Theory Face-off: Two Professors Debate Critical Approaches
They called it "The Great Debate." In mid-February, two Ohio State English Department heavy-weights came together to defend their theoretical stances toward literature, with Dr. James Phelan in the corner of rhetorical criticism and Dr. Aman Garcha in the corner of a historicist approach. For weeks after, the debate had repercussions in the hallways of Denney Hall, on the English Department listserv, and in the new Project Narrative blog.
The Contenders
Aman Garcha received his Ph.D. in English from Columbia University, and has published on Dickens's early work, on nineteenth-century print and media studies, and on Jane Austen. His book, From Sketch to Novel: A Theory of Victorian Fiction (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press) focuses on Victorian novelists' early experimentation with non-narrative forms and the integration of these plotless sketches into novels.
James Phelan, Humanities Distinguished Professor, is the first person in the history of the English Department to be awarded both the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award (2007) and the Distinguished Scholar Award (2004). He is the author of five books of narrative theory, the most recent of which is Experiencing Fiction: Judgments, Progressions, and the Rhetorical Theory of Narrative (2007).
The Debate
Garcha starts the debate with a treatise supporting a historicist approach to narrative. He begins with definitions: while rhetorical criticism "locates a text's meaning internally," a historicist approach looks at "history...the temporal, geographical, and cultural differences between the critic's immediate circumstances and those in which the text was created and/or published." A historicist approach is better, Garcha contends, because it is "far more able to capture, help us analyze, and produce knowledge about the phenomena of literary consumption and production" since "human experience is always historically, culturally situated."
Garcha points out that it was Phelan who started this. In his Experiencing Fiction, Phelan contends that "literary narratives' rhetorical features can and do produce similar readerly experiences in different people and across a wide range of historical circumstances," and cites the shared pleasure of the marriage of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy at the end of Pride and Prejudice. Garcha takes this to task, arguing that the examples Phelan gives as "shared experience" are too generalized and abstract and that the abstraction of experience, ironically, reveals the circumstances under which the book was written—the circumstances of modern academia.
Garcha claims Phelan's definition of experience "is simplistic and vague...the flattening of experience is actually part of institutional, academic reading." Garcha closes with this final statement about his preferred approached: "Historicism opens the door to a higher degree of critical self-reflexivity so that we can become aware of the particularity of—and intellectual distortions inherent in—our positions as reader in academia in the 21st century."
When it's Phelan's turn, he thanks the audience for showing up, even if it's only for the spectacle of the "Non-celebrity Death Match." Phelan begins by pointing out that he is not anti-historicist and that he sees historicist and rhetorical approaches as complementary. After developing this point, he also notes that sometimes the approaches may conflict with each other, and he explains why he favors the rhetorical approach at those times.
"I am not Elizabeth Bennet," says Phelan, "nor was meant to be." Both approaches, Phelan contends, view the text as "other." Both acknowledge that authors write for audiences unique to their historical and cultural milieu. And both use techniques from the other: "the rhetorician can learn things about what is reflected in the text's construction from the historicist; and the historicist can learn things about a text's specific take on a historical event or cultural discourse from the rhetorician." So when do conflicts arise?
In Phelan's view, they arise when historicists make what he regards as excessive claims for history's agency. "In the meaning-making process," Phelan argues. "History shapes the conditions of textual production but it does not have the agency to determine textual design....If the forces of history act through individuals with such power as Aman posits acting in my case," Phelan continues, "then all texts in a given period should be roughly similar in most of their salient characteristics."
Phelan believes rhetorical criticism can better explain why a text is one way and not another. And he believes that, as far as experience is concerned, "the goal of rhetorical theory is to give us articulate knowledge of the multilayered but often inchoate quality of our experience, and thereby to give us better access to and increased appreciation for that experience."
The Aftermath
After the debate in 311 Denney Hall, the conversation moved to the English Department listserv, where other scholars offered their two cents' worth. The likes of Professors Richard Dutton, James Fredal, and Wendy Hesford joined the fray, and Professors Garcha and Phelan clarified, extended, and defended their arguments. Some of the resulting emails can be found on the Project Narrative blog (see link below).
The Sponsor
Established in 2006, Project Narrative sponsors activities and events that focus on stories of all sorts. The Project approaches narrative as a lingua franca that can bring together students and faculty from across the arts and sciences. An audio of the debate, as well as written statements from Garcha and Phelan, and postings from the aftermath, can be found in the Project Narrative blog: http://projectnarrative.wordpress.com/.
