Methodology and Literary Studies
Mary Kate Hurley has a very interesting post at In the Middle, “Is There a Methodology in this Class.” From the title, it is not surprisingly in response to a talk by Stanley Fish. The post raises a number of very important questions which hopefully many who study Talmudic and Rabbinic literature critically are thinking about. Here are two snippets.
Is it possible what a poem or other literary work does — that is to say, not what does it mean so much as how does it construct this meaning? Could we productively raise a question of methodology here, and might the methodology literary scholars seek to employ also determine (or pre-determine) what types of evidence is admissable, and does this have ramifications for our enterprise?
and
I’ve been mulling over this since Tuesday: what does it mean, if we are to be empirical in the pursuit of literary studies? On some levels, I suppose, it means what I always tell my students: use textual evidence. But at the same time, aren’t close readings also a form of methodology, and doesn’t empiricism hold its own theoretical rather than interpretive troubles? To wit, can’t empiricism itself proceed from a single (and allegorizing) premise? That everything is both explainable and reproducible, and moreover, that steps taken in an orderly proceeding will inevitably point us to an explanation for – well – everything?