Carolyn Miller, Anne Freadman, some responses, and the joy of theory

 Theory for theory's sake is usually the sole realm of pure blooded nerds within a given research field. Thus, much as I may go on about genre and much as I will insert a discussion of genre into well-nigh everything, I could not come up with sufficient students for a full-on genre theory course if my life depended on it. To make matters worse, there is at present no dedicated journal for genre research, so the field has an uneasy existence publication wise—having to recurrently insert itself into scholarly debates about other topics. It's doable, but it requires a fair bit of intellectual dexterity and all but excludes genre theory. Publication wise, Genre research thus exists mainly in individual articles and in topical anthologies. Many are excellent, but genre theory has a hard life fitting into these formats.

So, it's a rare and treasured moment when you get the chance to dive into genre theory with other researchers. The Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie graciously hosted a section of genre theory in its most recent issue (here), and I was even more graciously invited to participate. The occasion was an article by Anne Freadman (here) containing a response to Carolyn Miller's pioneering study "Genre as Social Action" (1984) (here). 

If you are in the know about genre research, you'll see at once that this is one of the most interesting meetings you could ever establish. Both researchers belong in the category, I once called "Eminent women in genre research" and for good reason. Miller's article is usually seen as at least one of the central starting points for contemporary genre research. In my own article I try to frame her influence like this:

Carolyn Miller’s (1984) “Genre as Social Action,” the primary topic—or target—of Anne Freadman’s brilliant and thought-provoking article, holds a special place in genre research. If I pick up an unknown piece of research on genre, the first thing I do is look for Miller’s article in the bibliography. If it is not there, the text in my hand will probably be of little value to my work for lack of orientation. (161)

 Anne Freadman on her side is a later influence, but it's not unfair to say that the last decade or so has seen a meteoric rise in her reception. If you read contemporary genre research her  seminal concept "Uptake" is everywhere. So, if we see this as battle, it is a Clash of the (Genre) Titans. The exchange is everything you could possibly hope for. Freadman lucid, friendly, unexpected (as you would, paradoxically, expect from her) and completely to the point. Miller on her side (here) is brief, clear, and very good at knowing when to hold and when to fold. 

This is all brilliant. I've known for quite a while that the exchange would come out, and I've been terribly excited to read the whole thing. But the Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie knew what they had and chose to go over and beyond, so they added three more articles—each a commentary on Freadman's original article. The two other commentators, Janet Githrow and Charles Bazerman, are both forces to be recognized  in genre research with a long line of brilliant publications to their name.  I'm not going to say very much about their contributions at this point as I'm only beginning to figure out what their place in the debate is. Suffice it to say that both contributions display the intellectual rigor  and breadth of vision, I've come to expect from the authors.  I will learn a lot from both, once I get my head fully around them (Gilthrow here, and Bazerman here as well as mine here). It is worth noting that we were only given Freadman's article, not Miller's response, and I think that was a prudent move because it took away the urge to adjudicate between the two.

Be that as it may. The whole section now reads not "just" like an exchange between two brilliant researchers, but as an exploration of the foundation and scope of genre research. There is food for thought for many a year ahead. I cannot congratulate  the Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie enough for this section. 

When does a high-impact study make its impact?

The epithome of a high-impact article in my field is Carolyn Miller's "Genre as Social Action" from 1984. It is to a wide extent the center piece of genre research. It is so influential that you cannot simply insert it into an article as "Miller (1984)". You have to call it something along the line of "Miller's groundbreaking/trailblazing/influential/seminal 1984-study". 

You don't write that just to pay homage (though homage is indeed due), but more to demonstrate that you know the field well enough to be aware that this is the study you have to pay homage to. It's sort of a rite of passage. 

Moreover, with too many texts to read and too little time to read them, it is also an excellent shibboleth to protect your time. If a text on genre does not have Miller on its bibliography, it is well-nigh certain that it's not worth your time to read. Miller may be replaced by a solid line-up of other central genre researchers, Freadman, Devitt, Bakhtin, Bazerman, Schryer, and others (see, for instance, this list), but still, there is a kind of vacuum present in a genre research-article that does not somehow quote Miller. 

So, the article is as influential as such things ever get. However, the article's impact wasn't immediate. It would require a thorough bibliometric tracking to trace its full reception history, but insofar as I have been able to determine, "Genre as Social Action" did not conquer the center stage until after the publication of another crucial work, Aviva Freedman and Peter Medway's anthology Genre and the New Rhetoric. It did have quite a lot of happy readers before that, but Freedman and Medway's anthology seems to mark the turning point after which Miller's study had become so crucial it could no longer be simply "Miller (1984)".

So, the question presents itself: When do you know that a study is high-impact? If you measure a study's impact as something taking place within a certain window, how do you know that you actually have the right window? If high-impact is what you are looking for, then to a certain extent you cannot even know when a study is taken up and suddenly gets hurled towards the academic stardom of the "trailblazing" study?

This is particularly relevant since funding bodies, promotion commitees etc will look to promote researcher's who can make an impact, but often this means that anything older than, say five, years, is counted less because it does not reflect the current stature of the researcher, and its impact is already in the past. 

But don´t trust the administrators. (Quoth the administrator). Research itself seems to be a much more patient endeavor, and in particular within the Humanities the possibility always remains that somewhere a long time ago, somebody wrote just that article that will blaze your trail, break your ground, or be your seminal influence. 

Oh, and if you are interested in narratives, I did a slightly backwards, literary homage to Miller here. 

Dissemination genres of my ivory tower

Over the last 2-3 decades universities have had obligations of “public dissemination” and “innovation” added to their tasks. This has happened under a constant demand that academics should “leave the ivory tower”. 

There is much sense in wanting the universities to interact with the rest of society, even more so, as the demand for qualified employees and for knowledge of complex problems is ever on the rise. The universities have dutifully followed through on the demand, not always with enthusiasm, but generally with acceptance, and often with engagement.

However, a vexing rhetorical problem remains. The understanding that the universities are ivory towers persists, as if nothing has changed. Just now, a reputable publishing channel in news about academia, Times Higher Education ran a blogpost headlined "Brexit: a chance for universities to leave their ivory towers behind". I practically screamed. In the text, at least, the ivory tower is in quotation marks:

Every crisis is an opportunity. Brexit is, therefore, the ultimate opportunity for universities to connect and engage with society. Brexit can help to break down the “ivory tower” walls between academia and society, and I firmly believe that this is something that can benefit us all in the long run.

Even without the meaningless abstraction "Every crisis is an opportunity," I find the passage endlessly annoying for its use of the metaphor; even after all these years, and all this effort, re-sticking us behind the walls of the ivory tower can happen at a whim if it benefits a particular argument. The metafor, in fact, annoys me so much, than when reading the article, and the quote in question, all I get out of it is this: 

Brexit is such a huge mess brought on us by politics, that we as universities have to engage with politicians in order to avert disaster, and this will force us to open up to society.

(my summary, somewhat sharpened)

For an avid EU-fan such as myself that is hardly a compelling reason for anything.

One of the fundamental problems of the original metaphor was, of course, that the ivory tower probably never existed in the first place. Even in its most exclusive forms, the university was always a place, people moved through, picking up knowledge. The central point of teaching is influence society in a positive way. Young people entered, spent a number of years at the institution engaging with the knowledge it both developed and represented, and then left with this knowledge to make it, and themselves, useful in the surrounding society. The interchange between university and society was always there.

Moreover, a number of structures in contemporary university life excludes the public in new and hitherto unknown ways. The exclusive focus on publication in scholarly journals inaccessible and incomprehensible to the public at large, threatens to make expert knowledge an affair exclusively for experts. I know of no wall resembling an ivory tower more closely than the paywall of Elsevier. 

Also, many successful academics now work in research centers and research project that have little or no contact with university students, thus severing the classic link between teaching and research; these centers, too, may at times look like ivory tower inhabited by the lucky minority of researchers able to procure large sums of external funding–mainly through having success in publishing in exclusive journals.

However this may all be, the reemergence of the metaphor had me thinking about what genres I actually use or participate in when disseminating from my room in the supposed ivory tower. As a literary scholar, I am taken to be very muck out of touch; to inhabit a room very high up in the tower. But still: if I exclude the normal teaching genres, in what genres do I actually communicate with a broader public?

Foredrag (public lectures)
The foredrag (public lecture) is a big thing in Denmark, following a tradition dating back to N.F.S. Grundtvig. It's basic structure  is one where an academic lectures a broader audience about a topic of common interest, and in a way that is both enlightning and entertaining. In fact, these two must be combined in order for the foredrag to be considered a success.I have done a few hundred of those. 

Believe me: They cannot be done from the ivory tower. I have seen ivory tower-foredrag attempted; I do not want to see them attempted ever again. It's physically painful to watch.

Oh, and communal singing is often involved.

Journalist briefings
Aforementioned Grundtvig is central figure to Danish culture, so being an expert on him has often entailed briefing journalists about him. I have also briefed on other literary figures, on news satire, and on PhD education. This is a lot of fun, as you can be a little bit lighter when you are just presenting background and do not have to be quoted yourself.

Interviews
These cover several media, TV, radio, newspapers and an assortment of web pages, and they range from short quotes on this or that to extensive pieces of talk radio and even portrait-ish pieces. The media being what it is, I'm sometimes the expert, sometimes an "interesting person". In either case the interview form I encounter, is milder than in the interrogative form often adopted by journalists when interviewing politicians. So, I usually look pretty good - usually.

However, there is a catch. Journalistic interviews will often be seen from a specific angle, and the journalist does not have time for all the caution, all the nuances, and all the hedging, I like as an academic. So sometimes I feel slightly uneasy with the persona of me which appears in news outlets - and from time to time, I'm simply misquoted and look positively silly. But that's the name of the game, and I can live with it.

Answers to inquiries
I have not done a lot of this lately, but ever so often somebody simply gets in touch because they want to ask me stuff. It's frequently either retired people who  are just curious, or  it is active, and often charmingly assertive, high school students. The queries are often of a curious kind in the sense that questions to be answered tend towards, "what is, you know actually, for real-ish, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything". And these people mean business and are not taking 42 for an answer. 

It's not mass communication but it is some sort of outreach (or "inreach" by the public, if you will), and it can get very intense. The payoff is probably not equal to the effort, but I quite like it.

Newspaper reviews
In my line of work, I could do newspaper reviews for ever and ever. A number of my colleagues have a strong dual identity as researchers and reviewers. 

I have never done that many; I am no good at judging literary works in public, and even when reviewing non-fiction my hand seems to shake. ("Non-fiction", by the way, is a strange genre label, defined by a negative, but covering most of the writing that actually takes place, Jack Andersen, my colleague  at the Center for Genre Research, can tell you more about that.) I simply don´t like taking the sharp approach that defines most good newspaper reviewers - and, I think, all the legendary ones. 

Thus, my newspaper reviews always end up being quite friendly, and my persona as reviewer is somewhat defanged. I don´t do a lot of reviewing, and I don´t think I ever will. As a scholarly reviewer I seem to re-aquire my teeth and have no trouble at all biting to the bone, but those reviews are, obviously, not public outreach.

"Dissemination research"
I am not quite sure if this thing even has a genre name. But previously I did a lot of scholarly work in contexts where the actual publication was aimed at a broader audience: anthologies, popular journals, a literary history. This was actual research work, and a lot of what went into these publications was new knowledge fully on the level of my more sombre publications aimed exclusively at an audience of researchers.

I liked working in this genre. It combined my interests in research and in public outreach nicely, and it gave a broader audience access to my actual research; not "just" a later dissemination-version of said research. And given the central role of the interchange between academia and a wider public in Denmark (see "Foredrag" above), it also made me a lot of friends and drew an amount of attention worth the effort.

However, given the way money, status, and recognition moves in a contemporary research landscape, there is little time for such endeavors. Research efforts have to appear in publications that are clearly recognizable as research publications, and they have to be in English, and thus I lose my public research audience, even before the game begins. 

This is a great loss and a cause of grief for me, but the structures are against the genre. It is of marginal importance in my writing today.

Newspaper articles and commentary
I have written a few of these, but they are rarely research dissemination proper. They have to be cut too close for (my) comfort. But I'll probably do a few more, come time.

Blogposts
QED. 


So, it seems to me that the walls of my supposed ivory tower are pretty permeable. There are a number of genres available to me, in some of these, the outside world even comes to me in order to ask me to disseminate. Moreover, many of these genres are traditional in the sense that they have been handed down to me by previous researcher; and in turn I hand them down to new researchers as a way of getting them to work with dissemination. 

When confronted with the metaphor of the ivory tower, I sometimes ask to know where it is, because I want to get in. This, of course, is fine for polemic purposes. But, truth to tell, I don´t want to get in; I am fine in a lively interchange.

And, on this day, I most certainly do not need Brexit to get me out of any ivory towers. In fact, the incompetent orange narcissist in The White House aside, I believe Brexit is one of the few things that could make me depressed enough with the world to isolate myself in an exclusive concentration on my research and the genres connected to it.

"You could give him a call". On implied genre knowledge

One of the most baffling and inspring characteristics of genre is the knowledge it implies. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons why genres are so prolific in culture is their ability to communicate effectively through implied knowledge; communication works, because genre knowledge allows both the utterer and the recipient to assume certain things known. 

Take a look at this poster:

This commercial, encountered some years back in one of the posh suburbs to Copenhagen, has a text that reads “Kender du Peter Pabst-Karlsson fra Nybolig…? Du kunne jo ringe til ham...” [“Do you know Peter Pabst-Karlsson from Nybolig...? You could give him a call…”].

Nybolig is a well-known Danish real estate chain. One of the interesting things about the commercial from a generic point of view, is it's suggestion that the spectator calls the friendly gentleman depicted; the assumption being, of course, that the man in the picture is, in fact, the Peter Pabst-Karlsson mentioned in the text. What fascinates me is the fact that the commercial suggests the telephone call, but does not specify what the subject of the conversation is to be.

However, any generically competent member of society is able to infer what this subject is.  The genre of the text is "real estate commercial", so the conversation has to be about a subject pertaining to real estate trading. You call Peter Pabst-Karlsson to sell a property or to buy one, not to chat about the weather. 

This information may not be given in the text, but it is implied in the interplay between genre and utterance. In fact, the successful impact of the commercial depends on this recognition. Interestingly, neither the sender nor the reader need to be aware that they are communicating through genre. The recognition of the genre is instantaneous, and so is the interpretation of the utterance. You do not have to stop and think about genre to fill in the blank-

Members of a particular discourse community can make inferences like his instantaneously, and they will even know that at some point in the process the nice looking man will expect to be paid for his services, and that it is, in fact, the promise of this payment which motivates the poster in the first place. 

For more on implied genre knowledge see my articles "Genre and Interpretation" and "Contemporary Genre Studies: An Interdisciplinary Conversation with JohannineScholarship".