> This brings up a question in my mind. How is it we assume that the
> intellectual roots of the Humanities exists in academia? If you look
> back at the history of a traditional canon, there are few academic
> contributors. Sure there were Nietzsche, Hegel and Kant, but these
> hardly exhause the intellectual class of their times. Marx is an
> obvious counter-example.
this is a very interesting point, which i haven't seen much discussion of: the way in which academic discourse[*] tends to appropriate disparate legacies in such a way that, as a collective, it 'becomes' a--*the*--standard-bearer. as you note, many of the historical figures (and not just authors, but also movements and moments) had little or nothing to do with the academic institutions of their own day.
[*] of course 'academic discourse' is a grotesque caricature in many if not most ways, but then again so is just about any recognizable discourse anyone can name; i'll cite as an ex- ample carrol's charge of 'nostalgia,' which invokes bogey that are, if anything, less real than the one i would point at in defining academic discourse. against that vague social tendency, which from the standpoint of someone who identifies with 'critical institutions' appears to be lamentable wide- spread, i'll note that 'academic discourse' shores itself up through credentialization (i.e., exclusionary mechanisms), patronage networks, production and distribution circuits (con- ferences, journals, funcing programs, etc.). all of these rely fanatically on textual presentations marked by the utmost at- tention to standardized mannerisms: abstracts, citations, statements about 'positions' and 'methods,' etc., etc.--that could be a very long list. failure to comply with these dic- tates = DEATH, professionally speaking (or, as with any such system, pure exceptionalism: a $300K gig and a pad that would make david geffen drool).
one net result of this all is the self-valorizing gesture, which sort of goes like this: 'i know more about X than you do, so *nyeah*.' we all know how 'difficult' it is to discuss some subject with someone who knows much less about it than we do; against the heaps of Facts and Received Knowledge we traipse around with, these poor blighters can only bumble out statements like 'well, i think...', 'i'd guess that...', 'i heard that...', and 'one time i...' that's very frustrating, sure, especially to someone who cares deeply about a subject and maybe even has devoted the better part of his or her life to studying it. but for all that one shouldn't lose sight of just how voracious the structural differential is between someone who Knows About a subject and someone who Doesn't Know Nearly Enough. but to regard that differential as some- how final or decisive is, in any terms outside those defined by the disciplinary (note the word) logic of a given field, absurd.
if indeed the humanities as such is to occupy the Rectitudinous Chair and serve as a light unto the nations, they've bloody well been f-ing up lately--in large part through hewing to utterly needless mannerisms whose primary use, afaict, is to serve as a masonic handshake. unfortunately, as i pointed out, masons ain't what they used to be: the humanities are becoming more akin to VFw clubs that finally capitulated and admitted all those suckers crippled in undeclared wars--but *still* are losing their meeting halls because they can't pay the bills.
to point that out isn't therefore to support the forces that are imposing impossible burdens on the processors and products humanities departments. it's really appalling how transparently many academicians act out--in the absolutely worst sense of that phrase--the bogus belief that their insitution, writ generally, is the heir of all that is best. i'm quite confident that if these institutions are recognizable in a century--and they will be, they're very resilient--their canon will include from this period people who weren't involved in manufacturing mannerist mummery. just like now.
here's a positive contribution: don't 'teach in,' teach *out*.
cheers, t