Paul Jay - Critical Humanism and the Literary Futures Market
Channel: Center for 21st Century Studies
Date: 2014-10-01

Dr. Paul Jay (English, Loyola University Chicago) at the Center for 21st Century Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. September 26, 2014.

"Critical Humanism and the Literary Futures Market"

I want to use the Center's linked focus on the temporal and financial meanings of “futures” to explore the benefits and risks involved in grounding our work in a specifically critical humanism, one that both contests and revises its traditional claims, practices, and subjects. Perhaps the key risk here is that a critical (or anti- or post-) humanism threatens to alienate a mainstream audience largely wedded to the idea that the humanities have a primarily curatorial function, one committed to preserving and venerating the past. (I'll argue we need to develop a more nuanced way to talk about the temporality of the humanities.)

Our challenge is rhetorical, strategic, and pragmatic: how do we design a humanities practice for the future that ensures we will have a future? How do we develop language for describing a new humanities that makes sense to people who understand them in very conventional terms? These days defenses of the humanities too often fall back on idealized, pallid, and outdated descriptions of their value that can be as counter-productive to our future as attacks that blame the “crisis” in the humanities on theory and political correctness. We need to develop a language strategically calibrated to underscore the value of theory and critique, the significance of new, innovative methodologies, and a vision of the humanities that links up with the STEM disciplines.

The risks involved in such a collective enterprise are particularly pronounced in literary studies, especially with regard to the shift from emphasizing literature to a new stress on literacy, and on the literary as a mode, style, or perspective that operates within but also outside of literature. I'll explore as well the risks and benefits of new work grounded in aesthetics, formalism, reading (close, hyper, surface, etc.), cognitive studies, neuroscience, ecology, and technology, including the pros and cons of their response to the siren call of utility and marketplace value.