The Science of Literature
In case anyone is interested--
and who could blame you if you're not? There are other much more interesting things going on in current events. I mean have you SEEN what's been happening on American Idol? Travesty. What? Obama who? Guns and faith and Pennsylvania, WHAT NOW? Gee...
Anyway. For those not interested and interested alike, because I completely ignore audience on my blog because, well, I can:
This article here from The American Scholar best summarizes my approach to dramatic literature and performance. Since CP Snow documented the split of scholarship into "The Two Cultures" in 1959 (that is, science and the humanities) both fields have suffered from an habitual ignorance of the other, resulting in a case of Supreme Stupidity that is simultaneously chronic and acute.
On the one hand, science, feeling superior to the humanities (and who wouldn't? Just take a look at the average salaries of a science major versus that of a humanities major) can often neglect the representative power of the arts to provide reflections on reality useful to their endeavors. And what better historical evidence for cognitive science can one find in the ideal cases of artistic genuis? I mean--here we have men and women who represent prototypical human mental function in ideal (and possibly exaggerated form) and their work leaves behind copious evidence and documentation of their process of production. For, oh I don't know a RANDOM example: what better way to study the production of langauge than through Shakespeare?
On the other hand, the humanities, a huge chip on its shoulder (again with the salary and employment thing) is constantly trying to best the sciences by reducing its relevance into "hegemonic narratives" and another tool of the imperialist oppressor. The famous example here is the measuring of African heads to prove the intellectual superiority of Caucasians. (Yah, that was pathetic but that was BAD science. I mean a guy can kill a person with a hammer--that doesn't make a hammer only useful as a weapon.)
In so doing the humanities have been forced into a pathological denial of human nature, which has only led to BAD humanities scholarship, that can't cope with the fundamental purpose and nature of artistic achievement and sublimity. Almost as BAD as the BAD science that went around measuring heads to make a point.
(Random ADD aside, men really love to measure and compare don't they? Aside from the obvious dirtiness this raised in your sick mind, I'm thinking specifically of my husband and his brothers measuring their calves one Thanksgiving just before we served the pies and exchanging money over who had the biggest calves.)
Stuff is getting interesting right about now as people begin to bridge the divide of the Two Cultures--and that's sort of where my work picks up. Using science as a theoretical lens for understanding literature and literary context.
This Nerd Moment was sponsored by The King of Infinite Space who resides in the Nutshell of My Procrastination: Stopping at 9,968 words today, just because.
