Thank you so much for your thoughtful response to “Introduction: Forms of the Global Anglophone.” This article’s intended audience is specifically other academics in literary studies, meaning a discipline-specific one. I was asked to write it to introduce a cluster of essays I edited meditating on the impacts of the term “global anglophone” in hiring practices and scholarship. I understand that for a passing reader, the “jargon” specific to literary studies that I employ may be frustratingly obscure, but such is the nature of reading scholarly journal articles that are pitched towards peers in the field rather than a general audience, wouldn’t you agree? That is to say, it was not written with interdisciplinary legibility in mind. This was more of an intra-office memo, if you catch my drift. I always remind my students that they wouldn’t pick up a medical journal and expect to understand the profession-specific “jargon” being used, so why should it be different for literary scholarship? I wouldn’t expect to understand all references and field-specific vocabulary were I to read an essay introducing a special issue on current historiography trends. I am sorry to learn that you found my article to be uninformative for your purposes, but it has since launched an active debate in the field and gets cited in academic essays and taught in college courses regularly. That doesn’t mean it’s good, per se, it just evidences the fact that numerous scholars have found it relevant for their own professional purposes. I have written essays for more general audiences that don’t delve into nitty gritty field specific concerns, and they’re undoubtedly a lot more interesting to outside readers. Regardless, I really appreciate you taking the time to review my essay. It means a lot to me that non literary scholars are reading my work, even if they don’t particularly enjoy the experience! By the by, there have been a few issues of the journal Interventions that have special issues on the global anglophone which contain many excellent articles more suited to your purposes.
Thank you so much for you generous and well thought response. I reread what I wrote and I want to apologize. As a young graduate student, I am still learning how to be critical, while still being generous. I think that when reading your article, I had been through a series of articles that were frustratingly abstract and blinded me to the "intra-office memo" nature of your article. I am sure rereading it now, with a more humble perspective, I would see much more to praise. I have been working more recently to be better at critiquing broader ideas (which in this essay I was more frustrated with books in my own field (history) and other fields that were exceptionally abstract, which unfortunately your article was the tip of the iceberg) and my essay, in its current form, is not the best representation of your work, which I apologize for. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my ramblings and for your comment. I will look up another of your articles and see if I can give a more fair review of your work and the concepts you are discussing!
No need to apologize at all. I think we all struggle to strike a balance between critique and criticism, especially in the early stages of an academic career. I’m mostly pleased to know that a history grad student would be interested enough in the discursive debates of literary studies to seek out scholarship on it. We need more people reading across disciplines, even if it can be frustrating at times!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful response to “Introduction: Forms of the Global Anglophone.” This article’s intended audience is specifically other academics in literary studies, meaning a discipline-specific one. I was asked to write it to introduce a cluster of essays I edited meditating on the impacts of the term “global anglophone” in hiring practices and scholarship. I understand that for a passing reader, the “jargon” specific to literary studies that I employ may be frustratingly obscure, but such is the nature of reading scholarly journal articles that are pitched towards peers in the field rather than a general audience, wouldn’t you agree? That is to say, it was not written with interdisciplinary legibility in mind. This was more of an intra-office memo, if you catch my drift. I always remind my students that they wouldn’t pick up a medical journal and expect to understand the profession-specific “jargon” being used, so why should it be different for literary scholarship? I wouldn’t expect to understand all references and field-specific vocabulary were I to read an essay introducing a special issue on current historiography trends. I am sorry to learn that you found my article to be uninformative for your purposes, but it has since launched an active debate in the field and gets cited in academic essays and taught in college courses regularly. That doesn’t mean it’s good, per se, it just evidences the fact that numerous scholars have found it relevant for their own professional purposes. I have written essays for more general audiences that don’t delve into nitty gritty field specific concerns, and they’re undoubtedly a lot more interesting to outside readers. Regardless, I really appreciate you taking the time to review my essay. It means a lot to me that non literary scholars are reading my work, even if they don’t particularly enjoy the experience! By the by, there have been a few issues of the journal Interventions that have special issues on the global anglophone which contain many excellent articles more suited to your purposes.
Thank you so much for you generous and well thought response. I reread what I wrote and I want to apologize. As a young graduate student, I am still learning how to be critical, while still being generous. I think that when reading your article, I had been through a series of articles that were frustratingly abstract and blinded me to the "intra-office memo" nature of your article. I am sure rereading it now, with a more humble perspective, I would see much more to praise. I have been working more recently to be better at critiquing broader ideas (which in this essay I was more frustrated with books in my own field (history) and other fields that were exceptionally abstract, which unfortunately your article was the tip of the iceberg) and my essay, in its current form, is not the best representation of your work, which I apologize for. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my ramblings and for your comment. I will look up another of your articles and see if I can give a more fair review of your work and the concepts you are discussing!
No need to apologize at all. I think we all struggle to strike a balance between critique and criticism, especially in the early stages of an academic career. I’m mostly pleased to know that a history grad student would be interested enough in the discursive debates of literary studies to seek out scholarship on it. We need more people reading across disciplines, even if it can be frustrating at times!