~ So, what do you do for a living?
- Well, for right now, I go to school and I get paid to do so.
~ What do you study?
- Well, I am a PhD candidate in the Spanish Literature program.
~ What's that?
- What's that?
~ Yeah, what's that?
- I am studying how to be a good critic of literature that is written in Spanish from a perspective centered in a culture where Spanish is the main language.
~ And what can you do with that?
- With what?
~ With your PhD literary critic degree.
- Well, I am training to be a professional scholar so my best prospects for employment come from the higher education field.
~ Your going to teach College Spanish?
- Well, maybe. It depends. It depends on where I get a job.
~ What do you mean?
- If I get a job at a university where there is a possibility for tenure - which usually exclusively comes from four-year universities - then I will probably not teach Spanish as in the language (as in como se dice and yo me llamo) but will be a scholar (as in read a lot, write a lot, talk a lot, lie a lot, sit a lot, travel a lot, think a bit) with minimum teaching duties each semester (as in teach Spanish literature courses). ~ And if you don't get a job in one of those universities, where would you work?
- Well, if I don't get what is known as a tenure-track position in a four-year university I can still get a position in a liberal arts college or I suppose I could work at a community college.
~ Would you teach como se dice in a liberal arts college or a community college?
- I would most definitely teach como se dice-yo me llamo if I were to work at a community college and if I were to get a job at a liberal arts college I would probably teach both como se dice and literature.
~ So you'll be a professor?
- Yes.
~ So what does one literary critic do anyway?
- A literary critic reads and writes about all texts that can be considered literary.
~ What does that mean?
- I don't know, exactly, but it in general it includes novels, short stories, poems, films, artsy books, booksy arts, and music lyrics to name a few. Basically, fictitious art communicated through language.
~ Whatever.
- Right.
~ How does your intended career contribute to the well being of the human race?
- Whoa! Take it easy!
~ Sorry. I was just trying to hide my real question: Why would anyone pay you to read and write?
- Argh!! Salt in the proverbial humanities wound!
~ Now what does that supposed to mean?
- Ahah! See? If literary critics didn't exist, who would be able to answer your question?
~ Never mind, it doesn't matter now.
- Wait, wait a second. Let me explain, maybe... Language is a part of us yet it seems apart from us. We don't just use it to communicate information (i.e. What time is it? It is one o'clock), we also use it to communicate identity, emotion, to influence someone for good or bad, to assess and to understand both ourselves and others. Literature is about this communicative power. Though you may point out, and you'd be absolutely right if you did, that spoken language is different than literature, they are unavoidably tied to one another.
~ And the economic part of the question?
- Right, have patience my friend... If language (oral and written) is so important to who we are, then studying literature is a study of ourselves. To be more straight to the point about it: literary criticism is a method of philosophy.
~ So you're going to be a philosopher. - Sure why not. ~ Still, why should anyone pay you for thinking?
- You are obviously concerned with practical matters. What do I produce? What comes of what I do? is what you want to know. A dentist fixes teeth so that they don't cause pain to their owner so that the owner of said teeth can continue to live, but without pain, in order to produce whatever the produce; A mechanic diagnoses and fixes cars, etc. so that their owners can use them to travel and to produce whatever they produce; A doctor diagnoses problems, helps cure, and alleviates his or her patients pain or discomfort so that these patients can then continue to live and produce what they produce; A teacher...
~ Right. If you're not helping society produce and progress, what are you doing? I realize that not everyone will, or should, produce something tangible but don't you think that we have some responsibility to each other as humans to make living worth living?
- Well your comments and questions are really complicated and intricate. What you are saying and what you are asking is exactly what I do as a literary scholar (I like that better, let's pretend that I've always considered my projected profession as a literary 'scholar' instead of a 'critic'). I suppose that the idea is that as I and others look at what literature has to say about questions such as yours, and as we try to 'translate' what we read from these texts, that we'll be able to find some of these answers, which opens possibilities for us as humans to 'progress' as you have put it.
~ Ok. I think I understand. But doesn't religion do the same thing?
- Yes and no. I would say off the top of my head, and off the tips of my fingers, that theology looks beyond literature and into questions of being, of existence. I certainly consider these questions as a literary scholar, but I do so through my reading of literature. I'm not necessarily looking for evidence of God in literature; rather, I am looking for evidence of God in humanity through literature - that is, what makes humans human and what makes humans inhuman.
~ Once again, you've lost me. Why don't you give me an example.
- Well, I am particularly interested in how our relationship as humans with non-humans is presented and perused in literature. My example may seem silly (oh and it is) but just watch this clip and think about what this advertisement is trying to 'do:'
- Ingenious, right? It's absurd to think of wind as a large french-sounding derby-wearing loner, right?
~ Right.
- Yet we do something like this quite often: "Why did the wind have to blow my hat off?" or "Around here the wind never rests." In order to understand our experience in nature, we create relationships within it. So how would I analyze this 'text'? It's hard to separate the context from the text in this case. Here wind is a misunderstood and ignored being who doesn't understand why he is seen this way by humans. And the way to overcome this unfortunate circumstance there is provided an intermediary: a wind-energy company that presumably does indeed understand the wind. Now that Mr. Wind has been given the chance, he and the wind-energy company have found a way to help each other out: "Wind + Windmills = clean energy for humans so that they can continue to live the way they live without the guilt that using carbon-based fuels creates, and wind becomes 'useful' and therefore 'desirable' and 'friendly' to humankind (the only thing that would absolutely clinch this is if at the end of the commercial the actor playing Mr. Wind were replaced by a more 'desirable' faced actor (probably a woman, if they would choose to follow the unfortunately historical model depiction of nature, that is)).
~ So what do you think this says about who we are as humans?
- Well, I should have mentioned earlier that not every analysis (in fact almost no analyses) ends in a revelation about what it means to be human. Some just try to point out how literature affects and effects us as readers and some simply try to tie literature to philosophy.
~ And what did you do with this example?
- I would say that my brief analysis is really a critique on how 'Green' companies use models of human/nature relationships that really aren't necessarily completely 'green' at their core and that, as is to be expected, their ultimate goal is to convince the consumer to switch to, or support, wind-energy technology so that they will be successful in business. This is not to say that their intentions lack any 'green' thinking. I am only trying to peel back their message to reveal its integral parts.
~ But wouldn't you say that the commercial is funny?
- Oh yeah, it's clever alright, I'm just a critic (I guess I'll have to go back to calling myself a 'literary critic' and not a 'literary scholar').
