In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Humanities Across the Borders T R A C E S : 5 51 humaniTies across The borders: a view From The PeriPhery helen PeTrovsKy What will follow is a series of notes related to the current state of the humanities across the borders — and not a diagnosis of the situation. Living in the “here and now,” we are too myopic to give a bird’s-eye-view of the changes taking place.Yet we do sense certain, perhaps dramatic, transformations occurring in the field. By saying “we” I am referring to those who have come to identify their occupation with the “human sciences,” as they are respectfully called in my country. But, of course, one doesn’t have to be affiliated to articulate, in one way or another, the specific nature of the moment. And the moment does call for attention and reflection. Let me begin by stating the trivial or, at least, what is generally acknowledged: our time witnesses a growing gap between the humanities and the so-called public sphere. It is precisely this gap that generates discussions on the “usefulness” of the humanities1 : if there seems to be increasing disinterest in the field, then there must be something wrong about the branch of knowledge that is falling out of favor. Perhaps it is too esoteric, too specialized and, therefore, “useless”? Before the humanities “makes sense,” one has to undergo a long period of apprenticeship, a form of initiation indeed. There is no other way of bridging the gap, and of eventually enjoying the benefits which are denied to the layman, than by displaying what often turns out to be a lifelong engagement. Such, it would seem, is the price of understanding. Be that as it may, with societies becoming Helen Petrovsky 52 T R A C E S : 5 more and more adaptive the humanities are an ever more elaborate tool which requires special knowledge (and skills) on the part of its users. What then is the spokesman for the humanities? Or, more precisely, who is it that puts himself or herself in the limelight by mediating between the humanities and the public at large? Ironically, it is a new ideologue who combines various academic discourses in a fashion reminiscent of popular music. (Suffice it to remember the technique of remixes.)This media character — pop philosopher or popularizing scholar — is the product of the media themselves: he (or she) loses personal traits and becomes a pure function of the media intimately linked to the contemporary institutes of power. On the whole, this is how the humanities must become “visible” these days, whereas the work of criticism (their critical function) remains for the bigger part invisible, unnoticed. And such is the obvious state of affairs. The “invisible” or hidden side of the humanities, however, is not only that which does not easily lend itself to the media. I would take the liberty of suggesting that the very subject matter of the discipline is being radically reformulated at the moment. Of course, it is hard to generalize when what is at stake is itself a precariously generalizing concept.2 Still, I will insist that what the humanities have recently come to disclose is a specific dimension of being, be it historical, social, or artistic. I am calling this the dimension of the ordinary and the familiar which, through to the estranging procedure of critical thinking, also appears as unfamiliar or, in Freud’s terminology, unheimliche. Indeed, in talking about the humanities today it is only by estranging or distancing what is seen as natural and therefore not “seen” at all (the other aspect of invisibility) that we can hope to focus on a subject matter taking shape right before our eyes. Words used to designate this emerging dimension are ample, yet somewhat colorless and even dull. Besides the “ordinary” one can think of the “daily” (“everyday”) and simultaneously “strange,” to recall Freud’s etymological analysis. Here I find the title of a recent “documentary novel” by the Russian philosopher and scholar Alexander Pyatigorsky, Remembering That Strange Man, suggestive. (“Once you remember a strange man . . .”)3 Two things should be said in this connection. First, let us not overlook the existence of a kind of necessity which leads a scholar to give up the discourse proper to his discipline (in Pyatigorsky’s case, the academic discourses on philosophy and on Chinese and Indian Buddhism) to investigate, in an almost tentative manner, the dramatic clash [18.118.140.108] Project MUSE (2024...

Share