Do Literary Studies Have an Ideology?

PMLA ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Crews
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Habits Of Mind ◽  
Ideological Bias ◽  
The Social ◽  
Advanced Capitalism ◽  
Ideological Dimension

Unlike their counterparts in socialist countries, American literary scholars and critics are generally unaware of an ideological dimension to their work. This very unawareness, however, is suited to the requirements of advanced capitalism. While our literary studies rarely exhibit the patent ideological bias to be found in the social sciences, they are dominated by ideologically congenial habits of mind. The scholarly ideal of shedding prejudice would seem to be well served by a critique of those habits, which often yield implausible or trifling conclusions.

scholarly journals Literary Anthropology

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Máiréad Nic Craith ◽  
Laurent Sebastian Fournier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Performances ◽  
Textual Strategies

This special issue on anthropology and literature invited proposals for original contributions focusing on relationships between anthropology and literature. We were especially interested in the following questions: what role does literature play in anthropology? Can literature be considered as ethnography? What are the relationships between anthropology and literature, past and present? Are anthropology and anthropological motives used in literature? We also looked for critical readings of writers as anthropologists and critical readings of anthropologists as writers. Moreover, we wanted to assess the influence of literature on the invention of traditions, rituals and cultural performances. All these different questions and topics are clearly connected with the study of literacy, illiteracy and popular culture. They also lead to questions regarding potential textual strategies for ethnography and the possibilities of bringing together the field of anthropology (more associated with the social sciences) and literary studies (traditionally part of the humanities).

How Does Literary Theory Cross Boundaries (or Not)?

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Analía Gerbaudo
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
International Circulation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Creation

This article analyzes the obstacles that hinder the reconstruction of the processes of institutionalization and internationalization of literary studies in Argentina within the framework of the project International Cooperation in the Social-Sciences and Humanities: Comparative Socio-Historical Perspectives and Future Possibilities, directed by Gisèle Sapiro. These obstacles were negotiated partly through the creation of two categories: “stories” and “fantasies of nano-intervention.” The article introduces these categories, along with some examples that enable reflection on the factors that impede or condition the international circulation of literary theory.

scholarly journals Farewell to (post)colonialism in Danish-Greenlandic relations? And then again, maybe not…

2018 ◽  
pp. 152-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazimierz Musiał ◽  
Agata Lubowicka
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Core ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Post Colonialism

The aim of the article is to investigate the allegedly new relationship between Greenland and Denmark in Danish political and literary discourses relating to Greenland, by approaching it from two different research perspectives – those of political and literary studies. The analysis draws on the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu and his concepts of habitus, capitals and dispositions that together create a hegemonic order. It also applies the concept of framing, as operationalised by A. Pluwak, B. Scheufele, W.A. Gamson, and A. Modigliani in the social sciences. The essay is structured according to the core framing tasks: diagnostic, prognostic and motivational, and their confluence with the temporal frames of the 1950s, the 1970s and the period beyond the 1990s. The analysis employs examples from both post-WW2 official documents related to Greenland and produced in or on behalf of Denmark, and from Danish literature about Greenland published in the same time periods.

The Text is a Text is a Text

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marija Dalbello
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Digital Text ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
History Of

The paper proposed here examines what history of the book can bring to the study of digital literacy. Current scholarly literature on digital text and literacy is multidisciplinary, dispersed in the social sciences and the humanities between the two cultures of research which are difficult to reconcile. A sizable literature in the area of literary studies and rhetoric from the early 1900s added. . .

Poiein—Political Infinitive

PMLA ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stathis Gourgouris
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
American Universities ◽  
Research Framework ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social

From a certain standpoint, Marjorie Perloff's lament, in her 2006 MLA Presidential Address, that literary study has been relegated to a secondary position in the research framework of our profession has merit. This standpoint, however, rests on a retrospective (if not nostalgic) comparison of today's institutional parameters with the enviable autonomy that literary study once enjoyed, a self-authorization that demarcated not merely the practice of literary study (or literary criticism) but even what we might call a literary way of thinking. This was how the institution of theory in American universities took hold, and it is elementary to recall that many other disciplines, principally in the social sciences but also in the arts, conceded to literary studies the vanguard of the methodological and epistemological reconfigurations of their own disciplinary boundaries. Anthropologists, historians, film critics, and art historians, who suddenly acceded to the position of theorist, came to regard literary studies as an inventory for whatever new terms or concepts they deemed necessary in unsettling their own disciplinary givens.

scholarly journals Breaking groupthink: Why scientific identity and norms mitigate ideological epistemology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel ◽  
Diego A. Reinero ◽  
Elizabeth Ann Harris ◽  
Claire Robertson ◽  
Philip Pärnamets
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Rigorous Analysis ◽  
Ideological Bias ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Careful Scrutiny ◽  
The Social ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Scientific Claim ◽  
Scientific Identity

Can scientists be trusted to conduct unbiased science? There is a growing body of papers arguing that psychological research is guided by “ideological epistemology”. According to this account, people are innately tribal in their political dispositions and these allegiances inevitably produce groupthink and guide them away from the truth--leading to a body of flimsy or biased research. This is a serious claim and one that would likely have far-reaching implications for many fields in the social sciences, as well as branches of biology (e.g., genetics) and climatology. Yet, like any other scientific claim, it deserves careful scrutiny and rigorous analysis. In the current paper, we examine the theoretical and empirical basis for ideological epistemology in science, finding limited factual evidence for ideological bias in the published literature.

Once More, with Feeling: Reflections on Racial Formation

PMLA ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 123 (5) ◽  
pp. 1565-1572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Omi ◽  
Howard Winant
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Racial Formation ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Surprising Discovery

Our concept of racial formation was advanced in 1986 as a critique of prevailing notions of race in the social sciences. We challenged approaches that treated race as epiphenomenal to supposedly more fundamental axes of stratification and difference: ethnicity, class, and nation. But we were disappointed—depressed, in fact—by the reception our analysis received. Some years would pass before our approach was seriously taken up by sociologists, political scientists, and other social science scholars. What kept our spirits buoyed during this period was the surprising discovery that our work was resonating with scholars in other disciplines, most notably in history, law, and literary studies. We learned much and greatly profited from these newfound colleagues' engagement with our work, from the ways they creatively extended our concept of racial formation, and from their advancement of new ways to think about the ongoing evolution of racism and its multiple dimensions.

‘Modernising’ Eastern Europe: theoretical problems and political dilemmas

1992 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Müller
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Adequate Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Advanced Capitalism ◽  
Comparative Economics ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Developmental Dynamics

The upheavals in the Eastern European countries have demonstrated to the social sciences in a painful manner that they do not dispose of any adequate theory suited to grasp the dynamics and scope of the processes taking place there. Western sociology has won its categories from analysing Western societies and, in a premature manner, come to a generalised concept of society as such. Absorbed by the problems of advanced capitalism, it was not prepared for the collapse of the Easterns systems. Exploring socialist societies has, until recently, pre-eminently been a topic of specialised disciplines, such as Eastern European Studies, Soviet Studies, the Theory of International Relations, Comparative Economics and Development Studies. Its theory-building has remained too closely tied to pre-defined questions, to official documents, uncertain and precarious data or to ideological givens, to be able to assess realistically the developmental dynamics of Eastern societies. The exchange of information between Eastern and Western scholars has been highly selective, hence seldom resulting in mutual fertilisation.

Regimuri de relevanță, puncte de rezistență: literatura română în postcomunism

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doris Mironescu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Romanian Literature

The article discusses the condition of literary history at a time of disciplinary crisis, when literary studies appear, globally, to renegotiate their connection to the social and to social sciences. In trying to articulate ways for literary history to incorporate more socially aware concepts in its practice, I turn to two recent proposals by Galin Tihanov (“regimes of relevance”) and Mihai Iovănel (“resistance points”). Finally, the article applies the finds of both concepts to postcommunist Romanian literature in an attempt to reach a more supple and at the same time comprehensive angle.

scholarly journals POR UMA POÉTICA DA INTERVENÇÃO: NARRADOR E PESQUISADOR NA PRODUÇÃO DE NARRATIVAS

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (26) ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Grüne Ewald ◽  
Ana Lúcia Liberato Tettamanzy
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Oral Narratives ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Aesthetic

RESUMO: A partir do exame de perspectivas epistêmicas abertas pelas ciências sociais, postulamos formas de os Estudos Literários lidarem com a intervenção em campo, especialmente em relação à oralidade. Apresentamos nossa experiência de campo em interação com um narrador urbano e analisamos uma situação ilustrativa. Concluímos que a concepção de uma poética da intervenção possibilita o estudo das circunstâncias de produção da narrativa, elucidando a formação do espaço enunciativo, condição para a constituição da narrativa e da dimensão estética. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: intervenção, narrativas orais, poética, enunciação, performance. ABSTRACT: This article begins by discussing epistemic perspectives opened up by the social sciences. We raise the possibility for literary studies to deal with forms of intervention allied with field work, especially the study of orality. We describe our experience in interacting with an urban storyteller and analyze a particular situation. We conclude that such a poetics of intervention makes possible the study of the narrative circumstances, clarifying the formation of an enunciative space, which is the condition for the production of the narrative and the aesthetic dimension. KEYWORDS: intervention – oral narratives – poetics – enunciation – performance

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