The Materiality of Language: Gender, Politics, and the University

Description

A critique of male-dominated modes of language use, their roots in higher education, their effects, and their spill over into popular culture. David Bleich sees the human body, its affective life, social life, and political functions as belonging to the study of language. In The Materiality of Language, Bleich addresses the need to end centuries of limiting access to language and its many contexts of use. To recognize language as material and treat it as such, argues Bleich, is to remove restrictions to language access due to historic patterns of academic censorship and unfair gender practices. Language is understood as a key path in the formation of all social and political relations, and becomes available for study by all speakers, who may regulate it, change it, and make it flexible like other material things. Cover DETAILED CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction: The Contested Subject PART ONE: THE MATERIALITY OF LANGUAGE Chapter 1: Premises and Backgrounds I. The Materiality of Language and the Sacralization of Texts II. Access to Language III. Limited Access in Education and Total Mediation in Society IV. Nominalism Chapter 2: Received Standards in the Study of Language I. Language as a Contested Subject Matter II. Lorenzo Valla’s Challenges III. The Humanistic Study of Language IV. Language and Knowledge V. Condillac’s Search for Origins VI. Many Languages and the Enlightened University VII. Modern Standards Chapter 3: Materiality and Genre I. Materiality from Nominalism II. Genre as a Language Function III. Wittgenstein’s Second Opinion III-1. Sprachspiel III-2. Life Forms III-3. Family Resemblance III-4. Description Instead of Explanation III-5. Ordinary Language: Access in Plain Sight IV. Austin and Speech Action V. Bakhtin’s Speech Genres and National Languages VI. Whorf and Linguistic Relativity VII. Academic Resistance to Materiality Chapter 4: The Unity of Language and Thought I. Enlightenment and Other Values II. Hamann, the Magician III. Figuration IV. Contradiction, Neologism V. Translation VI. Julia Kristeva and the Struggle with Gender VII. Materiality, the Offspring of Maternality Chapter 5: Materiality and the Contemporary Study of Language I. The Stubborn Nativist Premise II. Terrence Deacon and Evolutionary Explanation III. Studying Infantile Language Acquisition IV. Recognizing Affect in Language Acquisition V. Language Acquisition and the Integration of Body, Self, and Society VI. The Mutual Dependency of Naming and Predication Chapter 6: Recognizing Politics in the Study of Language I. Language, Politics, Gender II. Linguistics’ Second Opinion III. Interpreting the Present IV. Struggles for Access to Language V. The Materiality of a Subaltern Dialect VI. Recasting the Study of Language PART TWO: LANGUAGE IN THE UNIVERSITY Chapter 7: Frustrations of Academic Language I. Sacralization and Abstraction II. The Writing of Many Books III. Freud’s Repression and Other Limits IV. It’s a Paradox V. Agonism VI. Protection as a Principle of Academic Governance Chapter 8: The Protected Institution I. Protection in the Early University II. The Men’s Association III. Peter Abelard’s Effects IV. University Formation as a Reaction against Abelard V. The Unchanging Curriculum VI. Changes in Reading Practices VII. Empirical Science and Other Troublemakers VIII. New Values, New Languages Chapter 9: The Sacred Language I. The Ascendancy of Latin II. Literacy and Access to Language III. Heresy and the Opposition to New Language III-1. Crimes of Language Use III-2. Wyclif and the Lollards III-3. Servetus and the Trinity IV. Witch-hunting and the Fear of Mothers’ Tongues V. Learned Latin Chapter 10: Language Uses in Science, the Heir of Latin I. The Heir of Latin II. Objectification and Gender Identity III. Science and Objectivity IV. Normalizing Abstractions V. Instinct, Intelligence, and Other Placeholders VI. Laws of Nature VII. The Big Bang VIII. Intimations of Language Change in Physics Chapter 11: Language and Human Survival I. Nukespeak II. Instinctive Aggression, Paradoxical Violence II-1. Konrad Lorenz II-2. J. L. Talmon III. Explanation without Paradox: Virginia Woolf IV. Languages of Dependency and Survival Chapter 12: The Materiality of Literature and the Contested Subject I. The Separation of Literature from Language II. The Isolation of Obscene Language III. Obscene Literature and the Reading Public IV. The Double Voice and the Materiality of Literature V. Erotica and Political Action VI. Literature and the Contested Subject Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z