Interested Disinterest: The Development of the Literature Study Guide Mildrid Helen Ahlberg Bjerke PhD University of York English June 2015 Abstract The present doctoral thesis takes as its object the literature study guide for A-level, a genre which has not previously received scholarly attention. The thesis brings out the unexpected ways in which this at first sight insignificant genre expresses a fundamental ‘disciplinary anxiety’. The literature study guide is typically unheeded by literary scholars and educators because its instrumentalism – which seems to follow from external political influence – is at odds with literary values. However, this thesis shows that the study guide not only mirrors the clash between neoliberal and humanist values, but also reflects an analogous conflict within the discipline of English literature concerning the institutionalisation of disinterested ideals. In this thesis, the discussion of the tense dialectic within the study guide – its interested disinterest – is conducted in three thematic, but inevitably overlapping, parts. The first considers the study guide’s instrumentalism, viewing it as an expression of what is referred to as the neoliberal ethos, as well as investigating the overly facile conception of literary realism which informs the genre’s plot-driven structure. The second part takes disinterest as its theme, demonstrating the study guide’s membership in that tradition through its kinship with Matthew Arnold’s A Bible Reading for Schools (1872). It argues, moreover, that the genre finds further motivation in the demands of practical criticism. The final part explores the diachronic development of the balance between interest and disinterest within the study guide, and argues for a reconfiguration of the concept of disinterest such that it might accommodate a more inclusive, and less conflicted, literary pedagogy. The study guide provides a space for reflection upon the discipline’s implicit values and intuitions of purpose. It is argued that such a reflection leaves us better equipped to tackle ongoing challenges to the discipline. 3 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 3 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 6 Author’s Declaration ........................................................................................................... 8 Introduction: The Study Guide and the Discipline of English Literature ..................... 9 Internal pressures: the study guide and our ‘collective disciplinary unconscious’ ............ 9 External pressures: the effects of instrumentalism on disciplinary practice .................... 14 The structure of the thesis ................................................................................................ 18 PART I: INTEREST ......................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 1: A Conflicted Relationship: The Literature Study Guide and the Neoliberal Ethos ................................................................................................................. 22 Disinterested humanist values versus instrumental rationalisation .................................. 23 The neoliberal study guide ............................................................................................... 25 Literature as anti-instrumental social power: culture industry and stock-responses ....... 29 Literature study guides and the work ethic of the neoliberal subject ............................... 31 Literature study guides and pop-psychology self-help manuals: technologies of governing ......................................................................................................................... 36 Liberal humanism in the study guide ............................................................................... 42 ‘Interested disinterest’ in humanist pedagogy: the humanities debate ............................ 44 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 2: A Curious Complicity: The Realist Norm in Study Guides on Thomas Hardy’s Novelistic Fiction ................................................................................................. 50 A realist norm in study guides on Thomas Hardy’s fiction ............................................. 51 Liberal humanist aesthetics in study guides: Widdowson and Wotton’s anti-humanist criticism ............................................................................................................................ 53 Study guides and examination boards .............................................................................. 59 Lazy writing and editing: borrowing, overlap, and repetition ......................................... 63 Plot-summaries: the logical priority of fabula over syuzhet ............................................ 64 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 69 PART II: DISINTEREST ................................................................................................. 71 Chapter 3: The Study Guide and English Literature as Arnoldian Social Mission .... 72 The egalitarian spread of sweetness and light: individualism, the social, and Arnold’s pragmatic challenge ......................................................................................................... 73 A Bible Reading for Schools and the literature study guide: technologies of the self ..... 83 Compromising the ideal: an education in improved taste ................................................ 87 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 94 4 Chapter 4: The Study Guide as a Manual for Taste: Practical Criticism, Cultural Capital, and Disciplinary ‘Trade Secrets’ ....................................................................... 96 Practical criticism: an intellectual trade secret ................................................................. 98 Two readerships: ambivalence and polarity ................................................................... 105 Function over form: the study guide as ‘taste machine’................................................. 107 Brodie’s Chosen English Texts in the 1930s .................................................................. 113 The study guide and ‘cultural goodwill’ ........................................................................ 115 The study guide and the problem for English ................................................................ 118 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 122 PART III: INTERESTED DISINTEREST ................................................................... 124 Chapter 5: Tension, Polarity and ‘Impurity’: The Development of the Literature Study Guide, 1951-2000 ................................................................................................... 125 Teach Yourself Literature Guides: instrumental rationality and neoliberalism ............. 126 Brodie’s Notes on Chosen English Texts: disinterest and disciplinary anxiety ............. 134 The centrality of plot: the battle ground of interest and disinterest ................................ 138 Brodie’s Notes and York Notes Advanced: lowered defences against instrumentality .. 143 Assessment criteria and the influence of the National Curriculum ................................ 151 An ‘impure’ disinterest ................................................................................................... 154 a) The neoliberal ethos and the occasion for a vindication of ‘disinterest’ ............... 156 b) The deconstruction of the liberal humanist aesthetic: the contingency of disinterest .................................................................................................................................... 157 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 159 Hopes for the Future: a Conclusion ............................................................................... 160 Connecting the prose and the passion ............................................................................ 161 An ‘impure’ pedagogy .................................................................................................... 163 An ‘impure’ English ....................................................................................................... 164 APPENDIX: Set of study guides used in this research ................................................. 166 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 180 5 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Richard Walsh, for his support and guidance throughout my years at York. His attentive reading has made me a far more discerning writer. I am grateful also to my examiners, Prof. Ben Knights and Dr. Adam Kelly, for their valuable advice towards the future development of my work, and not least for making my viva voce examination so enjoyable. Prof. Lawrence Rainey has