of a discussion in a session about the relevance of empirical research of literature and media to society at large. The 2010 conference follows up on that discussion, inviting keynote speakers and other participants to reflect on the practical implications of their findings, the potential of IGEL research in terms of what it could mean to people working in education, government, and NGO’s. Many of the conference contributions will pertain to studies that are socially relevant. Speakers will reflect on how to make results usable for organizations and individuals outside academia. The sessions and symposia will contribute to a better understanding of the potential functions of literature and media in society, what it means to the lives of individuals, how our research could help to enhance literacy and literary participation, how it might contribute to the conservation of cultural heritage, the accessibility and distribution of ideas, what our research could mean to literary education or to the understanding of learning and persuasion processes. IGEL invites you to send in suggestions for conference papers, symposia, and posters on the following topics and related fields: Literary reading processes (emotion, cognition, personality, etc.); The social role of literature and related media (e.g. film, theatre, Internet, multimedia, virtual reality); Literature and media from an evolutionary perspective; Early literary / media socialization; Pedagogical and educational aspect of literature and the media; The processes of literary/media production, distribution and reception; The role of literary and other cultural institutions: past, present and future; The empirical study of historical reception and historical readers; Historical reception studies; Digital methods of research on literature and the media (corpus studies, hypertext models, etc.). Visit the conference homepage here: http://www2.hum.uu.nl/congres/igel/papers.html.

Henderson, John. "Review of Lorna Hardwick, et al. BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CLASSICAL RECEPTIONS." BMCR (August 2008).

Hardwick, Lorna, and Christopher Stray, eds. Blackwell Companion to Classical Receptions. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.

Contents: Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray. 'Introduction: Making Connections': 1-9 Ch. 1. Felix Budelmann and Johannes Haubold, 'Reception and Tradition': 13-25 Ch. 2. Barbara Graziosi, 'The Ancient Reception of Homer': 26-37 Ch. 3. Chris Emlyn-Jones, 'Poets on Socrates' Stage: Plato's Reception of Dramatic Art': 38-49 Ch. 4. Thomas Harrison, '"Respectable in its ruins": Achaemenid Persia, Ancient and Modern': 50-61 Ch. 5. Ruth Webb, 'Basil of Caesarea and Greek Tragedy': 62-71 Ch. 6. Seth L. Schein, '"Our Debt to Greece and Rome": Canons, Class and Ideology': 75-85 Ch. 7. David W. Bebbington, 'Gladstone on the Classics': 86-97 Ch. 8. Emily Greenwood, 'Between Colonialism and Independence: Eric Williams and the Uses of Classics in Trinidad in the 1950s and 1960s': 98-112 Ch. 9. Stephen Harrison, 'Virgilian Contexts': 113-26 Ch. 10. David Hopkins, 'Colonization, Closure or Creative Dialogue?: The Case of Pope's Iliad ': 129-40 Ch. 11. Ahmed Etman, 'Translation at the Intersection of Traditions: The Arab Reception of the Classics': 141-52 Ch. 12. J. Michael Walton, '"Enough Give in It": Translating the Classical Play': 153-67 Ch. 13. James Robson, 'Lost in Translation? The Problem of (Aristophanic) Humour': 168-82 Ch. 14. Cashman Kerr Prince, '"Making It New": André Gide's Rewriting of Myth': 185-94 Ch. 15. Vanda Zajko, '"What Difference Was Made?": Feminist Models of Reception': 195-206 Ch. 16. Miriam Leonard, 'History and Theory: Moses and Monotheism and the Historiography of the Repressed': 207-18 Ch. 17. Pantelis Michelakis, 'Performance Reception: Canonization and Periodization': 219-28 Ch. 18. Michael Ewans, 'Iphigénie en Tauride and Elektra: "Apolline" and "Dionysiac" Receptions of Greek Tragedy into Opera': 231-26 Ch. 19. Fiona Macintosh, 'Performance Histories': 247-58 Ch. 20. Angeliki Varakis, '"Body and Mask" in Performances of Classical Drama on the Modern Stage': 259-73 Ch. 21. Freddy Decreus, 'The Nomadic Theatre of the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio: A Case of Postdramatic Reworking of the Classical Tragedy': 274-86 Ch. 22. Nurit Yaari, 'Aristophanes between Israelis and Palestinians': 287-300 Ch. 23. Joanna Paul, 'Working with Film: Theories and Methodologies': 303-14 Ch. 24. Hanna M. Roisman, 'The Odyssey from Homer to NBC: The Cyclops and the Gods': 315-26 Ch. 25. Marianne McDonald, 'A New Hope: Film as a Teaching Tool for the Classics': 327-41 Ch. 26. Catharine Edwards, 'Possessing Rome: The Politics of Ruins in Roma capitale': 345-59 Ch. 27. Gonda van Steen, '"You unleash the tempest of tragedy": The 1903 Athenian Production of Aeschylus' Oresteia': 360-72 Ch. 28. Betine van Zyl Smit, 'Multicultural Reception: Greek Drama in South Africa in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first centuries': 373-85 Ch. 29. Edith Hall, 'Putting the Class into Classical Reception': 386-97 Ch. 30. Gregson Davis, 'Reframing the Homeric: Images of the Odyssey in the Art of Derek Walcott and Romare Bearden': 401-14 Ch. 31. Sarah Annes Brown, '"Plato's Stepchildren": SF and the Classics': 415-27 Ch. 32. Rosalind Hursthouse, 'Aristotle's Ethics, Old and New': 428-39 Ch. 33. Bryan E. Burns, 'Classicizing Bodies in the Male Photographic Tradition': 440-51 Ch. 34. Elizabeth Vandiver, 'Homer in British World War One Poetry': 452-65 Ch. 35. James I. Porter, 'Reception Studies: Future Prospects': 469-81

Read the review here: http://www.bmcreview.org/2008/08/20080838.html.

Mulligan, Bret, et al. "Review of J. H. D. Scourfield, ed. TEXTS AND CULTURE IN LATE ANTIQUITY." BMCR (August 2008).

Scourfield, J. H. D., ed. Texts and Culture in Late Antiquity: Inheritance, Authority, and Change. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2007.

This is an ambitious collection that merits consideration not only by scholars who specialize in the diverse authors and topics discussed therein, but also by those interested in reception and late antique intellectual culture generally. Introducing the volume, its adept editor J. H. D. Scourfield laments that the "balkanization" of the study of the intellectual culture in late Antiquity has led to an academic climate in which "classical/classicizing, philosophical, and patristic literature may pay each other visits, but still inhabit essentially different territory" (vii). This collection, then, represents an attempt to encourage a move away from this scholarly fragmentation towards "a view of the textual world of late Antiquity which sees it as a single land" (vii). Uniting these sundry essays--which span geography, grammarians, classicizing occasional poetry, Christian cento and paraphrase literature, Neoplatonism, Christian views of the classical tradition, and monasticism--is a common engagement with "texts of special authority", in particular Homer, Virgil, Plato, and the Bible (vii). The topical and methodological diversity typical of an edited volume thus becomes one of the advantages of this collection, which, if not panoptic, nevertheless illustrates the impressive range of reception opportunities available to writers in late Antiquity and provides a sample of the approaches scholars are taking to the field. . . .

Read the rest here: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2008/2008-08-17.html.

CFP: "Reading After Empire: Local, Global and Diaspora Audiences," Devolving Diasporas Research Project, Stirling University, September 3-5, 2008.

How should we read colonial and postcolonial texts? Is reading an act of resistance, or the domestication of difference? Does postcolonial studies posit an 'ideal reader'? What (if anything) are the differences between local, national and transnational audiences? How can we ever adequately interpret the imperial archive? This conference focuses on the neglected but central role of reading in colonial, postcolonial and diasporic contexts. It uses reading in its broadest sense (e.g. as reception, viewing, consumption,translation) to raise questions about the politics, and the pleasures, of interpretation. We are interested in both empirical and theoretical accounts of readers and audiences across a range of genres (e.g. literary, cinematic, televisual, internet-based) and contexts (e.g. libraries, living rooms, cinemas, book groups, chat rooms). Titles and abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent electronically, along with a 50-word biography, by March 31st 2008 to Bethan Benwell (b.m.benwell@stir.ac.uk). Suggested topics might include: contrapuntal reading; imagined and interpretive communities; catachresis; the postcolonial exotic; literacy; reception as a situated activity; colonial libraries; postcolonial history of thebook; nationalism and hermeneutics; readers within fiction and film; reading and ethics. Conference details, including Registration Forms, will follow shortly at: www.devolvingdiasporas.com/conferences.htm.