framework our field of studies is doomed to be devoured by neighboring disciplines .” ( 135 ) This seems very true , and with his announcement (“ Welcome to Imaginology ”), Savoye invites us to open up our discipline , which was never defined in the first place , to the pleasure principle of reading , discussing , and writing about imaginary parallel dimensions .
What will likely be useful to grad students and novice instructors is his elucidation of “ at least ten different modes according to which parallel imaginary dimensions are structured : Poetic , Epic , Marvelous , Tragic , Comic , Romantic , Realistic , Fantastic , Anticipatory , and Experimental .” ( 224 ) To observe a veteran literary scholar ( Savoye is a professor of French and Spanish of literary and cultural studies at West Virginia University ) reassert the primacy of storytelling — and the pleasure of stories — over parasitical theory is delightful . Boredom , not theory , is the enemy , he maintains , and the reason why English departments aren ’ t expanding and why tenured positions are scarce . As he puts it , near the end of Beyond Literary Studies ,
[ S ] tudents enrolled in literature classes are today for the most part fed with unfounded speculations of would-be writers of a new , supposedly exciting literary genre known as “ theory ,” the practical applications of which shine by their absence , and forced to ingurgitate a different type of vocabulary — the kind you cannot virtually use anywhere outside of a close circle of friends . Whereas the knowledge of true imaginary parallel dimensions developed linguistic and creative abilities that could be used in a variety of professional contexts […] anyone involved in the field of publicity or public relations would certainly benefit more from enjoying a series such as Mad Men than from ploughing through selected passages of Of Grammatology . ( 264 )
One quibble . The ghost of controversial literary critic Leslie Fiedler flickers in the margins of Savoye ’ s book . Fiedler , known for Love and Death in the American Novel ( 1960 ), stressed the latent interracial homosociality in , say , The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . A secondary work of Fiedler ’ s , What Was Literature ? ( 1983 ), by most accounts is an expression of bad faith as he struggles for a reason to value the humanities in a postmodern landscape . Fiedler ’ s solution ? To tear down the wall between high and low culture , and to address a broader range of objects , from Shakespeare to 1970s TV cop show Starksy and Hutch . Fiedler ’ s assessment ended up being prophetic ; the enduring presence of this journal stands as evidence . Thus , Savoye ’ s disregard of Fiedler makes me speculate : Haven ’ t literary studies already been supplanted by popular-culture scholarship thanks to his own publisher , McFarland ? Could Imaginology , in other words , be just another name ?
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