September 1998 Issue No. 204
Dear Editor,
From Paul Dawson
Dear Editor,
I'm sure that most academics would like to access the popular
press, or at least the 'quality' press, because they would reach
a wider audience, the pormised land of the public sphere; and
they would gte more money. Unfortunately such publication would
not garner them research points vital for promotion (the fault of
the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee).
The main reason that criticism produced by academics tends to die
ein the wilderness, however, is that the gates to the promisded
land are guarded by the literary establishment, which won't
publish most academic work because it's too academic.
The standarad line is that academics should write more accessible
prose. In actual fact this means they should abandon their
academic pursuits (that is, irrelevant or silly ideas about
relativism, intertextuality and the death of the author) in
favour of more important public issues. But academics write
academic criticism because they are academics. Why should they be
compelled to change their areas of interest or modify their mode
of address? And why is it considered that there is an abrogation
of intellectual responsibility on the part of academics who
choose not to review books or address social issues, or who can't
secure regular columns like Robert Manne? Surely the fact that
thye provide public education through their teaching
responsibilities is a contribution to the community at large.
Terry Eagleton wrote in 1984 that 'criticism today lacks all
substantive social function. It is either part of the public
relations branch of the literary industry, or a matter wholly
internal to the academies.' If there was once a public sphere
which has now atrophied, surely the literary industry, a marriage
in hell of review pages and publishing houses, cannot escape blame?
The literary review pages and academic journals, while porous,
still fulfil different functions. I thought we no longer believed
there is one great homogeneous public audience out there which
can be addressed in a unitary fashion. Perhaps the more exchange
between the two forums the better. But it's a two-way street.
Fewer back-page blurbs and in-house squabbles, more serious
criticism.
Shelley once claimed that poets were the unacknowledged
legislators of the world. Grandiose indeed. But this mantle has
long since been claimed by critics. Which is why this agonising
self-interrogation over the function of criticism and the role of
the critic-as-intellectual continues. Arnold's promised land is
no longer a great epoch of literature. but a public sphere where
the intellectual strides like a Romantic Poet.
Wordsworth once said it 'is the honourable characteristic of
Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which
can interest the human mind'. Another cherished characteristic of
the public intellectual, dispensing wisdom on all they see fit to
comment upon.
I like to think of a writer who teaches in the academy, whether
it be in literature, Creative Writing, or both, and publishes
works of literature (maybe some reviews and serious criticism as
well) as a public intellectual. In that case, we have many.
From Ivor Indyk
I think John Docker's criticism of writers is wide of the mark,
but I do share his concerns about ASAL. Instead of celebrating
the number of professors ASAL has produced (a dubious
distinction), it should count the number of Australian critics
who are no longer members of the organisation or who do not
attend its conferences. Kerryn Goldsworthy does not seem to mind the defections from the ranks, but she must know that the conversations she relishes with writers would only be enhanced,
if she had some of those critical colleagues around to sharpen
her wits against.
Ivor Indyk
Artarmon NSW
Regarding your desire to stir up the hoary old debate about
academics and their role in the community at large, suggesting
that 'not enough academics engage in public activity and enter
the public arena'. I'm presuming that you mean that academics
ought to discharge their public duties by entering into topical
debate through contributions to newspapers and other magazines
available to the 'public', rather than barricading themselves in
their ivory towers with dusty research projects.
Paul Dawson
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Vic.
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