The Future of Sedgwick Studies and the Sedgwick Society
A collage of thoughts from Lucinda Damon-Bach, Judith Fetterley,
Deborah Gussman
In the spring of 1998, in anticipation of the first version of
this newsletter, I sent out an E-mail survey to participants
in the symposium asking for their vision of Sedgwick studies
and the Sedgwick Society's future role. Here are scholars Judith
Fetterley's and Deborah Gussman's responses to my questions.
Who Is Sedgwick and Why Should We Care About Her? To
lead off discussion, here are the words of Judith Fetterley,
Keynote Speaker for the 1997 Sedgwick Symposium: As to the question
who is Sedgwick and why should we care about her, I would say
that I so I don't know how they would hold up, but Hope Leslie
is a major accomplishment and so is Sedgwick's insistence on
women being able to produce a body of literature equal to any
male contemporary. Long live our Catharine and good for you for
keeping up the work of recovering her.
Deborah Gussman, symposium participant, continues and
extends the discussion:
There are so many reasons [why we should care about Sedgwick
and her work]--personal and political, aesthetic and professional,
etc. What drew me to Sedgwick's work initially was that it provided
a counterpoint, both thematically and stylistically, to the work
of the male writers I had been writing about, primarily Cooper
and Hawthorne. What I wanted to find out, in 1990 when I began
my dissertation, was whether it was possible, in the first part
of the 19th century, for a writer to think differently than Cooper
and Hawthorne did about America's national history, and in that
context, about its non-dominant members. Hope Leslie, and subsequently
other of Sedgwick's writings, showed me that it was indeed possible
to have a complex and critical understanding of the gendered
and racialized origins of the American nation. Her work also
revealed to me that what I had learned about the 19th century
was incomplete, and that a more inclusive literary history needed
to be written (much of it has now been, though I think a great
deal more remains to be done). What I continue to appreciate
about Sedgwick's work, even as I recognize her ambivalence about
the subject, is her interest in friendship and her attempts to
understand and appreciate the significant role friendship plays
in the lives of women and men.
Why should students care about CMS? I don't know, but
they do seem to enjoy her work. I was very nervous teaching ANET
in my American novel course, as if somehow having them read what
I liked was suspect. But, as the first novel we read for the
term, the book did a tremendous job of opening up for the class
so many of the themes and issues I wanted them to consider, including
the gendered nature of the heroic journey in American fiction,
the role of nature and religion in the novel, the pressures of
the romance plot, the shift from romance to realism, and the
social, economic and ideological forces that shape the novel,
for starters. Plus, she tells some good stories. How are we different
than scholars who have come before? I think that what made the
symposium so unique, and what I hope continues to inform the
society as it develops, is the sense of collaboration and comaraderie
that emerged among the participants. While surely all of us had
our own professional agenda, and while there were clearly quite
different interpretations of Sedgwick's work that emerged in
papers and discussions, there was also a lot of actual sharing
going on, from references and resources, ideas about publishing
and names of publishers, and discussions of revisions, to plans
for jointly written articles and edited collections. It was as
if, rather than viewing Sedgwick as a commodity over which we
were vying to assert private ownership so that one of us could
have the final word, we were attempting to open up the field
of Sedgwick studies to a multiplicity of critical approaches
and interpretative strategies in order to discover something
new.
Lucinda Damon-Bach, symposium instigator: Judith and Deborah
articulate my main concerns: that Sedgwick works continue to
be recovered, that scholarship and publication are fostered,
and that a supportive and collaborative forum is created so that
we can avoid treading water-creating similar "breakthrough"
arguments-and instead build upon and ride the wave of the work
that's come before (converting survival swimming to surfing!).
Deborah Gussman put it beautifully: "My vision for the society
is that it will offer greater visibility and legitimacy for Sedgwick
Studies within the profession (the end result being more of Sedgwick's
works and writing about Sedgwick in print). It will offer a forum
for bringing together established and emerging scholars, as well
as others who are interested in Sedgwick, for the exchange of
ideas, research and pedagogical strategies." It's exciting
to know that we've begun. Next steps: Executive Committee, Advisory
Board, and By-Laws.
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