[csaa-forum] Rebecca and the beach

Thu Aug 12 10:47:12 CST 2004

G¹day Jason

Thanks for this. I have some similar concerns to yours. I am not sure what
pro-Enlightenment means, but I certainly teach courses that see the
Enlightenment (at least in its Œscience¹ mode) as being valuable and
significant in the human story. And certainly, I regard myself as working in
cultural studies. 

Anyway, I would like a copy of your screen aesthetics course outline.

On the question of time, I would have to disagree. In this university, 35%
of the staff are academics, 65% are non-academics. I have little time for
research, which I really enjoy.

best

Errol Vieth
-- 

> dr errol vieth
> senior lecturer, film  & communication
> school of contemporary communication
> building 19, room 3.06
> central queensland university
> rockhampton qld 4702
> australia 
> 
> t +61 7 4930 9501
> f +61 7 4930 9729
> e e.vieth at cqu.edu.au
> url http://www.infocom.cqu.edu.au/Staff/Errol_Vieth/
> 

From: Jason Jacobs <j.jacobs at griffith.edu.au>
Reply-To: CSAA discussion list <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 10:36:54 +1000
To: CSAA discussion list <csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] Rebecca and the beach

Thanks to Catherine for her robust response. Of course social and historical
conditions are important, as my own work makes clear; I was objecting
sarcastically to what I see as a banal tendency to praise and celebrate
cultural works for being what they cannot help but be - products of their
time. We shouldn't limit ourselves, our teaching and criticism to simply
delineating social and historical conditions: knowing the time and place of
something is a blunt little tool when confronted with, say, the brilliance
of Agnes Moorhead in The Magnificent Ambersons, or why one episode of the
Sopranos is more successful than another, or in accounting for the power and
impact of the first movement of the Eroica.

I understand why, in the present environment my claims seem strange. I think
there is a knee-jerk response to evaluative criticism that seems to think it
is about claiming that art works have  *this much* importance and *this
much* achievement and therefore belong at *this* position in the critical
hierarchy. But evaluative criticism is not a court of law. It is a
contribution to a debate that anyone may question - indeed cultural studies
has shown that questioning hierarchies and canons is pretty much its bread
and butter - without intervention from the cultural police!

I have no investment in absolute aesthetic value, whatever that is, and
Adorno was probably one of the greatest mystics of the last century
(remember this populist claimed that the only way to 'listen' to music is to
read it in silence!); if anyone has any illusions about the theoretical
power of Adorno I recommend reading the first chapter of Istvan Meszaroz's
The Power of Ideology.

If anyone can find a scholar working in cultural studies who is pro-human,
pro-Enlightenment, and anti-relativist, I'll eat my words.

Finally, to return to the original topic, it is truly astonishing that
anyone working in academia should complain about their time. I cannot think
of another profession where we have so much flexibility in organising our
time. About from fixed venues, like teaching and meetings, the time - 24hrs
- is ours to organise, plus we get a significant amount of time during the
long vacations (even longer I think in the UK). There are many things wrong
with contemporary higher education - the degradation of standards, the
assault on the integrity of academic judgement etc - but time is hardly one
of them. 

Jason 

PS: if anyone wants a copy of my Screen Aesthetics course outline I'll
happily send it.  

Dr Jason Jacobs
Senior Lecturer
School of Arts, Media and Culture
Griffith University
Nathan Campus
Queensland 4111
Australia
Phone: (07) 3875 5164
Fax: (07) 3875 7730

Catherine Driscoll <catherine.driscoll at arts.usyd.edu.au>
Sent by: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au 11/08/2004 04:40 PM
Please respond to CSAA discussion list

        To:        CSAA discussion list <csaa-forum at darlin.cdu.edu.au>
        cc:        
        Subject:        Re: [csaa-forum] Rebecca and the beach

What a strange set of claims.

Relativism arrogantly claims to have all the answers, while claims that
particular works are just without question excellent does not, apparently,
make any claim to have the answers. By association at the very least, all
theorists not used by you are theoretically bankrupt mystics even when they
would clearly share your concerns about relativism and your investment in
absolute aesthetic value (as Adorno would). All these bankrupt mystics are
also clearly, by your blanket assertion, "anti-human, anti-Enlightenment,
anti-reason, anti-judgement and pro-relativist", as are all of us with the
temerity to notice that our students are often much more comfortable with
generalisations and transcendent human "truths" than they are with
acknowledging that what we see and hear is constructed by social and
historical conditions.

I, for one, would be most interested in seeing this curriculum.

Best wishes,
Catherine

At 03:01 PM 11/08/2004 +1000, you wrote:

>I don't buy the story that before the meteor of cultural studies clarified
>everything humanities teaching and research was a theoretical Jurassic
>forest, full of nasty creatures. In fact cultural studies today is every
>bit as ideologically naive as what came before. Today the ideology is
>this: anti-human, anti-Enlightenment, anti-reason, anti-judgement and
>pro-relativist. You see it dripping from every set of scare quotes
>('truth' 'real' etc) and every lame assertion that what we see and hear is
>constructed by social and historical conditions. (What insight!) I'm
>currently teaching a new course which is about cultivating judgement,
>eschewing relativism and actually engaging with artworks (film and
>television); the students find it hard because it does not arrogantly
>claim to have all the answers. It grants that there may be aspects of the
>world that cultural studies has neither the imagination nor the theory to
>grasp, that there are works of excellence whose achievements might take a
>lifetime to account for. I'd rather be teaching that than supplying the
>false idea that everything can be explained (or 'approached' - since I'm
>sure there can be no 'final' 'truthful' explanation...) by a bit of
>Foucault, Adorno, Deleuze or any other theoretically bankrupt mystic.
>
>
>Dr Jason Jacobs
>Senior Lecturer
>School of Arts, Media and Culture
>Griffith University
>Nathan Campus
>Queensland 4111
>Australia
>Phone: (07) 3875 5164
>Fax: (07) 3875 7730
>_______________________________________
>
>csaa-forum
>discussion list of the cultural studies association of australasia
>
>www.csaa.asn.au

---------
Dr Catherine Driscoll
Lecturer
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry
University of Sydney
Phone: (61-2) 9036 9503
Fax: (61-2) 9351 5336
--------- 

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