Out of the Verbal Straight-jacket

Jane Tompkins' "Me and My Shadow" was exactly what I needed to hear.

Dr. Tompkins begins her essay by confessing that she gained professional clout at the expense of her emotional life. I can echo her concerns because I often feel as though a division exists between my personal life and my academic persona. Although I have grown comfortable inside a classroom and in academic discussions, I can't stay in that realm for an extended period of time without compromising my sanity. That facet of my life isn't altogether natural. It requires sustained effort on my part.

Tompkins advocates a combination of the personal and the professional, the emotional and the academic. As a woman, I find this liberating, since I often feel as though I stuff my emotions when in the classroom. For me, academics can be very exciting, and I'd like the freedom to express those feelings in my work. Essentially, Tompkins believes that language should express that personal involvement, emotionally affecting not only the author but also the reader. I see using this new language as an act of service, since all clear, relevant writing does the reader a favor.

Because she legitimizes "the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion," Tompkins sounds as though she has been influenced by the Romantics. She also mimics her Romantic predecessors by preferring the plain language of the common people over the elevated prose of the strictly rational and the "ruling class." Just as in 1798, Tompkins brings about a democratization of language as she tears down the hierarchy between the scholarly and the everyday. Unlike the stilted diction and syntax of many intellectuals, Tompkins' proposed language allows the author's authentic voice to speak. Tompkins' ideas bring me great comfort and hope: I can be myself, even as a scholar and critic.

I don't think that the acceptance of emotion into our intellectual writing necessarily signals a shift against rationality, however. As I mentioned above, the discoveries that occur when we do research and write criticism often trigger emotion, and it makes sense to incorporate the two. For that reason, I think that the attacks on Tompkins' theory are illegitimate. We aren't forfeiting anything.

However, I am concerned that some scholars will read Tompkins' essay and see it as a license for narcissism. There is a fine line between incorporating one's feelings and experiences into scholarly writing and annoying your readers with your apparent self-centeredness. I think some contemporary scholars and professors inadvertantly slip into this habit. Instead of engaging their readers as they intended, they end up alienating them. The student closes the book or leaves the lecture hall in disgust, thinking, "She's so full of herself." In these cases, I think that professors need to reexamine their priorities and their teaching methods and perhaps focus less on their own personal reactions, allowing the students to voice their own responses to the work. This is especially important for Christian professors because (theoretically) they should be servant-minded. I do like the way that Tompkins' essay parallels the Christian worldview by voicing the need for "out-going, outflowing, giving feelings" in the world of scholarship. I agree with her when she says that there is no room for "an intellectual performance." This other-centeredness should apply to the Christian campus as well as the secular university.