Twelfth lecture for my students in English 140, UC Santa Barbara, Summer 2012. Course website: http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/su12/index.html

1. Lecture 12: Theory and Sophistry
English 140
UC Santa Barbara
Summer 2012
23 August 2012
“Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for the
occasion — invent the university, that is, or a branch of it, like History or Anthropology or
Economics or English. He has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on
the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that
define the discourse of our community. Our perhaps I should say the various discourses of
our community, since it is in the nature of a liberal arts education that a student, after the
first year or two, must learn to try on a variety of voices and interpretive schemes — to
write, for example, as a literary critic one day and an experimental psychologist the next
[…] I am continually impressed by the patience and good will of our students.”
—David Bartholomae, “Inventing the University”

2. “To Reign in Hell”:
Tony Pescecane and Postmodern Moral Vacancy
“The title was, and I quote, ‘The Fuck Cares About
Edmund Spenser?’ Unquote. The argument of this
groundbreaking essay was, as I recall, that the new
criterion for determining what is worth reading and what
is not – God forbid the word ‘literature’ should pass our
chairman’s lips – the criterion for literary merit is
something Anthony defines, and I quote again, as ‘street
cred.’” (112; ch. 6)
“it wasn’t until Nelson saw the light in his eye and the
smile playing about Pescecane’s lips that realized that
the chair was enjoying this. A voice in Nelson’s head
sad, ‘Havoc and spoil and ruin are my gain.’” (93; ch. 5)

3. “‘To crush your enemies, Humboldt,’ said
Pescecane, his voice wavering as he jogged in
place, ‘and hear the lamentation of their women.’
[…] ‘It pays to be my friend.’” (247; ch. 13)
“‘What about the letters?’ Pescecane shrugged.
‘Fuck the letters. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the
letters. For all I know you’re writing them yourself;
and you know what, Nelson? I don’t give a shit.’”
(247)
“the finest thing in life is to take an academic
department and bend it to one’s will.” (93; ch. 5)

4. “‘Anthony believes in nothing,’ said Victorinix,
‘except himself. He can talk the talk, he can play
the role of the engaged academic, but ideology,
social justice — they mean nothing to him.’ She
smiled bitterly. ‘He feels no obligation to be right,
only an obligation to be interesting. What his
subordinates do below him, who comes out on
top, doesn’t matter to him, as long as he gets to
be Il Padrone. This is his greatest flaw, but it is
also what makes him dangerous. A man who
believes in nothing is capable of anything.” (281;
ch. 14)

5. Power/Knowledge:
Michel Foucault, 1926-1984

Rejected the
“poststructuralist” label that
became associated with him
late in life; saw his large-
scale project as being a
critical history of modernity.

Mentioned in The Lecturer’s
Tale as the author of the
influential Discipline and
Punish (1975; English
translation 1977).

First well-known public
figure in France to die of
Sketch by Roy Bush HIV-related illness.

6. Nelson as Mediator
“the fellowship at Midwest squared with his dream of
bringing balm and sweet reason to the culture wars,
of black, lesbian, queer theorists laughing
uproariously at Alexander Pope, of sixty-year-old
white men identifying with the heroine of Beloved.”
(103; ch. 6)
“Don’t waste your sympathy on the Coogan, Nelson
told himself. If he wrote the letters, he thought,
certainly the Coogan deserves to go. You can’t have
someone like that teaching young, impressionable
minds. And he’s not even that good a poet
anymore.” (137; ch. 7)

7. Nelson’s Moral Standing
“He trembled a little, ashamed at the pleasure it had
given him to see all those people toppling on the
bus.” (105; ch. 6)
“He [Nelson] ought to have leaped to the defense of
Vita. But he didn’t know yet why Weissmann had
invited him to lunch after all this time, and he wanted
to find out.” (109; ch. 6)
“he had an opportunity for – what? Advancement?
Professional salvation? He wasn’t even sure how far
Pescecane’s gratitude would go. All Nelson had to do
was destroy another man’s career.” (137; ch. 7)

8. “And why not? He thought. I have nothing to be ashamed
of. If I benefit from my efforts on behalf of others, then my
reward is commensurate with my service to the
department, no more, no less. I live to serve.” (184; ch.
11)
“Nelson fretted over his evening out with Timothy Coogan
the previous semester, and soon had himself convinced
that even if Coogan turned out not to be the author of the
poison pen letters, he had been a dangerous influence
anyway. All that talk about sleeping with his students, all
that self-pity. And he had, after all, ranted at some length
about how the Jew Weissmann and the lesbian Victorinix
were out to get him. Surely Nelson had done nothing
wrong.” (241; ch. 13)

9. Sophistry
“in her appearance before the university’s sexual
harassment panel, Penelope had delivered a
passionate explication of the erotics of pedagogy.
“‘Teaching is seduction,’ she’d declared,
climaxing her presentation with the argument that
since sexual harassment was an instrumentality
of the oppression of women, no woman could be
guilty of it.
“‘And ain’t I a woman?’ she had declared to the
harassment panel in her posh accent, fingering
the laces of her leather bustier.” (165; ch. 10)

10. Media credits
The sketch of Michel Foucault (slide 5) has been
released into the public domain by artist Roy
Bush. Source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michel_F
oucault_Dibujo.jpg