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The Framing of Literary Studies, or,
Is Comparative to Literature as Cultural is to Studies?

In April 1995 I had the good fortune to view a unique exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam entitled "In Perfect Harmony: Picture and Frame 1850-1920." Suggesting the wider implications of the topic, Ronald de Leeuw and Klaus Albrecht Schröder have written that the period represented in this exhibition "was an epoch in which the various and fascinating aesthetic possibilities embodied in this link between the fiction of the painting and the reality of the wall were explored. In Perfect Harmony is an exhibition not only of tangible objects, but also of immaterial relations--that between picture and frame, which is in fact more than the sum of its parts" (Mendgen 7). It would be difficult to have experienced this exhibition, I think, without having one’s way of looking at pictures changed forever. But one is also led to ponder the relationship between "the fiction" of all creative works and "the reality" of the culture in which they are both created and consumed.

This unique visual experience--dare I say epiphany?--at the Van Gogh Museum led me to consider quite specifically the relationship between literary studies and cultural studies, and to question whether the connection between them might also be one of framing. In answering this question, one thinks first perhaps of literature as the textual equivalent of the work of art and cultural studies as its frame, but what if cultural studies rather than relating to, enhancing, or contextualizing literature has actually displaced it, thus functioning not as a frame, but as the agent in a frame-up? The underlying flaw, however, in this approach is its binary "picture/frame" or "literature/culture" assumption. As de Leeuw and Schröder make clear, we are dealing not with a duality but with a triad: picture, wall, and mediating frame. Even more interesting--perhaps because more elusive--is the intangible connection or "immaterial relations" suggested by de Leeuw and Schröder, between the artistic fiction and its culture-bound reality. That is, we clearly see the painting, the wall on which it hangs, and the interposed frame, but what is the result of their interaction? And in what ways does this interaction transcend "the sum of its parts"? In literature we are also dealing with a triad, a fact that has received little recognition in the general discussion of literary and cultural studies to date. In our preoccupation with the literary equivalent of the painting, we have failed to see the frame (and/or the wall), or if we saw it, we were unable to recognize its importance, or at times we have conflated the frame and wall, failing to see their distinctiveness. Michael Holquist points out that in "traditional comparative studies, the basic unit comprised two things that were then put into a meaningful relation to each other through an act of comparison. . . . the active role of the subject making the connection between them was obscured by the invisibility of the subject, whose presence was always assumed but not stated. The dualism enabled by this hidden subject in turn made possible the fiction of objective science" (8). Holquist identifies the crisis in comparative literature as "only one aspect of a larger dilemma that . . . began to emerge: a shift in the space of interpretation" (7); and it is precisely this new "space of interpretation" that signals a shift in the relationship between the art work, its frame(r), and its wall. In this essay I explore the somewhat problematic development of comparative literature and then consider possible ways of construing its relationship with cultural studies that bear on the most recent "crisis" in comparative literature.

Many comparatists seem to experience acute uneasiness when required to define comparative literature, because the act of defining itself is perceived as limiting, delimiting, and ultimately opposed to the openness supposedly characteristic of the field. And yet, even without definitions we all seem curiously to have a sense of what comparative literature is. On the other hand, even though we know what it is, most of us also would admit that there are some problems with our name: "literature" seems innocuous enough at first glance, but the adjective "comparative" is a certain troublemaker, an enfant terrible. Indeed, a comparatist friend at a large state university reported to me that a non-comparatist colleague of his--a linguist of international stature--blamed the institutional tribulations of comparative literature at their university largely on the term "comparative."

As early as 1958 Albert Guérard emphatically rejected the name: "My attachment to the principle of Comparative Literature gives me the right to express my opinion that the term Comparative Literature is useless, dangerous, and ought to [be] abolished" (Guérard 89). In 1994 his son added the observation that his father "regretted that the term denotes ‘the foreign relations of national literatures’ and therefore encourages the very chauvinistic concept of national literatures that it might seek to correct." Lilian Furst notes in her essay, "Born to Compare," that "the French term, ‘littérature comparée’ (compared literature) and the German ‘vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft’ (comparative study of literature) are grammatically more logical than comparative literature" (Furst 124). Personally, I like the name of the department in Manchester she mentions in this same essay: "Comparative Literary Studies," because it detaches the adjective "comparative" from the word literature and re-attaches it more comprehensibly to "studies." Michael Palencia-Roth, on the other hand, has argued in favor of "contrastive literature" because the word "comparative" itself implies the existence of a normative language, literature, or culture against which others would be measured. In his words:

Other scholars, and I count myself in this group, have favored the concept of "juxtaposing" rather than comparing, first, because comparing implies a qualitative judgment, and second, because juxtaposition offers the potential benefit of defamiliarizing one’s own "familiar cultural practices" (Higonnet 12). Comparison implies a uni-directional activity--one thing being measured against a given--whereas juxtaposing suggests an activity that is at least two-way, perhaps even multi-directional. I continue to use the word comparative in this essay because of its institutionalization, but I mean it in this broader sense of mutual illumination. Is this wrangling over terminology really important? I think ultimately yes, because comparative literature exists (uneasily in many cases) within both institutional and social frameworks, and because the question of comparison--"What is to be compared with what, by whom, to what end, and under what conditions?"--keeps arising over and over, and has led to considerable dissension and strife in the field (although some argue that the repeated posing of the question is "fruitful" and indeed a healthy sign of the field’s dynamism [Higonnet 1]).

A recent example of comparative strife is to be found in the Bernheimer report which suggests a list of what is actually being compared these days. The list includes, among others, artistic productions, cultural constructions of different disciplines, Western and non-Western cultural traditions--both high and popular, gender constructions, and racial and ethnic modes of signifying. Literature is notably absent from the list, and figures only in the oft-cited concluding observation that "the term ‘literature’ may no longer adequately describe our object of study" (Bernheimer 42). I recall a meeting about five years ago of faculty interested in comparative literature at my institution, which was attended by a new faculty member, a recent comparative literature graduate of a large, public university. After listening for as long as he could bear it, he exploded: "You people really don’t understand what comparative literature is. At my university I assure you no one compares anything anymore. Comparative literature is about theory!" Several committee members countered that this couldn’t be true in an absolute sense since a number of us had comparative literature degrees and were still occupied with comparing things--although even we had evolved beyond the formulaic comparison of two texts. The young colleague was so passionate about his definition of comparative literature, that he called me at home the following day and for over an hour tried to convince me that I was wrong. Surprised by his self-assurance and ardor, the committee members were most deeply concerned by the exclusionary nature of his definition and his utter abandonment of literature in favor of theory for theory’s sake.

For myself and other like-minded colleagues, Bernheimer and his committee went too far in apparently excising literature from the heart of what we do. To represent what they espouse in terms of the framing concept with which I began this essay, it is as if they have cut out and discarded the painting while focusing our attention exclusively on the nature of the remaining frame and/or its relation to the surrounding wall. Roland Greene’s inclusive, middle-of-the-discipline view of comparative literature as a "paradiscipline" more closely approaches my own perception of our practice. Greene is refreshingly specific in describing what is compared: "Comparative literature compares literatures, not only as accumulations of primary works, but as the languages, cultures, histories, traditions, theories, and practices with which those works come." Expanding beyond literature and its accoutrements, he continues, "comparative literature compares not only texts but contexts; not literary works so much as ways of reading, writing and thinking about such works--that is, literatures in the most catholic sense of the term. Moreover, the discipline works best where it can be intensely committed to the practices that enable literary studies but do not contain them, such as philology, historicism and historiography, critical and literary theory, and cultural studies" (144). In this definition Greene recognizes the autonomy of various fields, broadens the definition of literature to include its all-important contextual packaging, and most importantly, he implies a reversal of the relationship between comparative literature and cultural studies. This is a reconceptualization that I would like to make explicit. Many critics who have written about the relationship of the two--and this includes the Bernheimer report--have subsumed cultural studies under comparative literature. This seems to me not only incorrect but also dangerous because as cultural studies expand in scope and importance, they risk displacing, even replacing comparative literature. If we represent the two fields in mathematical terms, it becomes immediately clear that they are not comparable constructions, and therefore cannot be substituted one for the other: if the "numerators" comparative and cultural are written over the "denominators" literature and studies, we see that while cultural is indeed a fraction or part of studies, comparative is not merely a part or category of literature. However, by viewing comparative literature as a sub-category of cultural studies, that is by viewing literature as a sub-category of cultural production (or its artifacts) as a whole, we end up with a workable formula: all comparative literature is cultural studies, but not all cultural studies are comparative literature. This formulation is important because of the nugget at the crux of the matter: the status of the literary text. What it means is that not all scholarship in cultural studies need involve a literary text, whereas scholarship in comparative literature does. This may seem like a retrograde conclusion in light of the Bernheimer report and responses to it like those of Rey Chow who suggests that comparative literature should increasingly turn its attention away from "the materiality of verbal language" and toward an "examination of . . . the ‘medium.’" A focus on media, she claims, does not necessarily mean literature’s demise, arguing instead that "a new discipline would emerge in which the study of literature is relativized not along lines of nations and national languages but, more rigorously, along lines of aesthetic media, sign systems, and discourse networks[.] Perhaps that name itself [comparative literature] would eventually transform into an other, such as comparative media?" (116). Comparatist colleagues with whom I have talked recently are much more convinced of the centrality of literary texts in the comparative enterprise. Like them, I favor a less radical re-visioning of literary studies: can we not shift our gaze to the "frame" and accord it equal attention without denying the interest of the work of art itself? Indeed, what would it mean to study the frame of an absent painting? And, how would that be critically more valid, more "honest" than the earlier practice of ignoring the frame? Ultimately, it is neither the picture nor its frame, rather it is their interaction, that proves most interesting and revealing.

Like many others engaged in the current discussion of comparative literature, I have known moments of great perplexity, but none more so than eliciting from colleagues their understanding of the essence of comparative literature. Initially--and in opposition to the views of numerous comparatist colleagues--we agreed on the necessity of a literary text. This seemingly simple statement is anything but, because the term "literary" can present almost as many difficulties as the term "comparative." René Wellek was incensed to learn that according to Dinesh D’Souza, his book with Austin Warren, Theory of Literature,"‘maintained that the definition of literature was problematic and posited circumstances under which Shakespeare might be displaced by the Manhattan phone book or by graffiti’" (Wellek 10). "I never believed in anything so foolish as that Shakespeare could be displaced by the Manhattan phone book," fumes Wellek. In the eyes of many of my comparatist colleagues, it seems that while the by-now nationally maligned Manhattan telephone book can be a text, it cannot be a literary text. Like my electric bill or next week’s grocery list, the telephone book is too utilitarian, too unsubtle in its claims. While it is true, if we recall Horace’s dictum to instruct and entertain, that literary texts may very well be functional or informative in some manner, we have come to expect of literature a quality of non-essentiality, a certain liberating gratuitousness of existence. Bernheimer queries in his introduction to the collection Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism whether "some kind of transcendental justification for literary value is desired, such as access to eternal verities" (15), but that is not the issue here. The claim of a literary text is much less grandiose. Imagine for a moment a telephone book that is ironic, a palimpsestic water bill, or a recipe that begins "You take a cup of flour, or was it two? I have always had a troubled relationship to measuring cups. So you take your one, two, or no cups of flour and add the other ingredients." In a letter to Newt Gingrich about government support for artists, Arthur Miller described speaking in the 1960s at Brandeis in support of subsidies for the theater:

Until we as a society decide that "classical Greek shoemakers" (or their equivalent) deserve memorization and memorialization, I would continue to argue not for the privileging of the literary text qua text but for its equality with contextual considerations. I am certainly aware of the troublesome "untouchable status" created by the historical dominance and preeminence of the literary text, but it is impossible to achieve a balance through its elimination or reduction to telephone-book status.

A literary text is, however, merely a necessary--but not sufficient--condition for the practice of comparative literary study. My comparatist colleagues generated two additional "conditions." First, while the texts may be read in translation, they must be analyzed in the original language. And secondly, if one requires a literary text for the practice of comparative literature and still clings to the idea of comparing, contrasting or juxtaposing, we necessarily have a literary text plus something else. Both of these requirements lead in the same direction, that is toward "cultural competency," to use Mary Louise Pratt’s term (Global 62). First, why must we analyze texts in the original language? One reason is that true linguistic competency implies profound cultural knowledge--a kind of contextual reliability or authenticity. Another reason is that the caveat "something gets lost in translation" is not merely a joke. We risk not only misreading texts at the linguistic level--like a colleague many years ago who did not recognize "Du kannst Gift darauf nehmen" ["you can bet your life on it"] as a common German idiom, and based an extensive textual analysis on the significance of literally taking poison--but we risk also misreading cultural (con)texts. Secondly, what about the nature of the "something else"? My sense is that it is excitingly wide open, but perhaps always with a critical twist. This interpretation is corroborated by looking at the surveys supplied by both Roland Greene and Bernheimer’s committee of what is actually being compared these days. These wide-ranging lists also nudge us away from comparison per se toward broader contextualizations. Thus we move away from earlier formulations such as Henry Remak’s definition that "it is the comparison of literature with other spheres of human expression," that is, away from the strategy of comparison, and toward the underlying, questioning spirit of it, as in René Wellek’s definition: "the study of ‘all literature from an international perspective, with a consciousness of the unity of all literary creation and experience’" (qtd. in Hernadi 23).

The danger in evolving a set of minimal conditions to define the practice of comparative literature, as I have just done, is that one risks being elitist and exclusionary, the very faults I attributed to my young colleague of the "comparative-literature-means-theory" school. But by separating comparative literature and cultural studies and inverting their relationship as I have suggested, the problem is somewhat alleviated. That is, the "requirement" of a literary text for the practice of comparative literature in no way denigrates or denies the validity of more general (non-literary) comparative studies or cultural studies. Comparatist colleagues and I ran through an interesting test case that goes something like this:

Although it seems that literature is the stumbling block in debates about cultural studies, I wonder if the very concept of comparison might not be equally or even more problematic. Michael Holquist writes,

This leads back not only to ideas such as "contrastive literature" or "juxtaposed texts" but also to canon formation; as Holquist notes, "the concept of canon always boils down to a set of questions about how to make a comparison, a structure previously taken for granted" (7). If Paul Hernadi is right when he claims that "comparative literature, as many of us understand its purview today, need not be limited to ‘literary’ subject matter any more than it is limited to strictly ‘comparative’ methodology" (22), that is, if we are not discussing literature and we are not using any form of comparison, then why not simply say that we are practicing cultural studies? Why insist that our work be termed comparative literature? Is it because many of us are in comparative literature programs or departments?

What does it mean to be "in" comparative literature anyway? Roland Greene indicts academic institutions for "designat[ing] some of us comparatists for life and shut[ting] others out." "No one," he says, "is always doing paradisciplinary work, but many of us do it at one time or another."

Greene thus adds a fourth characteristic to the definition of comparative literature: the fundamental and persistent questioning of cultural and literary production, a sceptical but healthy approach summarized in the sixties t-shirt slogan "Question Authority." This is also an approach integral to feminist criticism, and as such explains in part their affinity.

Many colleagues fear the siege of The Other represented by African-American Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, and Chicano Studies, et al.--groups which tend to be lumped together as some amorphous "them." One comparatist describes sitting through graduate seminars as a student in the late seventies and early eighties in which they "took up structuralism, Marxism, feminism, and so on as though [they] were trying on hats." "It seemed not to occur to our teachers," he writes, "that some of these things were strategies for reading literary texts, some were multidisciplinary systems of knowledge, some were world-views. No matter. They would all be processed by a comparative literature determined to keep its identity intact" (Greene 148-9). I would argue, however, in favor of greater differentiation when considering these academic newcomers. In particular I would separate cultural studies from feminist criticism. Feminist criticism is, among other things, a reading strategy, and as such is more compatible with the practice of comparative literature, at least as I have been describing it here. Indeed, a strong symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship has developed between comparative literature and feminist criticism, which is outlined in Margaret Higonnet’s collection of essays Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature. She refers to "utiliz[ing] feminist insights in order to nuance comparative practice and, conversely, to nuance and render more comparative the practice of feminist criticism" (14). The essays themselves provide specific examples of how feminist criticism and comparative literature have influenced one another in areas such as identity (especially national identity), genre theory, and the position of the critic (6-11).

Many of the problems stemming from perceived assaults on canonical literature by cultural studies and other types of "new" critical approaches result from what might be termed a hydraulic theory of the canon. This theory holds that the canon can contain only a fixed number of works. Therefore, if any work is to be added, another one must be dropped. Although it purports to be about quality, canon making is in fact a quantitative exercise in which the intrinsic literariness or literary merit of approved texts represents an immutable standard of literary correctness. As you will recall, the ACLA commissioned a report not on the state of the profession but on "standards" in the profession. This word squeezed all literary texts into a binary vise: they either met THE standard or did not. Other ways of even perceiving, let along discussing, literary quality were thus preempted. By finally abolishing the word "standards," we have opened the consideration of literariness or literary merit to other modes of valuing, one of which, I suggest, might be called richness.

Consider with me for a moment that I am teaching a "Great Books" course, and we have just read and discussed the Iliad. At this point, what is my next move, what is the best way to continue enriching the students’ reading of this text beyond-the-text? Do I move on to Dante or to Milton or the next "great book" on the traditional syllabus, or do I instead read with them Christa Wolf’s Cassandra? For anyone not familiar with it, this multilayered, linguistically rich, and probing text rewrites the Trojan War not only from the point of view of the Trojans, but also from a woman’s point of view. In addition, it is literarily (that is, in terms of its literary quality) very "correct." In this regard, I find the approach of teaching texts in pairs increasingly attractive; one juxtaposes texts that consider specific events or phenomena from the differing perspectives of women and men, blacks and whites, gays and straights, first world, Third World, etcetera. The mutual enrichment of both texts is inherent in the methodology. A value that transcends the sum of its parts--here individual texts--is implied also by the framework within which we read and teach literature. Texts taught within the context of a semester-long course are naturally "framed" in two different ways. First, they exist in relationship to the overall topic of the course. Thus we might read Cassandra in different ways depending on whether the course title were Postwar German Literature, Utopia and Society, or Gender, War and Peace. Secondly, most syllabi are constructed around works read in a specific order, the assumption being that they are framed by and interact with the other works that precede and follow them in the reading process.

But what of the hydraulic principle? If I added Cassandra, did I remove Paradise Lost? Yes, I did, because the semester still has only sixteen weeks. Is it gone forever? No, it is just on reserve or on ice until maybe next semester. Does that mean then that I think Cassandra has greater literary merit than Paradise Lost? For me, neither text has eternal and universally superior, intrinsic literary merit, primarily because I do not categorize works that way. But in this particular context, following the Iliad, Cassandra has the specific enriching value that interests me.

Let me carry my comparative practice in this theoretical Great Books class one step further: not only did we interpose Wolf’s Cassandra into the syllabus, I would also ask the students, in the last fifteen minutes of class, to analyze the recent Gulf War in terms of concepts of heroism, war rhetoric, and the demonization and feminization of the enemy as other. Is this procedure a throwback to the "relevancy" requirements of the sixties? No, rather than make the Iliad relevant to the students’ lives, I would try to do the reverse: to relativize or contextualize their contemporary experiences--in this case the Gulf War. Rather than show how this conflict was unique, singular and isolated as an event, I want them to discover how it fits into a long tradition of theoretical, rhetorical, and historical practice attached to the phenomenon of war. Along the way I hope to teach them to think more critically through juxtaposition and comparison.

My original subtitle for this essay was: "Views of a Third-Generation Comparatist," but after noting the other generations to which colleagues ascribe themselves, I suspect I belong to the third-and-a-half generation, or some group that falls uncomfortably between the generations as well as between the cracks. When reading the biographies of the founding mothers and fathers of comparative literature, I had the feeling that we had come full circle. Most of them came from European countries and thus had profound knowledge of another culture and language; similarly, in the sixties and seventies, many of my generation, disillusioned with Vietnam-era America, went to Europe or other parts of the globe and forgot to come back for a while, thus providing us with extensive linguistic and profound cultural knowledge. The founders were often exiled from their countries, but the field of comparative literature, in its vigorous infancy, compensated the exilés with a certain professional satisfaction; for my generation by contrast, although not expelled from our country, we have in a sense been exiled from our chosen profession. Interestingly, some members of my generation--those not born in the United States--were expelled from their countries, just as the first generation was. National Socialism sent us the first wave of comparatists from western and central Europe, and it was another totalitarian ideology, communism, that sent us the second wave. Although we may have been "born to compare" like Lilian Furst and others of her generation, we have been thwarted in the practice of our métier by financially and intellectually shrinking universities, and by an increasingly technologized and culturally uninformed, complacent socio-political environment. When the founders came to the United States, comparative literature did not exist as a formal discipline, so they took positions in traditional language and literature departments; for those of us in the third-and -a-half generation, departments and programs existed, but positions within them did not, so we also had to find other homes for ourselves. Thirteen years beyond the Ph.D. I know of only one person from my institutional cohort who is in a comparative literature department. Of course a departmental affiliation does not necessarily determine comparative practice. Ideally one should be able to remain aloof from academic bureaucracy and shifting ideologies, simply continuing to research and teach what is truly of interest. The reality is, however, that the institutional context is becoming so intrusive as to make ignoring it impossible. In looking at that reality closely, I wonder if we may still be tuning our violins as Rome burns.

Let me attempt to contextualize the preceding discussion of comparative literature and cultural studies by returning briefly to the framing imagery of my introduction. Initially we considered the nature of the work of art itself, the literary text. Then we looked at its relation to possible frames, consisting of both the cultural conditions under which the work of art was produced and the self-conscious role of the critic as mediator, interpreter, or "framer." Now we turn our attention to the "wall," which represents not so much the (historical) conditions of production as the (contemporary) conditions of consumption. The context of our interdisciplinary discussion is, first, the institution in which the rhetoric of ideas is challenged by everyday realities. The context is also our students and their parents, that is, the public, whose role vis-à-vis public institutions should be neither ignored nor underestimated--especially in our current political climate. In a 1992 survey, 53% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 24 said they had read a novel, play or poem in the preceding year [compared with 60% in 1982]. Two observations: we immediately recognize these 18 to 24 year olds as the largest segment of our student population and also note that the statistics are spiraling downward. On some campuses the humanities are in crisis, the modern language departments are beleaguered, and comparative literature is threatened--as are other interdisciplinary programs--with elimination. In some states bills providing for the dismantling of the tenure system are under consideration by the legislatures. Many Colleges of Arts, Sciences, and Letters are awash in a mentality and language borrowed from business schools: downsizing, turning a profit, cost effectiveness, accountability, and the production of degrees that teach skills and lead to immediate employment opportunities. In what ways should our discussion of comparative literature be affected by these facts? And what will be the ultimate fate of the humanities, of literary studies, and of comparative literature in such a climate where many colleges and universities are being vocationally retooled?

Of course, this opposition between the goals of a liberal arts education and practical training for a profession is anything but new. Jeffrey Sammons identifies this distinction in the German roots of the American education system:

The example of literary studies--especially comparative literature--in recent years and the distortion and danger of isolating texts from their cultural context should prove instructive to those scholars and educators more oriented toward Ausbildung, who believe there is nothing amiss in a "culturally indifferent preprofessional education." Sammons has located one aspect of the Ausbildung problem in the uncomfortable and paradoxical nature of the humanities themselves:

How can comparative literature work within such a contradictory and threateningly iconoclastic framework to renew literary studies, enlighten our students, and through them influence society? Over the past decade comparatist colleagues have indicated roads we might take. Jonathon Culler, for example, has noted comparative literature’s role in opposing nationalism because it is "a literary study that is not linked to the pieties of nationalisms (literature as the repository of national genius and monument to national pride)" He attributes this opposition to two factors: 1) "the association of literature with national character is frequently refuted by comparatists’ demonstrations that literature comes from other literatures," and 2) "[c]omparative literature, with its broader vision, exercises a critical demystificatory force on the cultural pieties of a nation" (30). Culler goes on to challenge the uncritical attitudes of many scholars toward the role of religion in American society. Mary Louise Pratt identifies in a larger social sphere the same troubling lack of critical awareness: "[there is] a tendency to obliterate cultural self-consciousness, to obliterate critical, self-reflective cultural practices"--a tendency that Pratt finds disturbing because these practices "compare what is with what has been, could be, or (and this is important) is elsewhere" (34). Both Culler and Pratt call attention to important cultural changes in American society, Culler to the ways in which religion provides an "ideological legitimation for many reactionary or repressive forces in America today" (30), and Pratt to the increasing hegemony of technology. Comparative literature addresses these developments in different ways: it demythologizes and it teaches critical consciousness. Pratt makes this rôle engagé of comparative literature explicit:

Pratt’s comments, although written ten years ago, seem just as relevant today. Finally, Judith Ryan agrees with and expands on the views of both Culler and Pratt. She shares Pratt’s belief that the study of literature fosters development of a critical awareness: "[Literature] invites us to get inside someone else’s psyche and to view the world through different eyes; yet, at the same time, by making us acutely aware that we are not really that other person, it forces us to distance ourselves and take a more critical stance toward the character. It foregrounds the very inside-outside problem that lies at the heart of culture study" (49-50). Like Culler, Ryan identifies the potential dangers inherent in ideologies such as nationalism and suggests that literature can help combat ideological presuppositions. "Many American students," she writes "understand ‘ideology’ to refer to someone else’s wrongheaded views; they are often extremely resistant to the idea that their own views may rest on ideological assumptions that remain invisible to them. Literature is an excellent way to explore the political unconscious . . ." (50). While Culler, Pratt, Ryan and others have given us some ideas on how literature--especially comparative literature--can contribute constructively to change, we need to discuss other ways in which we as comparatists are uniquely prepared to help counter the devaluation of the liberal arts education, the humanities in general and literary studies in specific, and how comparative literature might transform itself into a leading voice for reason and renewal. To initiate this discussion, I would suggest that comparative literature should be viewed as a process, not a place. It should represent an awareness that one comes to and passes through. It should be a tent, not a brick building, and most certainly not a brick building covered with ivy.

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"The 1992 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts," National Endowment for the Humanities (unpublished national survey of 12,736 American adults).

Bernheimer, Charles, ed. Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Chow, Rey. "In the Name of Comparative Literature." Bernheimer 107-116.

Culler, Jonathon. "Comparative Literature and the Pieties." Profession 86 (1986): 30-32.

Furst, Lilian. "Born to Compare." Gossman and Spariosu 107-24.

Gossman, Lionel and Mihai I. Spariosu, eds. Building a Profession: Autobiographical Perspectives on the Beginniings of Comparative Literature in the United States. Albany: SUNY P., 1994.

Greene, Roland. "Their Generation." Bernheimer 143-154.

Guérard, Albert J. "Comparative Literature, Modern Thought and Literature." Gossman and Spariosu 89-98.

Hernadi, Paul. "What Isn’t Comparative Literature?" Profession 86 (1986): 22-24.

Higonnet, Margaret R., ed. Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Holquist, Michael. "A New Tour of Babel: Recent Trends Linking Comparative Literature Departments, Foreign Language Departments, and Area Studies Programs." ADFL Bulletin, Special Issue, "Foreign Languages, International Studies, and Interdisciplinarity." 27.1 (1995): 6-12

Lawall, Sarah N. "The Canon’s Mouth: Comparative Literature and the Western Masterpieces Anthology." Profession 86 (1986): 25-27.

Mendgen, Eva, ed. In Perfect Harmony: Picture and Frame 1850-1920. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum [Zwolle: Uitgeverij Waanders], 1995.

Miller, Arthur. Letter to Newt Gingrich, Chronicle of Higher Education 18 August 1995: B5. Reprinted from The Nation, July 31-Aug 7 issue.

Palencia-Roth, Michael. "Contrastive Literature." Comparative Literature in the Nineties: A Special Issue of the ACLA Bulletin. 24.2 (1993): 47-60.

Peck, Jeffrey M. "Advanced Literary Study as Cultural Study: A Redefinition of the Discipline." Profession 85 (1985): 49-54.

Pratt, Mary Louise. "Comparative Literature and Global Citizenship." Bernheimer 58-65.

. . .. . . . . . . "Comparative Literature as a Cultural Practice." Profession 86 (1986): 33-35.

Ryan, Judith. "Skinside Inside: The National Literature Major versus Comparative Literature." Profession 91 (1991): 49-52.

Sammons, Jeffrey L. "Squaring the Circle: Observations on Core Curriculum and the Plight of the Humanities." Profession 86 (1986): 14-21

Wellek, René. "Memories of the Profession." Gossman and Spariosu 1-12.

Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World [Harbinger], 1966.

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Dr. Elaine Martin, emartin@woodsquad.as.ua.edu