I am extracting a discussion from a previous post because it brings up a separate topic that is important to me.
An astute anonymous commenter said this in response this post:
"Mentioning going to hell may be potentially professionally damaging; writing the article may have been also if it was that dangerous mixture of pop culture and religion--both fairly marginalized. You are likely "getting away with" the religious topic in the first place because you are so firmly grounded in literature that has its own uncontested place in the current non-canonical canon."
And my response was:
"It is easier to address religion in Southern literature because regionalism implies otherness and if religion can be examined as the culture of an "other" it is easier for academics to take."
I am going to have to think about this and about my place in religious/cultural studies. In response to my diss proposal, my advisor asked me whether my project was about Southern women or about religion. Good question. (yes, I am dodging the discussion of othering the South and religion for now)
Am I marginalizing myself by studying religion and culture or is the growing interest in religion among some respected scholars enough to "legitimize" my work? For that matter, is it risky to work on "contemporary" writers--combining the problem of the fluid definition of "contemporary" and the task of deciding for myself which writers deserve critical attention (Alice Walker--safe, but what about Sheri Reynolds?). On the job market I have several options for identifying my field--the most useful being 20th c. American literature, but also including gender studies, cultural studies, religion and literature, and Southern literature. My advisor believes that using my dissertation to define myself as a scholar of Southern literature will be beneficial. All of these are major concerns and I don't know what the answers are--or even how to usefully articulate the questions.
Would an essay on Bobble Head Jesus actually damage my career? I am planning an essay in the next semester that serves a dual purpose--fulfilling a women's studies requirement outside of my discipline and contributing to my diss research--about how Evangelical religion shapes our notions of motherhood and the political ramifications of that ideal. I would like it to be a publishable article. Surely that topic is safe and demonstrates my commitment to interdisciplinarity?
It's bad enough to have to deal with the pressure to publish without the added stress of wondering if those publications send the wrong (wrong to "them" not to me) messages about my work. Or should I just be true to myself and write what I think is important and trust that everything will work out?
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8 comments:
Here's to hoping that the marginal can successfully challenge the mainstream and add some theoretical diversity (ha ha) to the rather stale, predictable current trends!! I used to believe it could happen. I still hope in my better moments. I've got some of the same issues with being marginalized--both with the theories I favor and the way I define the period I study. Love the interdisciplinarity--I try for it, too, again with mixed results. So kudos! We are the scholars who will make the next round of scholarship trends interesting. And who knows what our offspring (biological and pedagogical) will do?~
Wow. This is really, really weird to me, because I've just never heard of religion being a marginalized topic. But then, I'm a medievalist. Religion is BIG. And a very mainstream in my field. But I also have an Americanist friend who studies American religion (19th c.). It just never occurred to me that this would be marginal. I think you have to be true to you and write what works for you.
"about how Evangelical religion shapes our notions of motherhood and the political ramifications of that ideal"
wow. I don't even know where to begin.
----
Ha! I had the same reaction New Kid did. I was like "hey, religion isn't marginal", but then, I'm a medievalist, too. It's in the air...not unlike the South I would dare venture.
Having lived in the South for the past 9 years (though I'm a confirmed Yankee myself), I don't know how anyone could deny that religion is just integral to the Southern identity, whether one is actually practicing religious or not.
Have you read any George Marsden on Am. religious history? (I'm trying to think if he's done anything on the South specifically...I'm only familiar with him from the side). And, of course, there's Eugene Genovese, who i'm sure must have something interesting to say. (I only have a skirting knowledge of the area, since my undergrad history dept was big into Am. religious history).
It makes sense that religion would be integral to medieval studies, and there's a ton of work on religion in the works of Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy. But studies of contemporary literature tend to avoid religion or mention it in passing, or articles are printed in very specialized journals like Religion and Literature or Christianity and Literature. Or it is again "othered" in some way--relegated to the traditions and customs of a particular minority culture, which seems even then to avoid questions of faith and belief. Studying the history of religion seems like a very different project from trying to write about what is currently happening around us. But, as I mentioned, a lot of essays have come out in the past several years that have asserted the need for scholars to stop avoiding the issue and face up to the presense of religion in our culture right now. With the current political climate, things have picked up because the prominence of religion in American culture and politics is unavoidable.
Follow your heart and what you know as a woman in your writings. There are things that need to be put down on paper no matter what critics think. Thanks for sending me the link. MRF
Another paradox is that it is more acceptable to discuss some religions than others. I notice that even here the word "Christianity" doesn't quite appear. And even more specifically, what medievalists discuss when they mention religion is very different from what Sarah is proposing. There also doesn't seem to be the same opposition to Islamic literature specialists or Judaism in literature because of the status of these groups as traditionally underrepresented, marginalized, or oppressed. And it's certainly good to see mis- or underrepresented groups made more visible. But as Sarah suggests, these examples are discussed culturally, as "others," many times to an implied audience that is not of this culture or belief system. Perhaps the question becomes why religion is marginalized--because Christianity has been mainstream, or because belief is illogical? (I feel like Mr. Spock.)
Another factor is the perspective one takes on religion. Analyzing the faults of a mainstream belief system is probably safer than seeming to sympathize with one. Some "scholars" (I use the term loosely) take religious studies in the opposite direction, as anyone who has been to a C. S. Lewis conference can tell you. This does not help the perception of religious studies in the academy. *Hint: If the conference schedule includes reference to a conference-wide "worship service," run screaming! It will not help your professional development or your vita!
Clarification:
When I say "religious studies" in the anonymous post above, I mean "Christian/religious literary criticism" (a term that, as far as I know, does not exist). I am not venturing into the realm of religious studies, though I hope someday to have a M.A. in Catholic theology to accompany my Ph.D. in English (in a perfect world...).
And religion as sociology is, to me, a bit different from discussion of belief, but that's neither here nor there...
Of course, religious studies does not exist as a (well-funded) department in many, many universities. And what was that about (state? federal?) public money being pulled from someone who wanted to study religion? Or was it theology?
Last anonymous--that's what I was going to say. Except for the Catholic theology, of course. Thanks.
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