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但
但汉松
李
李晖
高
高峰枫
李晖: 我认为格拉夫的《以文学为业》并非简单地探讨职业，而是对美国文学教育体制的深刻反思，书名本身就包含着多重含义，体现了对文学教育的信仰和承诺。格拉夫将美国大学教授文学的历史大致分为几个阶段，并分析了不同阶段的特征和冲突。他指出，英语文学专业从一开始就面临着不同力量的较量，不同力量之间在文本解读方法上存在冲突。早期，古典文学教学与英美文学教学存在差异，古典文学教学有章可循，而英美文学教学则缺乏规范。格拉夫认为，‘人文主义神话’掩盖了文学教育中长期存在的冲突和分歧。他认为，‘文学可以自我讲授’的观点在不同历史时期被反复提及，背后有不同的历史背景和原因。他认为，‘文学可以自我讲授’的观点在十九世纪后期，当人们回应文学过度专业化研究时被提出，作为对过度专业化、学究式研究的反驳。他还指出，‘文学可以自我讲授’的观点在英美文学开始成为学科时被提出，因为当时人们认为古典文学需要老师教，而本国文学则可以通过阅读自行领会。格拉夫认为，研究（study）和教授（professing）是有区别的，这涉及到文学是否可以自我讲授，以及文学教学是否可以规范化的问题。他认为，从旧学院时期到理论发展时期，美国大学教授文学经历了几个阶段的变化，每个阶段都有其独特的特征和挑战。他认为，英语文学专业从一开始就面临着不同力量的较量，这些力量在文本解读方法上存在冲突。他认为，早期，古典文学教学与英美文学教学存在差异，古典文学教学有章可循，而英美文学教学则缺乏规范。他认为，过度专业化导致了模式化的孤立，各个学科之间难以沟通。他认为，文学作为文化资本的地位已经丧失，人们对文学的信心下降。他认为，英文系的历史表明，学科危机是常态，英文系具有韧性，不会走向终结。他认为，仅仅讲述文学文本是不够的，还必须讲授文化文本，并在课堂上讲授冲突，以超越身份政治和文化战争。他认为，在不同语境下，对文本的解读会不同。他主张打破学科建制中的各自为战，在课程设计中融合不同学派的观点，让学生看到老师在根本问题上的分歧。他认为，‘讲授冲突’能否实现，以及如何实现，是一个值得探讨的问题。他认为，在美国，讲授冲突很难实现，因为这需要人们愿意去讲述与自己观点对立的观点，而这需要宽容和开放的心态，这在现实中很难做到。他认为，大学体制的问题会影响‘讲授冲突’的实现，因为体制受益者是那些不追求真理的人，他们更关注个人利益。他认为，对格拉夫‘讲授冲突’的观点，既不完全乐观也不完全悲观。他认为，格拉夫提到的‘club’的概念，与19世纪美国大学的文学社团有一定的相似之处，但现代大学教育的民主化趋势使得这种模式难以完全复制。他认为，‘讲授冲突’需要社会同质性，需要志同道合的人才能凑到一起。他认为，对‘讲授冲突’的乐观与悲观并存，一方面，仍有热爱文学的人；另一方面，大学体制鼓励多产而非验真。他认为，每种新的文学教授方法或理论的出现，都是对前一种方法的解读，并最终需要其他方法来制衡。他认为，每种文学方法都需要刹车，否则会走向反面。他认为，‘讲授冲突’可能变成一种虚假的冲突，或者是一种自虐行为。他认为，真正敢于讲授冲突的人，需要能够承受自己的观点被粉碎。他认为，大学体制鼓励多产，但不强调验真，这导致了理论创新怪圈：‘求新，不求真’。他认为，在当前的文化政治环境下，‘讲授冲突’很难全面铺开，但我们可以退而求其次，进行自我提醒和自我反思。
高峰枫: 我认为格拉夫提出的‘文学可以自我讲授’的观点在不同历史时期被反复提及，其背后有不同的历史背景和原因。‘文学可以自我讲授’的观点在十九世纪后期，当人们回应文学过度专业化研究时被提出，作为对过度专业化、学究式研究的反驳。‘文学可以自我讲授’的观点在英美文学开始成为学科时被提出，因为当时人们认为古典文学需要老师教，而本国文学则可以通过阅读自行领会。许多看似思想观念的冲突，其根本原因可能与体制和建制有关。新人文主义者和通才学者希望文学与人生社会有密切关联，反对纯科学的、非个人化的文学研究。大学体制化的文学教育难以强调个人拯救和个人体验，因为它本身是一个产业，有自身的需求和要求。在《斯通纳》中，主人公与学生在口试中发生冲突，反映了夸夸其谈但缺乏基本功的学生与注重学术严谨的老师之间的冲突。文学研究中存在两种对立的观念和方法：一种是纯科学的、技术性的研究；另一种是强调社会关怀和个人体验的研究。当前英文专业面临着悲观情绪，学生人数减少，就业市场竞争激烈。英文系的历史表明，学科危机是常态，英文系具有韧性，不会走向终结。每种新的文学教授方法或理论的出现，都是对前一种方法的解读，并最终需要其他方法来制衡。每种文学方法都需要刹车，否则会走向反面。‘讲授冲突’可能变成一种虚假的冲突，或者是一种自虐行为。大学体制鼓励多产，但不强调验真，这导致了理论创新怪圈：‘求新，不求真’。在当前的文化政治环境下，‘讲授冲突’很难全面铺开，但我们可以退而求其次，进行自我提醒和自我反思。
但汉松: 格拉夫认为存在‘人文主义神话’，即认为在过去，英文系师生与文学文本曾有过水乳交融的关系，这种传统已经失落。‘人文主义神话’隐含的前提是文学可以自我讲授。格拉夫试图对抗学科悲歌的宿命论，认为学科的分裂与孤立并非绝对坏事。他认为，学科的分裂与孤立并非绝对坏事。他建议在课堂上‘讲授冲突’，将学科内部分歧以辩论或对话的方式放入课程教学，从而超越英文系建制中的内部孤立，进而超越狭隘的身份政治与文化战争。他认为，仅仅讲述文学文本是不够的，还必须讲授文化文本。他认为，每种产式的模式都应该有它的刹车方法。他认为，在当前的文化政治环境下，‘讲授冲突’很难全面铺开，但我们可以退而求其次，进行自我提醒和自我反思。
supporting_evidences
李晖: “It will make us think of Max Weber’s *The Profession of Scholarship*, but actually, his English title, *Professing Literature*, is a very clever pun.”
李晖: “He said that there is a sentence that I remember very deeply, he said that the words *study* and *professing* are different, and it is a very important difference. Going back to the question of whether literature can explain itself, it actually involves how literature is learned, whether literature can be learned, or to put it another way, whether teaching literature can be standardized, or whether teaching literature can become a kind of skill.”
李晖: “He uses a word called *mental discipline*. He believes that studying the boring and rigid grammar and changes of Latin and Greek in college is a must, a kind of tempering the mind and strengthening the body. Only after surviving this process can you enter the next stage. This is their view of language.”
李晖: “When we say that literature can teach itself in the first half of the 20th century, it does not mean that literature is not important, but that we can develop a so-called practical criticism, a very practical method that everyone can learn.”
李晖: “It’s like pouring a bucket of cold water on us, because we ourselves, especially now, when we are engaged in literary education, especially in the 21st century, the word we talk about the most is the death of theory. Suddenly, you see that literary theories, especially structuralism, post-structuralism, and various isms, seem to suddenly become unpopular and ineffective.”
李晖: “He wrote a very beautiful sentence in this book, saying that American universities have never been constructed according to the principles of Rogers centrism. American universities themselves are structuralists. He also said that literary research is not an ideology or a tool of social control. If it were, it would be a very inefficient tool.”
李晖: “He said that in a 1985 interview, he complained to the reporter that the methods of teaching literature and the attitudes towards texts have changed. He said that it seems that a novel or a poem is something to be studied and understood, rather than experienced.”
李晖: “His teacher said a word to him, ‘That’s love.’ He actually uses the word ‘love’ to summarize it. Including when he was a child, at the end of his life, looking at the students passing by outside the campus, he picked up one of his old books and said that this book may not be read or cared for by anyone, but he himself had left such a mark.”
高峰枫: “I noticed that this topic appears in different places, at the beginning, middle, and end of the book, so it is a persistent concern with strong vitality. Many people will think that literature does not need theory, literature can teach itself, in other words, students can directly face literature.”
高峰枫: “When people want to respond to the overly professionalized study of literature, especially in the late 19th century, many scholars strongly advocate using this way of dealing with literature, in a scientific and rigorous way, or to put it bluntly, in a more scholarly way, to study literary texts. When this approach is overdone, someone will come out to refute it, saying that your research method is not actually studying literature, you are treating literary texts as historical documents, as documents of other disciplines.”
高峰枫: “Another context is that in the 16th century, when British and American literature began to become a discipline, it was also under this kind of historical transformation that some people would put forward such a statement. Because this involves Britain and the United States, since this book mainly talks about the United States, it is a major change in American higher education. Before 1850, for example, people went to university to study classics.”
高峰枫: “He cited this so-called Yale report, which mentioned that Greek and Latin, these classical literatures, are so-called unnecessary acquisitions, and that British literature is called accomplishment.”
高峰枫: “There are people who often say that literature is for experiencing, not for analyzing. This is a clear indication of treating literature as a personal experience. However, this personal experience is meaningful to the individual, but if it is put into a university system, its meaning will be severely weakened, because you cannot make a thousand students have the experience you want, or a thousand students may have many kinds of experiences, which cannot be standardized, nor can it be tested, and it cannot be evaluated.”
高峰枫: “The book *Professing Literature* gave me a lot of inspiration, that is, many things we regard as ideological issues may actually have ultimate reasons related to the system or institution. We tend to understand some phenomena or viewpoints as the mutual influence and generation of ideological viewpoints, but in fact, they may ultimately be attributed to the system itself and its series of reactions.”
高峰枫: “They hope that literature must have a close connection with life and society, and that literary research should have lofty social ideals, rather than the rigorous disinterestedness of pure science. This is what the new humanists and generalists strongly oppose.”
高峰枫: “What interests me about *Stoner* is the conflict he had with a student during an oral examination. I think the event he wrote about should be in the 1930s, but I feel that this phenomenon is something that can still be seen now, that is, students or teachers who talk big, you give him a topic, he can use his skillful academic discourse to weave a rhetoric, a theoretical brocade, a beautiful and gorgeous brocade, but if you ask him some basic questions, he cannot answer them at all.”
高峰枫: “There are two opposing views and methods in literary research: one is purely scientific and technical research; the other emphasizes social care and personal experience.”
高峰枫: “From a historical perspective, there is nothing new about the English department. The conflict between old-school and new scholars, the conflict between society and the campus, and the discussion of whether literature should emphasize social factors or return to the text have been going on continuously. No matter what kind of ism it is, it has always been in such a profound division in the university.”
高峰枫: “Every new method or theory of teaching English literature that appears is actually a kind of antidote to the previous dominant method. If you were too focused on historical materialism, then OK, we have New Criticism, which advocates the autonomy of literature. But once you do the autonomy of literature and the close reading of texts too delicately, then a new methodology will appear.”
高峰枫: “Every productive model should have its braking method. If you don’t brake, then we will inevitably go to our opposite.”
高峰枫: “The system only encourages productivity, but not verification. This has led to a vicious cycle of theoretical innovation: ‘seeking novelty, not truth’.”
但汉松: “Graff believes that there is such a humanist myth, that is, in the history of the English department, there once existed such a golden age. In such a beautiful past, our teachers, our students, and literary texts were once in a harmonious relationship. We once had common love and common beliefs, and this tradition has been lost.”
但汉松: “It actually has an implicit premise, that is, literature can teach itself.”
但汉松: “Graff tries to fight against the deterministic view of the discipline's elegy. He suggests with cautious optimism that we teachers who work in literature should dare to teach the conflicts, put the internal differences of the discipline into the course teaching in the form of debate or dialogue, so as to transcend the internal isolation in the English department system, and then transcend narrow identity politics and cultural wars.”
但汉松: “Every productive model should have its braking method.”
李晖: “He uses a word called *mental discipline*. He believes that studying the boring and rigid grammar and changes of Latin and Greek in college is a must, a kind of tempering the mind and strengthening the body. Only after surviving this process can you enter the next stage. This is their view of language.”
Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
在1987年，杰拉尔德·格拉夫（Gerald Graff）凭借一部《以文学为业：一部制度史》（Professing Literature: An Institutional History），成为了西方文学研究界的明星。如今，每当人们再一次哀叹“英文专业之死”，每当我们后知后觉地质疑为什么“斯通纳们”会如此敬业而潦倒，并反复思考为什么“理论”热会让文学研究走向分裂和孤立，为什么美剧《英文系主任》会展现一幅悲催的学院生态（更反讽的是，这部剧集自身也无疾而终）的时候，格拉夫的这本书就会被重新想起。书中关于美国大学英文系的诸多历史钩沉，或许已经告诉我们：在时代的嗡鸣声里，文学之为修业，各种宛如人性般复杂的冲突与先后相续的自我否认，才是它本质而恒久的主题旋律。
格拉夫的这本书有着历史学家的深邃，有着社会学者的冷静，也有着文学批评家的睿智。他帮助我们祛魅了一种所谓“人文主义神话”，即：在某个美好的过去，大学英文系曾经对文学之用、之美有过稳定的共识，大师们曾在课堂里引领学生读伟大的作品，用读者的灵魂去接近作者的灵魂，直抵文学之美的幽深腹地。
格拉夫似乎对一切关于学科的浪漫化怀旧，都带有怀疑的态度。事实上，美国大学创立英文系、讲授英美文学课程，是在19世纪下半页相当晚近的时候才发生的。从追求古典主义精神的旧学院，到1887年按照德国研究型大学模式建立的约翰·霍普金斯大学，再到今天我们熟悉的以“领域覆盖”为特征的文学院系的建制，分裂与冲突从来就是一种常态——古典主义者与现代语言学者、研究者与通才、新人文主义者与批评家、批评家与理论家，从来在文学的基本观念和讲授文学的基本方法上莫衷一是。
有趣的是，格拉夫并不将英文系在制度史上的这种系统性分裂与“模式化孤立”（patterned isolation）视为一种绝对的坏事，他也不像老派人文主义者那样去归咎于商业社会的物质主义或现代社会的专业化。他在《以文学为业》的历史叙述中，不断提醒读者注意到文学教育与研究方法上的变化，其实是学科与社会之间双向影响的结果。新人文主义者、民族主义者、政治左派、专业主义者、新自由主义者都试图在英文系实践某种文化主张，但天生带有某种解构主义者气质的英文系，从未单纯沦为意识形态或社会统治的工具（按照格拉夫的幽默说法，即使是工具，也是效率极低的工具）。
格拉夫在书中试图对抗那种宿命论的学科悲歌，他以一种审慎的乐观主义建议我们这些以文学为业的英文系教师应该敢于去向“讲授冲突”（teach the conflicts），将学科的内部分歧以辩论或对话的方式放入课程教学，从而超越英文系建制中的内部孤立，进而超越狭隘的身份政治与文化战争。
在本期“夜航船”中，两位主播请来了著名的文学译者李晖，一同畅谈阅读《以文学为业》的各种感受，并结合各自作为文学从业者的经验，讨论了英文系的过去、现在与未来，并反思了“讲授冲突”这一愿景的可能性与局限性。我们明白，格拉夫当然不是目前英文专业学科危机的拯救者，但是这本书以学科史的眼界，带来了一种思考制度危机与学科使命的不同方式，值得我们每一位关心文学教育的人认真阅读和思考！
话题成员：
李晖（译者，大学教师）
高峰枫（北京大学英文系）
但汉松（南京大学英文系）
嘉宾介绍：
**李晖，**文学译者，北京大学英语系翻译研究博士，现任教于北京语言大学。代表译作有《应邀之作：拉金随笔》、《绝对恐惧：致杜卞卡》、《魔鬼作坊》、《呼啸山庄》、《刀锋》、《美学》、《浪漫主义》等。2019年获花城出版社“蓝色东欧翻译贡献奖”，2022年获评第一届雅努斯翻译资助计划“未来译者”，2024年获中国译协“优秀中青年翻译工作者”称号。
阅读书单：
杰拉尔德·格拉夫，《以文学为业：一部制度史》，童可依、蒋思婷译，译林出版社，2023年10月；
John Guillory, Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022.
约翰·威廉斯，《斯通纳》，杨向荣译，世纪文景 | 上海人民出版社，2016年1月；
以赛亚·柏林，《自由及其背叛：人类自由的六个敌人》，赵国新译，译林出版社，2011年3月；
时间轴：
01:04 “Professing Literature"的书名
02:59 “人文主义神话”及其幻灭
04:31 文学可以讲授自身吗？
14:47 文学学科发展简史
23:04 耶鲁大学当年有多么枯燥
24:09 古典语言学习作为一种“mental discipline"
26:10 面向普通读者的实用批评的诞生
30:30 19世纪美国旧式学院的课外辩论社
34:30 社会变迁如何影响英文系的发展
40:50 《斯通纳》与它所代表的“学科悲歌”
43:04 约翰·威廉斯如何用“爱”来解释研究文学的初心
48:30 专业化与文学体验派
52:05 斯通纳在博士生考试中为什么震怒
55:38 用学科史来反抗绝望：英文系的进与退
1:02:01 “讲授冲突”是可能的吗？
1:07:30 人性现实决定了极少有体制内学者可以“讲授冲突”
1:13:50 "Club"的理想
1:17:39 英文系对立的文学研究方法作为彼此的“解毒剂”和“刹车”
1:26:19 理论创新的怪圈：“求新，不求真”
1:31:10 以赛亚·柏林善于总结对手的观点
1:34:19 结语
本期剪辑：但汉松