0.11 Roundtable discussion

Levander : The synergy that has been produced by bringing these research projects together, if only for a day, has led to a remarkable level of energy and fruitful discussion during the question and answer periods. This is especially encouraging at a moment that is often described as a “crisis” for the humanities. During this closing discussion, Chuck Henry and I would be interested in hearing the speakers address the new methodologies that their emerging fields engage, intellectual opportunities and challenges requisite to the emerging field, and strategies the speakers may have developed for sustaining new research models. How have university structures facilitated or impeded research in your emerging disciplines and, in turn, how have these emerging disciplines put pressure on existing university structures? Finally, what new relationships between infrastructure and research is your work uncovering and what kinds of preservation needs and sustainability issues are arising as a result of your work?

Poovey : For the past decade or more, there has been much discussion of “the humanities in crisis.” Rahm Emanuel said, though in the context of the Obama campaign, “Never waste a crisis.” It may be the case that the financial downturn’s impact on universities, and on the humanities disproportionately, will finally provoke those of us in the humanities to articulate the kind of program that we want to positively pursue, so that we do not remain on the defensive. This symposium has touched on articulations of a positive program for the humanities.

Presner : These calls about crisis, dying and downsizing, and the humanities’ irrelevance and inability to make money put us as humanists on the defensive. But we’re engaging with the terms of the debate set by administrators who have introduced particular rubrics and metrics to measure success and impact. It’s incumbent upon humanists not only to articulate what the problems are, but also to look beyond this crisis model. That, for me, is a humanities without apology.

Levander : “Emerging Disciplines” is a kind of thought experiment in new strands of developing knowledge in the humanities. Might you suggest useful collaborative tissues that have emerged? What strikes you as the most useful strands to continue to think about?

Herlinghaus : I would like to address the issue of mirror neurons that came from Pamela and connected to Ani’s and Dan’s talks. We have looked into such different experiences as music, pictographic versions of empathy, and affect in certain medieval contexts. The motivation to work with neurons is quite different in each case, because the effect that engaging with and mimicking music has on the brain might well be different from the one Pamela described when a viewer sees an image or holds the book she discussed when entering a birthing room. People from the twentieth century might not feel the same empathetic affects as people from medieval times, and it may also vary by gender.

Ani, you have been describing music’s effect on the neocortex, the limbic system and the brain stem. Does tonality not affect different regions of the brain? This line of inquiry is of interest to cultural studies, including the issue of rituality in history and culture, as Dan discussed. Several studies on rituality and neuroscience have shown that the effects of rituals (especially those that have become regular social practices in contrast to processes like reading a book) on the wiring of the brain, specifically the re-constitution or intensification of the synaptic systems, are quite intense. Walter Benjamin touches on this issue in his text on the mimetic faculty, in which he refers to non-modern practices of reading what was never written, but with which we connect as if it were written, such as non-textual yet narrative patterns in culture.