Last autumn, the English Subject Centre organised two events which related to two of the area studies with which literary study is most closely associated. The events on ‘Teaching American Literature’ (October 24th 2003) and ‘Irish Studies in the Curriculum’ (November 7th 2003) were held at Senate House in London and drew delegates from a wide range of institutional contexts. They also drew on collaborations with projects and organisations with detailed knowledge of the area studies involved. The ‘American Literature’ event was organised in collaboration with AMATAS: the Americanisation project (http://www.amatas.org) while the event on Irish Studies was co-organised with the British Association for Irish Studies (http://www.bais.org.uk) and the Institute of English Studies.
Both events explored the issues involved for lecturers who have to balance their research and teaching affiliations with the structures offered by their institutions. Many of us are happy to identify ourselves as being ‘area studies’ people while at the same time finding ourselves operating under different identities in practical terms. Lecturers who contribute to ‘American Studies’ or ‘Irish Studies’ programmes, for example, are often lodged in English departments and teach to single-discipline undergraduates as well as to those interested in interdisciplinary approaches. Other colleagues are only in a position to offer ‘area studies’ style modules on pathways or as lone modules within the confines of traditional disciplinary-based programmes.
While ‘American Studies’ academics have traditionally been more likely to have the chance to teach in dedicated programmes, they, like their colleagues in Irish Studies, are increasingly likely to find that programmes, departments and even faculties are being adjusted around them in ways that complicate any attempt to promote or maintain area studies programmes or genuinely ‘area studies’- inflected ways of reading literature. The plenary speakers, Dick Ellis from Nottingham Trent and Paddy O’Sullivan from the Irish Diaspora Project at Bradford respectively (as well as Roy Foster from Oxford who responded to Paddy’s paper), helpfully explored the issues raised by sets of interdisciplinary, disciplinary and institutional affiliations.
As both events were concerned to some extent with ‘national’ literatures, delegates discussed students’ preconceptions about the possibility of using literature to gain a totalised, authentic knowledge of a coherent and self-identical society. At the ‘Teaching American Literature’ event, Bridget Bennett from the University of Leeds discussed the problems involved in persuading students to engage with versions of the past in American literature modules. Jill Terry from University College, Worcester explored the problematics of developing curricula which give students access to minority or countercultural voices while at the same time not writing canonical American texts out of the student experience. Colleagues involved in the AMATAS project shared some of their workshop materials. Meanwhile Paul Giles from Oxford University called into question the frameworks for reading American literature which have become conventional in the delivery of programmes over the last twenty years.
At the Irish Studies symposium, delegates discussed the investment students often have in Irish studies courses in terms of their own searches for ‘authentic’ identities. Meanwhile Matthew Campbell from the University of Sheffield and Siobhán Holland from the English Subject Centre debated the issues involved in, and strategies for, teaching Irish texts to English students. Derval Tubridy and Lucia Boldrini from Goldsmiths discussed their approaches to teaching Joyce and Beckett both in contexts where Irish issues or contexts are and are not prominent or determining factors. Their papers helpfully raised the problem of exceptionalism: that is the strategy of teaching American or Irish literature as if it is created in totally English and Area Studies unique circumstances that render comparisons with other literatures irrelevant.
Increasingly, courses on Irish texts are attracting undergraduates and postgraduates who have few or no preconceptions about Ireland. Paddy Lyons from Glasgow discussed his experiences of designing and delivering Irish literature courses in Scotland as well as elsewhere in the European Union. The issues involved in organising programmes were discussed in detail at both events. Conor Carville and Daragh Minogue from St. Mary’s College helpfully shared their experiences of re-validating and effectively retrenching the role of an Irish Studies programme. They also outlined their Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning ‘Area Studies’ project bid, which promises to introduce students to interdisciplinary debates on migration and make use of creative writing as a critical approach. Their ideas helped to suggest some of the ways in which innovations in English and Area Studies programmes can be productively and innovatively combined. One of the major drivers for this kind of interaction is offered by the extension funding recently allocated to the AMATAS project which will allow for the further development of its work in and with English departments.
What was striking for those of us who attended both events was the extent to which similar debates emerged and shared concerns were raised. The levels of coherence remind us of the importance of there being a Subject Centre with responsibility for area studies (see www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/areastudies.aspx), and the relevance of its sustained and detailed interactions with other subject disciplines, subject centres, projects and associations which have investments in area studies.
Newsletter Issue 6 - February 2004
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