1 - Locating Literary Studies

Summary

Introduction: Academic frameworks

This chapter offers an introduction to the academic study of literature and its history. Literature is usually associated with the intimate pleasures of reading rather than with an intellectual discipline, but it has also been an object of scholarly inquiry for thousands of years. What does it mean to study literature in an academically disciplined way rather than simply for personal pleasure? This chapter provides an initial answer to this question by positioning the study of literature within the broader field of knowledge production.

We first discuss scientific research in the broadest sense, then move on to the humanities, cultural studies,* and finally, literary studies and its specialisations. In locating literary studies within this broader academic context, we show that literary scholars always work within frameworks: of their own discipline, related fields within the humanities, and the scientific community at large. These frameworks are not fixed for all time but are constantly being redefined.

Knowledge production is work in progress

Humanities and Science. The sciences and the humanities, and the more specific disciplines within them, each produce knowledge using different practices.

– Oxford Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society

Producing knowledge is always ‘work in progress.’ Dissatisfaction with what we already know underlies all academic disciplines. A scholar is not so much someone who possesses a great deal of knowledge (that is, who collects bits of information like a stamp collector collects stamps). Instead, scholars are defined by the fact that they have been trained to be curious and critical. Pursuing an academic degree is not so much about ‘learning things’ as it is about realising how much it is you do not (yet) know. It is about learning how to pose interesting questions and to look systematically and patiently for answers. To conduct scientific research is to wage a constant battle against the obvious.

Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and how best to produce it. It involves formulating general principles and standards that people in different fields can use to reflect on their own work. Contemporary philosophy of science by and large assumes that knowledge is not there for the picking like fruit on a tree, but first has to be made. Constructivism is the term used to describe this understanding of knowledge as something that is ‘made’ and not ‘found.’