tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post634818755603537366..comments2024-03-11T02:18:33.966-05:00Comments on Kritik: Forum on World Literature (VII) Hug a Tree and Ride the Wave: Some Critical Thoughts About World Literature and Globalizing Literary CriticismAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200566567765991464noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-52546042706407439662008-02-28T17:29:00.000-06:002008-02-28T17:29:00.000-06:00Marcus raises some very important points about fun...Marcus raises some very important points about funding that should be highly pertinent -- as a matter of fact, central -- to this debate. We are aware, with perhaps different measures of cynicism, that the American Academy is very much a part of what Dwight Eisenhour, in his famous final address, called the military-industrial complex. In as much, work in the academy, its immediate professional rewards, are circumscribed by a circuit of value very much within the logic of capital forged by the military-industrial complex. We do know how the status of Slavik departments, for instance, changed in terms of financial and other priorities with the end of the Cold War. Today the financialization of a planet is undoubtedly a major factor behind the rise of Area Studies and the twilight of the the Comparativist. <BR/><BR/>Even when it comes to 'hot' areas, like the Middle East, it is not difficult to see how in terms of disciplinary method, some projects would get immediate precedence in the academy over others. There will be grants and fellowships galore for ethnographic studies that provide valuable information to fine tune governmentality. But for a comparativist-historical study of Ibn Rushd and Erasmus? I do not think so. Meanwhile we are allowed to do our Shakespeares and Miltons in English Departments in relative peace so that hawks like Lynn Cheney can aim the canon from time to time, and also because (as one of my obnoxious former professors once glibly put it) we offer writing and general education courses "that teach [white] middle class America how to read and write."<BR/><BR/>Anustup BasuRatulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07061223611226832449noreply@blogger.com