Literary Criticism: An Autopsy

by Mark Bauerlein

As the study of literature has extended to cultural contexts, critics have developed a language all their own. Yet, argues Mark Bauerlein, scholars of literature today are so unskilled in pertinent sociohistorical methods that they compensate by adopting cliches and catchphrases that serve as substitutes for information and logic. Thus by labeling a set of ideas an "ideology" they avoid specifying those ideas, or by saying that someone "essentializes" a concept they convey the air of decisive refutation. As long as a paper is generously sprinkled with the right words, clarification is deemed superfluous.

Bauerlein contends that such usages only serve to signal political commitments, prove membership in subgroups, or appeal to editors and tenure committees, and that current textual practices are inadequate to the study of culture and politics they presume to undertake. His book discusses 23 commonly encountered terms—from "deconstruction" and "gender" to "problematize" and "rethink"—and offers a diagnosis of contemporary criticism through their analysis. He examines the motives behind their usage and the circumstances under which they arose and tells why they continue to flourish.

A self-styled "handbook of counterdisciplinary usage," Literary An Autopsy shows how the use of illogical, unsound, or inconsistent terms has brought about a breakdown in disciplinary focus. It is an insightful and entertaining work that challenges scholars to reconsider their choice of words—and to eliminate many from critical inquiry altogether.

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

About the author

Mark Bauerlein earned his doctorate in English at UCLA in 1988. He has taught at Emory since 1989, with a two-and-a-half year break in 2003-05 to serve as the Director, Office of Research and Analysis, at the National Endowment for the Arts. Apart from his scholarly work, he publishes in popular periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, TLS, and Chronicle of Higher Education. His latest book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future; Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30 (www.dumbestgeneration.com), was published in May 2008.

Reviews

[Simona B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short guide (but also a bit of an elegiac love letter) to scholarly rigour in literary criticism and a devastating indictment of what the field had devolved into already in the mid-90s, when the book was published.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was pretty dense, but a good overview of some of the jargon and strategies used by humanities scholars who aren't really saying anything. I'll be watching for some of these non-arguments in the books I edit.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literary Criticism: An Autopsy offers a "keywords" approach to some of the most renowned tics and stylistic habits of contemporary "critics," cultural commentators previously humiliated by the Sokol paper and upbraided by the Blooms, Alan and Harold.


[....] the critic assumes a political standing (cultural critic, epistemological prophet, etc.) and joins a select organization. The terms provide the

critic with an institutional membership pass, even though many of the terms are ostensibly directed against institutions. They fulfill admissions standards to conference panels, to journal advisory boards, to shortlists for jobs. As political markers, not logical or empirical designations, they displace methodological criteria and shield critics from logical and empirical refutation. Current usage shows that criticism is not about knowledge of objects, but about the politics of inquiry, which includes the political status of the inquirer. Literary study is no longer literary analysis. It is now an occasion for institutional certification. Those who use terms in the right way display their intellectual discernment, their cultural

interest, their political sensitivity, and their moral regard, which is to say, their eligibility for entering today's academic order. Criticalterms are the tokens of belonging.


construction 

cultural poetics

cultural studies 

decisive assertions 

deconstruction 

discipline 

discourse 

essentialize 

gender 

ideology 

-ing 

interdisciplinary 

literary criticism 

the logic of 

political criticism 

problematize 

the question of 

radical 

rethink 

sociology of literature 

theory

voice 

what so-and-so calls

[Leonardo]

...explica por qué los posmodernistas no tienen realmente a su disposición otra forma de argumentación (que la falacia genética)...

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