Berlin, Graff, Scholes and reuniting the sacred and profane

I have to say that when I read Chad's response to Hairston's article, my own first response was "Oh dear sweet God is my CMAP due Monday?" And, at least according to the syllabus, it isn't. I like a lot of Chad's assessment, though, and will offer some of my own next week. Of course, "my own" sounds dated and romantic. Really, if others want to blog about Hairston this week, by all means do so, and feel encouraged to cognitively map connections to other authors and send those maps to me as jpegs as soon as possible. I want to make my project collaborative and then, in homage to antiquated notions of atomistic authors, I'd prefer just having my name on the assignment.

In terms of Berlin. . .

I wish I had read this book long before now. In the way that LeFevre's text seemed like necessary reading for an "origin point," Berlin's seems necessary in ways someone once told me Graff's Professing Literature: An Institutional History (1987) would be (like many, I was disappointed by the very marginal attention given to rhet/comp in Graff's, and others', "histories of English studies"). Berlin's intro and first chapter provide a good "go to" guide for the history of rhet/comp in English as well as some Jamesonian "historicizing" of how literary texts (the poetic) were elevated to "sacred" status in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I have read Graff and Scholes' Textual Power (1985) before--though not in their entirety--and really liked having Berlin's summary of the dialogue (and its conflicts) on pgs. 5-17. That is, their "constructions" of The English Department really need to be read as rhetorical, which Berlin handles efficiently.

Berlin also adds a social-epistemic voice to this dialogue when he later "dislodges" the binary oppositions found in both Scholes and Graff's accounts of English studies (i.e. "the division between sacred and profane texts, the division between the priestly class and the menial class, the placing of beauty and truth against the utilitarian and commonplace"). Basically, Berlin refuses "the inherent distinction between representational and creative texts" (92). This poststructural response seems to bridge some of the depressing divide in English studies. Berlin's response also makes me ask old nagging questions such as, are we (rhet/comp folks) forbidden to analyze ("work out the semiotic codes of") literary texts now that "we've" overturned their primacy (the canon, the individual author, etc.)? Must we, as rhet scholars, also create binary oppositions by only analyzing "rhetorical texts" outside the realm of the poetic? I mean, of course, no one is going to say we can't take on (or "apply discourse theory to") literary texts, but going to college in the late 80's and 90's, I began to assume that social-epistemic rhetors were not interested in the "poetic"--or that, if they were, these sorts of analyses were nothing one could publish.

I'm hoping Donna will share some thoughts here, since I know she also comes from a lit-interpreting / creative writing background. Was there a time in which a grad school mentor nudged you beyond the poetic, or was it that other rhetorical texts (those of labor, management, etc.) hailed you--as you've said--away from focusing on "sacred texts" in your English studies? Really, I'm asking this of everyone, since most of us have "found our way" to rhet-comp (I know Court mentioned this, and that Faith, David and others--myself included--are creative writers who came from a "poetic" background en route to rhetoric).

I have other thoughts on Berlin's appropriation of the poststructural, but I'd say this post has gone on long enough. I'll add more tomorrow. . .