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Comparative Literature as a Cultural PracticeAuthor(s): Mary Louise PrattSource: Profession, (1986), pp. 33-35Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25595388

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COMPARATIVELITERATUREAS A CULTURAL PRACTICE

THE wordpractice appears in thetitle f these remarksas a reminder that comparative literature is somethingpeople do rather hansomethingthatsimply s, nd thatconsequently it iswhat people make it.The word culturalappears in order to bring into focus comparative literature's identity as one of the mechanisms for producingculture and cultural consciousness in this society.Comparative literaturestypicallydentifiedncontrastwith thestudy f individualnational literatures.ften itis seenas a discipline that liberatesthescholar fromtheconfines of pettynationalisms. The invitation omajorin comparative literature at Berkeley, for instance,promises to enable undergraduates "to escape a certaingeographic, linguistic,nd chronological isolationwhichis the lotof thosewhose literaryxperience is limitedtotheir own nation, language, and time." One can readilysee how national literary studies are tied inwith other institutions and apparatuses for creating national culture,nationalism, and national consciousness. In comparativeliterature, one might expect to find an apparatus for creating internationalism, international culture, and international consciousness. Iwould argue, however, that this isnot the case. Rather, comparative literature as itnow exists isprimarily oriented toward creating a European Continentalism, Continental culture, and Continentalistconsciousness.In crudely ideological terms, heexistence of culturalapparatuses shaped by nationalism is easily understood.The nation-state is a modern reality, and competitionamong nation-states shapes and runs the industrial world.Nation-states develop all manner of discursive formationstomake themselves real to their populaces and to securethe allegiance, or at least the identification, of theirpopulaces. They develop elaborate dialogues aroundquestions of national self-understanding, self-criticism,and self-transformation. There is little doubt that suchfactors hape literarytudy,with its nstitutional ase inthe national literatures.

Though not often as pressing, Continentalism is asmuch a reality as nationalism. In the socioeconomicsphere, the emergence of modern society in the nineteenthcentury is a transnational and in fact Continental processinEurope, since Europe's hegemony was asserted over therest of the globe. In the cultural and academic spheres,one finds national knowledges and discourses coexistingwith Continentalist constructs likeWestern culture, natural history, normal science, the baroque, Christianity(here my concerns clearly connect with Jonathan Culler's), skepticism, or even world's fairism.

European Continentalism, I would argue, also motivates comparative literature as a cultural practice and an

Mary Louise Prattinstitution. Thus comparative literature's center has been,and continues to be, the European canons at the Continental level, often with a particular emphasis on theMiddle Ages and the enaissance, periods antedatingtheemergence of the modern nation-states. Even the literature f theUnited Stateshas verylittle resence incomparative literature circles, and transcontinental comparinghas traditionallynvolved he classical" (aContinentalistword) Asian literatures in Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit,or Hebrew. Needless to say, these literatures are points onthe comparative compass not because they are part ofwhatwe now call theThirdWorld butbecause theyrepresent what are recognized as Europe's fellow highcivilizations?refined, ancient, and classical, though inmodern times equals no longer. Indeed, orientalism, asSaid has described ittous {Orientalism,New York:Random, 1978), can be thoughtof as European projectionthatreflects uropean Continentalism back onto itself.

Continentalism explains why comparative literature,while rejectingliterary ationalisms, tendstoadopt theusual exclusionary trategies ith respect o the iteraturesof today'scolonial and postcolonial societies. selectivemultinationalism has emerged in recent years, admittinga few specific Latin American, African, or Caribbeanwriters onto the agenda (one thinks of Garcia Marquez,Achebe, theNaipaul brothers),butnothing intheway ofa consciously global perspective has emerged. It is interesting to note that these few canonized non-Europeanfigures are read in theWest not as representatives of national literatures but rather as individual geniuses or asrepresentatives of other continents.

Comparative literature, I have been suggesting, developed as theContinentalist armof literary tudy nwhatiscalled theWest. This suggestioncan help account forsome of the internal eculiaritiesof thediscipline, threeofwhich come immediatelytomind. The first eculiarity is that comparative literature everywhere survives butdoes not really thrive. In academies tied very closely tothe needs of nation-states, the national patrimony takes

precedence over the comparatist endeavor, and indeed ittakes primacy: comparative literature programs in thiscountry are often dependencies of English departments.

The author isAssociate Professor of Spanish and Portugueseand Comparative Literature at Stanford University.

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A second peculiarity is theambiguous statusof translation. On the one hand, comparative literature has provedan ideal place to study or translate. At the universitywhere I teach, one-fifth of the comparative literature dissertations have been on this topic. On the other hand,working or teachingwith translations is often frownedon by comparatists. Thus, where I teach, the comparative literatureprogram has traditionally not listedliterature-in-translation courses. Evidently, there exists asense thatdespite thepossibilities of comparison, theauthenticityof each literature s inseparablybound upwith itsnational language. (This idea, incidentally,s simply inoperative for the literatures fmany neocolonialcountrieswheremultilingualismisthenormand themainliterary language is that of a conqueror and is nobody'snative tongue.)A third eculiarityisthatcomparative literature often becomes a domain for theory, while the national ("home") literatureot onlydoes notbut, indeed,oftenremainshostile to theory.his isperhapsone of theclearest indexes we have of the critical and relativizingpowers of theory. The tendency, it seems, is for the homeliterature obe held as local knowledge, preferablynotopen to the denaturing interrogations of theory. Comparative literature s not buttressed inquite thisway.While more traditional comparatists complain of thevacuousness of theory, others find its generalizing powersjust what they need.Whatever its peculiarities, comparative literature's situation does not seem tobe especially comfortablerightnow. As a field it is growing very slowly, perhaps even

stagnating, ven though interdisciplinaryork in literarystudies is thriving and growing at an extraordinary pace.Many people have spoken of the recent flourishing of interdisciplinary scholarship, of the decentering of canons,of the way the institutional spaces of literary study areproviding a home for interpretive orms f philosophical, historical, anthropological, and linguistic scholarshipbeingdrivenout of traditional epartments yobjectivistand statisticalknowledges thatno longerfeeltheneed tocoexist with anything else. Should comparative literatureattempt to embrace these developments as fully as possible, at theriskof relinquishingthespecificity nd coherence it has had as a discipline? Should it ratherreaffirm and perhaps even sharpen its focus on the European and thepurely literary,t the riskofwinding upan anachronism? In some places, comparative literaturewill become, orwill remain, the institutionalhome forwhat might be called the cultural conservative arm of interdisciplinaryesearch,maintaining thecentralityf thecanon, the concept of Western culture as a historical entity,nd theprinciple of high art. In suchplaces itwillexist in tension and, one hopes, in dialogue with othertrends, as well as with national literature projects. The"other trends"?interdisciplinary work linked with thehumanistic social sciences, mass and popular culture, thehistory of discourses, and cultures outside Europe?willfind r develop other institutionalformations.Now, for

instance, the expanding area of international studieslooks verypromising to comparatists interested ndeveloping a global perspective on literature and culture.Such a divided scenario is surely not necessary, however.One can readily imagine comparative literature programsworking in cooperation with international studies programs todevelop cultural studiesor dividing themselvesintodifferenttracks,one ofwhich would be the traditional Continentalist project.In theconcept of culture itselfthere iesa project ofimmediate significance to comparatists of all stripes. Fortheideaof culture tself rgently eeds tobe revindicated,against accelerating tendencies in contemporary American public life o trivialize rnaturalize culture nd todiscredit criticalknowledge of culture.Anthropology, forinstance, has seen a rapidly expanding biologism that explains (away) culture in terms f genetics or ecologicaladaptation. Cultural manifestations that do not makesense in thisway can simplybe labeledmaladaptive?with the unavoidable suggestion that the society wouldwork betterwithout them.Philosophy and linguisticshave increasinglyeen finding heir ffinitiesnottomention theirfinances)with artificial intelligence, here culturaland sociohistorical dimensions are bracketedout.The growth nd increasinguthority f suchknowledgesat the expense of interpretive knowledge may beconnected with, among other things, shifts towardlegitimating rofit-orientedresearch inuniversities andsimultaneous government demands for policy-orientedwork. They should certainlybe connectedwith thevirtual disappearance from the public sphere of any discourse about quality of life, of any sense that a societyisresponsibleforthe ualityof life or tsmembers. I amtalking here not about a tendency to obliterate culture perse but, rather, about a tendency to obliterate cultural selfconsciousness, to obliterate critical, self-reflective culturalpractices that are comparative in the sense of themost valuable work in comparative literature: they compare whatiswithwhat has been, could be, or (and this s important)is elsewhere.

Technological societies and, more important, militarized societies will certainly appear to their makers to"work" better with a citizenry that lacks such comparative capacities and critical self-awareness. Comparativeliterature,ike therest f thehumanities and humanisticsocial sciences, can contribute toward instilling this selfawareness. As so many commentators have observed,comparative literature has, for instance, significant potential for looseningup thebreathtaking ethnocentrism fcontemporary American society. So far, this is a potential few comparative literature programs have seriouslyundertaken to realize. Most seem to remain focused onthe Eurocentric and classical modes Imentioned earlier.Little progresshas beenmade towarddeveloping globalperspectives, despite the pressing need for them.

Along with other forms of literary study, comparativeliteratureas thepotential for ngagingcritically ith the34

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lived,public cultureof thepresent, the rtisticformsweand our fellow citizens live mong daily.This potential,too, is far frombeing realized.When it omes towhat isderisively called mass or popular culture, literary scholars tend to be guilty of the same tendencies to naturalizeor trivialize I earlier attributed to some social scientists.

Much of what makes up contemporary culture is trivialized as entertainment or fashion or naturalized as themere manipulation of appetites, as something transparent and depressingly unproblematic. Such attitudes obviously reflect assumptions about "the masses"themselves. Academics tend to assume that traditionalliterary training will enable us to grasp contemporary

mass-art forms, empowering us to treat or dismiss massculture as a self-evident known. Many academics interpret Rambo, for instance, as a movie that "the masses"will receive as a straightforward praise song for militarization and violence. Such reductiveness misses manyforms f signification twork inthefilm,many of themparodic, many of them also deeply disturbing and verymuch inneed of criticalreception. uch receptionshouldhave a place inthe cademy. Likewise, there sverylittleacademic study of how mass-culture forms produce arunning interpretive commentary on national life. Toknow that agnum P.I. iscoming togripswith thehistory of Vietnam, that Harlequin romances are interpreting shiftsin thegender system,or thatMiami Vice is

working out discourses on race1 is not to know howtheseissuesarebeingworked out,what kindofnationalself-understanding they are projecting. Surely these thingsare worth knowing. And surely the literary academy's unwillingness to engage them helps make the accusation oftriviality and manipulativeness a self-fulfilling one.

The hands-off attitude of intellectuals toward contemporary public culture may well be one of the reasons whythe entertainment industry is now elevated to the statusof full-fledgedfficialculture, longwith various formsof elite, nonintellectual consumption. I refer,most conspicuously,to thecurrentpresidential style; to the flowof stars and starlets through theWhite House; to the corresponding absence of intellectuals, scholars, or writersof any kind; to the aggressive use of the movies as an in

terpretiveniverse thepresident uotingClint Eastwoodratherthan, say,Winston Churchill); to the increasingpresence ofmedia personalities on ballots (ClintEastwood as the new mayor of Carmel, California). Readerswill perhaps remember astyear'svisitbyPrince Charlesand Princess Diana as one of themost carefully orchestrateddisplays of thisnew official culture (whichhadfailedmiserably theyear beforewith thequeen). Itwasall summedup perhaps inthenationally publicized guestlist f thehundredpeople invited o thegala dinner-ballhighlightingthevisit. Scholars, writers, cademics, andintellectuals f anykindwere replaced by chefs, interiordecorators, fashion designers, popular musicians, andmovie stars. Initially the list strikes one as a symptom ofofficial indifference o intellectuals,theacademy, andcritical culture. ut itmay well indicate the pposite. Thelist, or rather its conspicuous national publication, is alsoa gesturedirected t consolidatingan officialculturethatexists outside the purview of the academy and of criticalcultural consciousness.My pointhere isnot that eople should stopdoing theirresearch nd startwriting lettersr sendinglists f goodbooks to theWhite House. Ido suggest, owever, hatwe

literary scholars would do well to encourage, rather thandevalue, cultural work engaged with the present, with ongoing shifts in culture and with challenges to thelegitimacy f critical culturalknowledge.Comparatists,Iwould argue, would do well to encourage rather than devalue cultural work that relinquishes Continentalism andengages with the current global organization of theworldand of culture in the world. Decentering the Continentalist project can broaden enormously our capacity tocomparewhat isherewithwhat has been and withwhatis elsewhere. I see this as one of the openings now for comparative literature where "escaping" the constraints of national literatures could mean something of great andimmediate value.

NOTE11owe these examples toKathleen Newman and theTabloidcollective.

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