January 29, 1999

On academics writing "gobbledegook"...

Earlier this month the academic journal Philosophy and Literature released the winners of its fourth annual Bad Writing Contest, a contest which "celebrates the most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles published in the last few years." The winners for 1998 were, in the words of the journal's press release, "two of the most popular and influential literary scholars in the U.S.," Judith Butler, professor of rhetoric and comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley, and Homi Bhabha, professor of English at the University of Chicago. Columnists in at least two of Canada's leading newspapers subsequently decried the "obscurantism" and "obfuscation" of current research in the humanities.

There is nothing really new in this. For the past decade or more - at least since the 1988 publication of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind - research in the humanities which takes up questions of gender, race, sexual orientation, or colonialism, or is influenced by poststructuralist theory, has excited a fair bit of media vitriol and hilarity. How is it that research in the humanities, presumably until then the preserve of ineffective tweedy types, became suddenly not only newsworthy but even scandalous? When did self-professedly conservative humanists start writing such irresistible press releases, replete with sound bites?

Is it only serendipity that, in the same week Philosophy and Literature issued its contest results, "Mr. Blackwell," fashion's man-with-no-first-name, released his 39th Annual List of Worst Dressed Women? The top two winners of Blackwell's contest were Linda Tripp ("Linda's bad fashion 'tripp' is beyond debate she looks like a sheepdog in drag, the 'Starr' of her very own 'Stylegate'!") and Madonna ("Mama Madonna has become a Neo Gothic fright, a glitzy gargoyle searching for a 'Ray of Fashion Light'!"). Like Butler and Bhabha, Tripp and Madonna offend against style. I think most of us understand what Blackwell means by style but what is appropriate academic style? If Butler and Bhabha write "stylistically lamentable" books and articles, what does stylistically laudable humanities research look like?

Presumably it looks like the research published in Philosophy and Literature which describes its mandate as "challeng[ing] the cant and pretensions of academic priesthoods by publishing an assortment of lively, wideranging essays, notes, and reviews that are written in clear, jargonfree prose." Its editor "targets the fashions and inanities of contemporary intellectual life" in a regular column. In other words, Philosophy and Literature publishes work which is stylish rather than merely fashionable, elegant rather than excessive - a kind of intellectual basic black with pearls.

Appearances, however, can be deceiving and clear prose is as handy a vehicle for misrepresentation as the "pretentious, turgid academic prose" the journal finds so deplorable. In its latest issue, for example (October 1998), Philosophy and Literature published "Queries for Postcolonial Studies" by the well-regarded critic Ihab Hassan. Hassan caricatures postcolonial and other poststructuralist intellectuals by relating a "tribal" history whereby the New Critics of the 1940s and 1950s are overthrown by the phenomenologists and structuralists of the 1960s, who in turn are superseded by the deconstructionists of the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, in this self-heroizing myth of self-becoming, "feminist, ethnic, postcolonial, and cultural studies came to the rescue." The point Hassan wants to make is "a self-congratulatory myth of progress informs criticism in the era of cultural wars."

Hassan's prose is clear but he uses it to misrepresent, by oversimplifying, a 50- year history of literary and cultural criticism. He also uses it to accuse postcolonial and poststructuralist critics of "tribal" self-interest, another term for what the editor of Philosophy and Literature calls "academic priesthoods." A recent column in the Edmonton Journal makes a similar point. The columnist asks "Why do so many academics write such gobbledegook?" and she suggests "in part, it's simple snobbery. By writing in a complex language only specialists can understand, they exclude the rest of us."

This is to impugn a very odd motive to humanities researchers. Unlike mathematicians, say, who use symbols only specialists can understand because those symbols represent complex and abstract ideas efficiently, humanists use complex language in order to mystify the general public. The truth is, many scholars in the humanities are drawn to these paradigms and schools of thought - deconstruction, feminism, postcolonialism - not because they carry the dazzling allure of obfuscating complexity, but because they are explanatory. These schools of thought help us answer certain kinds of questions which seem to us important now.

The New Criticism, which replaced an older, simpler literary history model, helped to answer a specific set of historically contingent questions: What is the function of poetry in a changing world, a world in which global warfare is omnipresent? How does poetry create its effects and what is the social use of those effects? Deconstruction, feminism, postcolonialism help us answer a different set of questions which grow out of a postindustrial, global world economy: Who participates in meaning-making? What "counts" as literature or art and how does it circulate? And, just as the New Critics' emphasis on prosody and ambiguity seemed like gobbledegook to many of us who struggled with it as undergraduates, so the new languages of criticism seem prohibitive to many readers today.

The humanities have been on the political and media hot seat for more than a decade, and in ways other academic disciplines have not. While this can be unsettling, it can also be useful. It is no bad thing to rehearse, for ourselves and for the broader public, where we are and how we got here. As Francis Bacon pointed out in 1605, such a rehearsal "will make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning." Women, too.

And who gets credit for the writing

Has this ever happened to you? A master's student, Jane Doe (not her real name), was asked by the departmental secretary to return some typing to Jane's supervisor, Professor Airmiles. Glancing at the page, Jane noticed it contained an abstract for an upcoming conference in Honolulu and, on her "second take," noticed the title was that of Jane's thesis project. Jane's name did not appear on the abstract but some of the results reported therein were from her work.

The above fictional (really!) scenario is presented as a means of introducing the question of authorship, especially as it may apply to graduate students (or research associates or post-doctoral fellows). In reality, this article could end here with reference to section 7.6 (Intellectual Property Policies - Guidelines for Authorship) of the research policies and services manual to be found at: www.ualberta/ca~univhall/vp/vprea/re_ser/repol176.htm. This Web site makes further reference to other authorship issues described in the University of Alberta Research and Scholarship Integrity Policy to be found in section 96 of the General Faculties Council policy manual at: www.ualberta.ca/~unisecr/policy/sec96.html#2.

However, it is probably a healthy sign and safe assumption that most graduate students do not routinely review the various University of Alberta policy documents. Hence, it is worthwhile to mention there are at least three points which might have been helpful to Jane. Let's take a look at them.

There are three key criteria generally accepted for authorship and they are (see first reference, above): 1) All authors should have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, analysis, or interpretation of data; 2) They should have been involved in writing and revising the manuscript for intellectual content; and 3) They should have approved the final draft and be able to defend the published paper.

In alignment with the above points, departments are encouraged to establish their own guidelines because it is not possible to have a firm policy governing all disciplines. Departments should communicate such accepted guidelines and practices for authorship to staff and students. For example, in the case of research involving graduate students, it could be recommended that supervisors discuss aspects of authorship at the outset of the student's program. Such discussions could include the topics of criteria for authorship, order of authors, and the timing of the publication of findings from the thesis research.

Equally important, graduate students should not strictly rely on their department or supervisor to furnish information or to ensure guidelines and policies are observed. The departmental graduate student coordinator and/or senior graduate students represent a source of guidance and assistance. Additionally, the Graduate Students' Association and departmental graduate student organizations could provide an orientation for new graduate students and include a briefing regarding this issue.

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