Why Literature?

A lot of people ask me this question: "Why did you choose to get a PhD in Literature?  You must want to teach?"  It's an interesting question that is always followed with the stipulation that I must want to teach because why else would this degree be valuable?  Well, the truth is that yes, I want to teach.  However, the deeper truth is that I want to spend my life thinking about language and how it shapes who we are as people and how we, in turn, shape language.

Most people are surprised to learn that a PhD program in Literature contains, relatively speaking, little actual reading of literature.  In fact, I'm learning from my colleagues that many people entering a PhD program are unaware of this themselves.  There is very little literature, folks; it is nearly all theoretical texts and classes formed around theoretical schools or traditions.  I LOVE THIS STUFF!  It is hard because it is all abstract theory and philosophy, but it is all rewarding work when you sink your teeth into it.

One of the ideas that we explored in class today is the fact that it is common to think of language as an instrument or a tool of communication.  This theorist, Emile Benveniste, discusses how language is part of human nature and argues that it is not a tool or instrument.  And he claims that when scientists, historians, philosophers, etc. approach language as if it were a tool whose development could be pinpointed in history like that of the wheel, for example, they will find that it is impossible to find that moment in history because language is part of our human nature, not something that we developed, but that developed naturally as part of human nature.  

I am compelled by his argument and am surprised that I haven't come across his work before (although I have definitely read theorists who are basing their arguments off of his).  He uses the example of the grammatical subject, I, to show that the very idea of I has no definition and yet, is universal because it can be used by anyone.  When I use I, it applies to me, but then you can say I and it now applies to you.   By using I, we express ourselves...and yet, it is impossible to express oneself (specifically one's interiority) without using I.  Thus, this is one example of how the very idea of having interiority is tied up in language and cannot exist outside of language.  It gets to be a pretty tedious study of grammar and language, but one of the overall ideas in his essay is that language plays a fundamental role in making us who we are.  In other words, language makes us who we are (gives us self-consciousness); we do not make language and simply "use" it as a tool to express ourselves.  

The importance of studying language and literature cannot be understated in my mind because the questions that literary study seeks to answer the most fundamental questions about human existence.  That's what I thought I would share about that since I'm so often fielding that question these days.