politics and academia

Stanley Fish raises some really interesting issues in relation to the separation between literary criticism and political influence, perhaps extending that to the whole academic institution. There seems to be a consensus that the political independence of academia preserves it's progressive ideology by allowing it to be freely leftist without concern for larger political influence. The more problematic aspect of his argument is that he calls for an acceptance of the lack of political influence, and a depoliticized practice of literary criticism. But just because literary criticism is insignificant politically doesn't mean that we should give up the politics of criticism and the underlying ideology of the institution. Again, Fish seems to point to a certain academic neutrality, or isolation from the larger social arena, and even seems to find that a positive attribute that should be embraced. In other words, if I understand this correctly, one should embrace political irrelevance of the discipline because that is the context we are in, and not try to make it into a political discipline.

I understand that we are not going to change the course or the war in Iraq through literary critique and that the White House policies are not influenced by Stanley Fish's latest essay, but that doesn't mean that as literary critics we should not be political and politically active, even within the discipline. One of the purposes of our undisciplinarity is to address the political from within the academic as a way to reconnect it to the larger context, by saying that there is a link, no matter what people might think. There is a link between departmental censorship and intimidation practices and the current regime in the White House. To ignore the political climate we are in would be naive. So gatekeeping shouldn't be to keep politics outside, as though it were some kind of purity that the rest of society lacked. The discipline itself should learn to be messy again, utopian again, and seek influence, even if it is unattainable. To be political is not just to influence the government, it is to become participant in the production of a culture that is politically relevant, even to those in power.