An example of a master narrative would be the theory of Spanish culture / hisotry of Américo Castro.
Each "pueblo" has a historical destiny:
"La historia es, ante todo, la conexión de valores en que un articula su existencia; su realidad se hace presente en la expresión temporal y geográfica de sus dimensiones valiosas."
Pueblos have "morada vital," a vital dwelling place.
In the case of Spain, the historical destiny has to do with certain consequences of the reconquista and of he place of the "cristianos nuevos" in Spain. He derives all of Spanish literature from this principle, so it become very important to view certain canonical writers are descendants of the conversos (converted Jews). I've seen this even brought to the twentieth century, with Juan Goytisolo and José Ángel Valente. Valente, I was told, tried to find out at one point if he was Jewish and was disappointed he was not. Basically, many of the great writers like San Juan, Cervantes, Rojas, Fray Luis, had to be converted Jews (or their descendants). This was a key to understanding their ideology.
The cristianos viejos are obsessed with honor because they have to prove "limpieza de sangre," or absence of Jewish descent. So honor, a key concept in Spanish literature, is derived from Spanish history.
Castro had many disciples in the US, like Stephen Gilman at Harvard. I don't think he is as influential now, as much, but he marked the field in many ways. I think the way I learned to read La Celestina or Libro de Buen Amor is marked by his theories, so in some sense they gave a certain shape to hispanism in general, even for readers who didn't follow all the details closely.
If you deny the theory of Castro, you might seem to be denying the influence of Jews and Muslims on Spanish history. Castro's theory might seem progressive and multicultural, then. Yet I also find it full of special and pleasing and circular logic. For example, we first decide that a canonical author is a converso, and then read the work in that key, and then use the reading of the work as evidence that the author is a converso. Of course, you could say that's just the typical hermeneutic circle at work.
I am suspicious of the theory, not because I disagree with the idea of the influence of Jews and Arabs, but because it is stretched to explain things it cannot possibly explain. It is too much of a master narrative.
10 comments:
This of course would be a really interesting article to write.
Also, I now want to read this book of his (note that it's Sebold's copy in the PDF!) and compare it to current curricula.
file:///Users/Leslie/Downloads/lengua-ensenanza-y-literatura--esbozos.pdf
The essay on the organización actual de las facultades de letras starts on p. 199 and was originally published 1920. It should be translated and put into the PMLA as a Document, people will be very amused. Society does not support lo universitario, he says, and it supports Letras least of all. We are a "trozo negro como boca de lobo."
...the public only supports medicine and law, which are trade schools, and it does not recognize letters and science, or filosofía y letras; professors of literature have absolutely no prestige
...a woman who fell in love with a man, and then discovered he was a professor of (ancient) Greek, would be horrified
...but this is understandable given that Spanish universities are so bad and so lacking atmosphere, that they produce nothing except frivolous and substance-free licencias and doctorados
...in civilized countries, England, France and Germany, a professor of Greek or Chinese is valued, and can keep women, but Spain, which isn't even a producer of practical things, is only interested in mundane material items, not the spirit, the arts, etc. Triste Epaña sin ventura and all that.
At the turn of the 20th century a student of letras at U Madrid (I believe it was there, I am reading fast) had to study latin, greek, arabic and hebrew, but there weren't faculty who actually knew these languages very well, so they were taught things about the languages but not the languages themselves. So the lack of prestige is deserved, although Spain wouldn't appreciate a good faculty either, really
Modern languages are not studied in Spain, so a modern author like Dante or Molière cannot be studied
The *faculty*, even very smart professors, never complain about the horrible state of things, and this is one of the serious problems. They really need to adjust curriculum to the modern world and also to the strengths of the faculty, but instead they accept to be ruled by a ridiculous and out of date program which, as we have already seen, is not supported financially (university does not make the hires it would need to teach the program it announces and requires)
Faculty members do not talk to each other. Each one hides in his office with the students they are tutoring to pass their courses. But they do not think in terms of a program, do not think about the relationship their course has to the others, or to secondary school courses, do not think about the major as such, only about their course.
They never modernize their courses, and they don't even announce the topics. And they do a terrible job teaching Spanish. As a result, students have difficulty reading the classics of their own language. And they don't know how to write anything but letters, so they are outright handicapped for writing.
There is no organization or plan and it is easy to pass exams in the first year if you have memorized the manual of Spanish literature by Fitzmaurice Kelly. You do not have to read any literature, or analyze it, or write anything -- just recite Fitzmaurice Kelly on an oral exam.
***Only a mentally ill person would sign up for such a bad program*** !!!
At an oral exam on India and Spencer the students were mute, did not know where India was or who Spencer was, and it was because they had not actually studied these things but memorized lines from a manual with no contextualization or depth
Students don't even know how to learn, they pass courses by repeating whatever vulgar cliché the professor in question likes
***The library has no books of interest and is always closed, but administrators make very high salaries for fictitious work***
So the actual structure of the program is effectively designed to produce stupidity
Again, it's the faculty's fault because they go along with it all and do not complain
Many faculty justify inaction by saying they are not there to do new things or produce new knowledge, but to teach
It's a degree mill that even its graduates do not respect. So the university neither teaches nor delights, so what is it even there for?
The end. Hahahaha!
Post a Comment