Modern Greek Studies at the Crossroads: the Paradigm Shift

Modern Greek Studies at the Crossroads: The Paradigm Shift from Empiricism to Skepticism 1 Vassilis Lambropoulos In 1988, the Modern Greek Studies Association of America (MGSA) celebrated its 20th anniversary. It was an appropriate moment for festive occasions, and gestures of pride and confidence as a small academic group has rapidly evolved into a national scholarly organi zation of international prestige, with its own forums, activities, pub lications, independence, and authority. This development and ex pansion also indicates forcefully that the study of contemporary Greece has come of age. While the field of modern Greek studies can trace its history back to the early 20th century, when linguists, folk lorists, and historians turned their philhellenic interests to the de scendants of the ancients, with the success of the Association it has finally acquired the coherence, comprehensiveness, and credibility of a legitimate research field. Such an impressive achievement deserves to be highlighted and celebrated. It may not even be too early to consider writing the history of the Association-the only one of its kind in the world-as a study in, and lesson of, disciplinary growth. The list of accomplishments is long: the growing number of ·modern Greek studies programs; the establishment of designated pro fessorships and endowed chairs; increasing undergraduate and grad uate enrollments; the scope and quality of curricula; ten major sym posia and many special panels in general conferences; publication of journals such as Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, the Journal of Modern Greek Studies and the book publications of the Association; the scholarly record and reputation of its membership; the interdis ciplinary and international character of the organization; and ever expanding interest in the fieldby both colleagues and non-specialists. An original, wide-ranging body of scholarly and administrative work has been created with the result that an old area of study has suc cessfully emerged as a legitimate and respectable academic field. journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 7, 1989. 2 Vassilis Lambropoulos Festive occasions often provide collective opportunities forboth affirmationof vigor and self-examination: a celebration of success can be constructively complemented by a criticism of fear, fetish, or failure. It is particularly reassuring to see this already happening in modern Greek studies. I am referring to a comprehensive review of its methods and practices which has been undertaken by many specialists in dif fe rent disciplines, and is currently remapping the territory and re drawing the boundaries that have separated the field from other areas. Such extensive revision can be perceived as either a critique or a threat: as a critique of notions and legislations which narrow the scope of research by those who deplore limits and controls on inquiry; and as a threat to hierarchy and balance by those who dread the erosion of common sense and authority. There is no doubt that this revision proposes both an alternative vision and a different empowerment. Knowledge and power can no longer be kept artificially separate in any institutional environment (Unger 1975). The debate is about rights, not right and wrong. It would therefore seem to me that an open discussion of this continuing development can only contribute to a better understanding of the field. The moment is no less fe stive than critical. Criticism, indeed, does not violate the spirit of celebra tion; on the contrary, one ought to be mindful of gains made and of stakes raised. A radical potential for innovation has emerged. Let us then take a closer look at modern Greek studies at the crossroads of history and practice. I propose that we are witnessing, and we are also part of, a paradigm shift. 2 Twenty years after the official establishment of the MGSA and its academic territory of operation, a revisionary, and often oppositional, collective effort to reexamine its direction seems to have reached a high point of maturity, visibility, and success. So far, a crude line has been tentatively drawn between two camps: the philologists and the theoreticians. The firstcamp appears to include traditionalists who still adhere to criteria of fact gathering, stylistic analysis, and factual reconstruction, while the second includes those who espouse methods loosely associated with the poststructuralist movement. Al though the differentiation may not be entirely inappropriate, its in stitutional origin (in recent debates within departments of English and other "major" languages and literatures) ought to warn against its uncritical application in other areas. It is true that philology and theory have come to represent today two dominant positions, whose conflict manifests itself with particular clarity and force in literary studies: one position that trusts the autonomy of the 1iterary text and takes its aesthetic importance as its starting point, and another that questions this autonomy and its concomitant cultural authority. The two terms, Modern Greek Studies 3 however, present confusing and distracting difficulties. "Philology," forexample, cannot always be transferred with any accuracy to denote traditional approaches within other disciplines; and "theory" creates the false impression that there can be a distinct activity called appli cation. 3 Even the designation of the two camps (which encourages one to think in terms of individuals, conspiracies, or sports teams) does not help in locating the source of disagreement. We need to go beyond such misleading distinctions. The positions, practices, and purposes of the two schools of thought require a much more analytical and detailed description. During similar debates within the larger area of interpretive theory, many interesting terms have been proposed: Richard Rorty ( 1982), forexample, has distinguished idealism from textualism, Stanley Fish ( 1985) theory from pragmatism, Terry Eagleton ( 1983) literary from political criticism, Catherine Belsey ( 1980) expressive-realist from pro ductive criticism, and others metaphysics from historicism, poetics from rhetoric, or explication frominterpretation. All these distinctions have been useful in outlining the substantial differences separating the two schools and in alerting us to their consequences. At the same time, they often left the door open to misunderstanding or manip ulation. A traditionalist, forexample , could defend his work by claim ing that he has been a textualist all along (because he deals with texts), or a historicist (because he takes into consideration historical factors), or a rhetorician (because he analyzes rhetorical devices). In another effort (though certainly not the last one) to minimize confusion, I would like to focus on methodological assumptions, and call the two ways of working in modern Greek studies, Empiricism and Skepticism, respectively. It is a tentative distinction which serves heuristic pur poses: the clear and succinct articulation and comparison of philo sophical disagreements. I shall not spend much time outlining the epistemological contours of each paradigm. My aim is to concentrate as much as possible on the realm of my immediate concern, modern Greek studies. ***** Empiricism argues that experience is the dependable source of all knowledge and its justification, that facts are the only possible objects of knowledge, and certainty is derived from direct contact with their reality. The source of literary knowledge, for example, is the experience of literature, and the object of that knowledge is literary reality. the literary facts. Thus the specialist who shares this belief will rely upon experience of a text (and perhaps upon similar experiences of other specialists) to write about it as a datum, an independent entity 4 Vassilis Lambropoulos of intrinsic merit that can be independently approached and objec tively analyzed. This is taken to be the most reliable source of infor mation, the datum of a complete and disinterested experience. What is usually analyzed, though, is not experience as such (that is, as a personal event) : only the essayist can afford to talk explicitly about it, relay and relish it in unabashedly personal, even private, terms. The scholar will present a contact with a fact, a discovery of a reality, a detailed exploration of a tangible world and an incorruptible truth. Similar claims (about contact, exploration, and discovery) are invar iably made in other human and the social sciences: the linguist reveals a deep structure, the historian a hidden motive, the sociologist a secret cause. Empiricism should not be perceived as a homogeneous trend or a monolithic attitude. Within this large area (which often extends beyond the realm of scholarship and is indeed lodged in the exigencies of everyday political reality), various discourses develop, constructing and construing experience and its objects in quite differentwa ys. One can discern a variety of directions, from the impressionistic, which relies more on the experiential dimension (asserting the supremacy of the cultivated sensibility in a quasi-autobiographical style), to the positivistic, which remains on the scientific dimension (asserting the priority of the object or event to be reconstructed). They all share the same confidence in a direct, full (and by definition "parasitic"4) contact with an autonomous, meaningful reality, but their emphasis on the proper conditions of that contact vary. As a typical instance of

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