There are many types of lectures. There is the unequivocally good lecture, which leaves you with plenty of stuff to think about, and urges you to ask questions, if at all, about the implications of the argument presented.There is the überevidenced, but undertheorized lecture, which is tantalizing, but often gives the speaker and his audience plenty to discuss about what exactly the evidence presented does and does not imply. There is the (rare) ‘where-do-I-start’-lecture, after which you’ll suppress your questions because there is just no way that there is going to be a fruitful exchange of ideas – because no argument has been made, or because it was both undertheorized and underevidenced. And then, there is the lecture that will just leave you totally baffled – because, while it all sounds eloquent and highly intelligent, you feel that something is wrong, but you cannot find the words, and fear, at the same time, that you have missed the clue and are not intelligent enough to fully understand where the speaker is going. These, actually, are the worst lectures to handle. They infuriate me. At the same time, and precisely for that reason, they are the best. They keep me thinking, and help me define my own position and approach. They show me the place where I aspire to be able to go and don’t want to be found at the same time.
We had a classic example yesterday. It started with a lengthy quote from Derrida, so it was immediately clear what kind of direction we were heading in. What followed was a sequence of crafted observations, all more or less unrelated, but vaguely pointing into the same direction. Objects were briefly shown and discussed. Concepts – Greek words, I mean – appeared and disappeared without warning or explanation. The storyline evolved without the audience knowing. Methodology – while you got the strong impression that there was a methodology – was left mostly implicit. Conclusions weren’t spun out, but were briefly hinted at. No attempt was made to connect with the audience – we were left to find out for ourselves. Yet, it still all sounded very well-thought through and intelligent. So the questions many of us seem to have had – ‘what actually is your methodology, why did you choose this direction, what are you trying to say, and why should we bother?’ – were not asked afterwards. There was a bit of discussion – but on the details.
It would also have been besides the point, I think now. What the lecture really made me realize is how much I am a rationalist. I want a clear agenda, a methodology, and an argument, preferably falsifiable. And I want it explicit, because in my world only then you are really accountable. I know, of course, that rationalism at least partially is a myth – a coded language that we use to convince ourselves and others that we have thought very hard about things, and that there are good reasons to believe what we are thinking – even though in many cases there are many processes of creativity, gut feeling and intuition going on that do not fit easily in a strictly rationalistic framework. But still. Even if rationalism is just an artificial, invented language that does not account for everything that is going on in scholarship, it is, at this point, by far the best language we have to communicate with each other – and if you believe, like I do, that scholarship primarily is about communication, that is essential.
Yet, there is a vociferous tradition within classics and classical archaeology that uses different strategies to construct its realities and beliefs, and yesterday’s speaker clearly positioned herself in that tradition, which communicates not through explicit argument but through implicit impressions, conveying a ‘feeling’ rather than making a point. If you want, directed at the heart rather than the mind. There is, of course, quite a philosophical debate behind all this that goes back to the nineteenth century. The fascinating thing is that, I think, our field – classics, ancient history, and, especially, classical archaeology – is one of the (few) places where these two ways of looking at things directly collide – there is a strong rationalistic tradition, and an equally strong hermeneutic tradition – and they do not really get along very well. It is very hard to cross sides, and it is very hard to find a way that incorporates the best of both worlds. It is also very easy for rationalists to accuse the other side of arrogance or mannerism, and the same is true the other way around – rationalists may be accused of simplicity or, worse, superficiality.
I am not sure whether both approaches are really incompatible, though it often feels like it. But that is not the point here. The point is that I went to a lecture, got baffled and infuriated, and took a (very small) step forward.
Miko Flohr, 28/05/2011