Speaker: Christine A. Knoop @Christine
Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
Title: Entering the Curriculum. Teaching Scientific Approaches at Literature Departments
Abstract (long version below): This paper discusses if and how the scientific study of literature can become part of standard curricula at literature departments. Using the example of German universities, the paper first looks at the extent to which the scientific study of literature already forms part of such curricula. Further, it examines ways in which other disciplines turned empirical, how this process gradually translated to the curricula and teaching practice, and if and how this might be adaptable to the field of literature. Lastly, the paper discusses different positions and teaching formats for the future of the scientific study of literature.
Long abstract
The scientific study of literature holds many challenges for young researchers, ranging from the acquisition of methodological know-how to the identification of appropriate interdisciplinary cooperation and suitable research outlets. Many of these challenges go back to more systemic issues: to date, the scientific study of literature rarely forms part of academic curricula in literary studies, which prevents the emergence of young academics specifically trained in empirical theory and methodology, let alone empirical theory and methodology that is tailored to literature. As a result, acquiring the necessary knowledge to embark on scientific approaches to literature often remains an autodidactic endeavor that one embarks upon after graduation and at a substantial personal career risk. In reverse, literary scholars who do work empirically often have very limited possibilities to teach empirical approaches to literature at university, as the latter often do not fit with the required departmental curriculum, or entail too much prior expertise on the part of both the students and the teachers.
Analysis/ Discussion
As a largely theoretical contribution, this paper reflects on ways in which empirical literary studies might be included in university curricula in literary studies, using the example of Germany.
- In a first step, the paper investigates the state of the field. The data on which this analysis is based were derived from a review of literature departments at all German universities (German, English, American, and Romance studies, as well as General and Comparative Literature).
a) To what extent does the scientific study of literature already figure in literature departments at German universities? Does it form part of the curricula, and if so, to what extent and in what formats?
b) To what extent is teaching the scientific study of literature part of network research below or beyond the departmental level (research clusters, project groups) that offer access and training to students and young scientists?
c) What role do training opportunities from outside literary studies play? - In a second step, the paper presents ways in which other disciplines that turned empirical in the 20th century, namely systematic musicology, economics and psychology, have gone about integrating scientific theory and methodology into the training of their students. It reflects on ways in which these examples might help us to implement empirical modules in the curricula of literary studies.
- In a third step, the paper discusses different positions on future directions of our field: Can it offer methodological and theoretical knowledge without compromising the wish to continue transmitting knowledge on literature, its social contexts, histories and material production? Might the field be split institutionally, like systematic and traditional musicology? Will the scientific study of literature stay out or move out of humanities curricula and establish itself as part of psychology and cognitive neuroscience? Or will it, after all, turn more and more empirical as a result of the mounting institutional, political and partly also intellectual pressure to make the humanities more ‘scientific’?
Outlook
Concluding from the analysis and as an outlook, the paper presents a number of possible teaching formats that might represent a first step towards establishing the scientific study of literature in university curricula, with a focus on different types of e-learning for different aspects of the scientific study of literature (synchronous, asynchronous and blended learning, mobile learning, video-based learning, social learning and virtual-reality learning) as well as for the integration of empirical research contexts into running curricula.