A Half-Baked Abstract

Let’s be honest. How many of us have written the abstract before the paper because the CFP deadline was, like, tomorrow? Well, I’m coming up on a deadline myself and it has sent me thinking about what the hell I’m doing in my holier-than-thou world of literary studies.

OK, true confessions: the stuff that I defended, the newer post-dissertation stuff that made the cut of some pretty good journals, the abstracts that got accepted to (inter)national conferences…all rubbish, and I well know it. It has the right bibliography, the right jargon, the right stilted prose. The stuff I am most proud of? My advisor and blind reviewers said it had no place in the scholarly debate. It wasn’t what people were talking about. I'm not worried; I'll get tenure. But I am surprised that I am no longer surprised by this.

And so sometimes I get a bit despondent. What the #%&* is scholarship for if not creating knowledge, creating perspective? Why do we just parrot what’s already there 90% of the time? But despondency yields quickly to a deeper satirical instinct. And so...

I’ve served on two searches this last year, attended four conferences/symposia and heard a dozen or so talks. In other words, I've read/heard a lot of as-current-as-it-gets sort of scholarship this year. Just for laughs, my own that is, I printed out a little check-list of “seminal works” and “important scholars” and “jargon du jour” and evaluated what I heard in talks accordingly with a straight percentage, e.g. 85% from 17/20. To be honest, I often had a difficult time discerning what the original thoughts were, but they all did the right things, said the right things. Talk about formal, generic constraints! And these were all smart people, truly accomplished thinkers.

The better conversations, the ones I remember and treasure, the ones that still inspire me, always took place in session (at a bar, to the gringos), well-watered and pint-accountable, well after the grad students finished all the warm chardonnay. Funny, I learned about pub well long before graduate school.

In any case, have a pint, dram, glass, flute, skin, shot, cup, mug, or whatever you like while I bake up an abstract. This won't take long. Feel free to bake your own.



FIVE-MINUTE ABSTRACT SOUFFLÉ

ingredients

1 modernist scholar or New Critic (ms/NC)
1 accomplished scholar working in university in America (AS)
1 rising scholar whom you hate and who will likely be on the same panel (RS-H)
1 Continental theorist you read in footnotes in grad school (CTh)
1 contemporary Continental theorist who is, luckily for us all, re-reading Continental theorists from twenty years ago (cCTh)
½ accomplished scholar working in a totally different field in the humanities (AS-wise outsider)
½ reference to post-Renaissance but pre-WW2 philosopher (H-German or verbose Scotsman)
2 egg whites
2 Tsp vinegar, domestic
1 tsp bile
1 dry cup arrogance
1 pint faux humility
1 cup –ism/-isme
1 Tsp discourse
2-3 foreign phrase easily expressed in English, preferably French or Italian (e.g. ça passe ou ça casse or sciopero della raggione)


directions
Preheat oven to an incendiary degree.

Begin by combining ms/NC and CTh in a large bowl. Abruptly dump in AS. In a separate bowl, beat and knead RS-H, add vinegar and bile. Stir mixture into first bowl. Combine well. Sprinkle arrogance over mixture and gently fold in AS-wise outsider. Add one French/Italian phrase.

Combine egg whites and faux humility in a separate, small mixing bowl. Whisk for fifteen words. Keep whisking and add discourse, -ism(e), and cCTh. Before adding to first mixture, very carefully and obliquely allude to H-German, by name. (If using verbose Scotsman, insert awkward pun first.) Add to first mixture. Combine well. Pour into soufflé pan.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on panel. Garnish with remaining French/Italian phrases. Serve with lukewarm tap water served in a plastic cup.

Enjoy.