A little late, but here it goes...
Miner's essays, I think, were a good way to end this microseminar, especially in contrast with Pandit's afterward. The contrast between the broad, inclusionary poetics that Miner works to establish and the smaller, specific applications of non-Western theory that Pandit offers is striking, and Pandit serves to offset the necessarily unspecific nature of Miner's work.
As a European medievalist, my work primarily deals with what Miner would call "intracultural" comparisons, which can be problematic. He says, "In existing practice, comparison is dominantly intracultural, even intranational" and gives the example of comparing Goethe and Schiller. He finally says, "Comparative literature clearly involves something more than comparing two great German poets" (Introduction 5). This becomes problematic for a medievalist, who compares French and Italian works to their English counterparts, but also compares medieval writers from the same tradition as well. Trying to isolate one national tradition at all can be difficult before the Renaissance; major English writers are writing in English, French, and Latin. Do their French works constitute a separate tradition, or are they still characterized by some inherent "Englishness?" And how different are these national traditions, given that they only rise, for Miner, to the level of "intracultural" comparison.
My final conclusions about post-colonial theory is that while it's important for Miner to establish a comparative poetics that includes non-Western sources, and while it is important for scholars to recognize the worthiness of non-Western theories, it is not necessary for every scholar to incorporate these works into their own scholarship. To universally only practice Asian studies, or South-South comparisons, or even East-West comparisons would be a detriment to scholarship. There must be people comparing Asian literatures, just as there must be people comparing Western literatures. Along with more broad comparisons, there must be more targeted comparisons at all. To establish that one or the other is unworthy is another form of colonialism. In fact, Miner himself is indebted strongly to part of the Western tradition; he relies heavily on Aristotle's Poetics in order to discuss genre, in particular.
Miner's essays, I think, were a good way to end this microseminar, especially in contrast with Pandit's afterward. The contrast between the broad, inclusionary poetics that Miner works to establish and the smaller, specific applications of non-Western theory that Pandit offers is striking, and Pandit serves to offset the necessarily unspecific nature of Miner's work.
As a European medievalist, my work primarily deals with what Miner would call "intracultural" comparisons, which can be problematic. He says, "In existing practice, comparison is dominantly intracultural, even intranational" and gives the example of comparing Goethe and Schiller. He finally says, "Comparative literature clearly involves something more than comparing two great German poets" (Introduction 5). This becomes problematic for a medievalist, who compares French and Italian works to their English counterparts, but also compares medieval writers from the same tradition as well. Trying to isolate one national tradition at all can be difficult before the Renaissance; major English writers are writing in English, French, and Latin. Do their French works constitute a separate tradition, or are they still characterized by some inherent "Englishness?" And how different are these national traditions, given that they only rise, for Miner, to the level of "intracultural" comparison.
My final conclusions about post-colonial theory is that while it's important for Miner to establish a comparative poetics that includes non-Western sources, and while it is important for scholars to recognize the worthiness of non-Western theories, it is not necessary for every scholar to incorporate these works into their own scholarship. To universally only practice Asian studies, or South-South comparisons, or even East-West comparisons would be a detriment to scholarship. There must be people comparing Asian literatures, just as there must be people comparing Western literatures. Along with more broad comparisons, there must be more targeted comparisons at all. To establish that one or the other is unworthy is another form of colonialism. In fact, Miner himself is indebted strongly to part of the Western tradition; he relies heavily on Aristotle's Poetics in order to discuss genre, in particular.
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