This comprehensive report includes a systematic history of the SCE, from its founding in 1976 to the present day. It includes the following sections:
Brief Overview of the SCE SCE Projects, Past and Present Detailed History of the SCE (in 3 phases): Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3
In 1975 Leroy Searle, James Sosnoski, and Patricia Harkin organized The Society for Critical Exchange "to encourage cooperative inquiry and research in criticism and theory." In 1976 the society was incoporated as a not-for-profit corporation, and it remains the only North American scholarly society devoted specifically to theory. As such, it has been instrumental in the institutionalization of theory in Literary Studies.
Under its auspices over one-hundred and fifty professional meetings have been coordinated, including a series of annual symposia and conferences on various aspects of critical theory. As a recognized affiliate of the Modern Language Association, SCE mounts programs annually both at this organization's convention and at various regional MLA meetings. Since its founding it has published a newsletter, News and Notices, and between 1976 and 1990 twenty-five issues of Critical Exchange, a journal of research-in-progress which includes papers by known and little known scholars on subjects ranging from disciplinarity and the professionalization of literary study to the relationships between reading and writing and the future of the humanities. In 1990 Critical Exchange was terminated and the function it had served of stimulating critical discussion on current topics in theory fell to the Electronic College of Theory while members turned for publication of their work to established journals and presses.
Since its founding, SCE members, especially young faculty and graduate students in the modern languages but in other disciplines as well, have benefited from its intensive, interactive colloquia and conferences, its various publications, and its electronic discussion group on theory. The Society currently has approximately 850 members.
The Society is governed by an elected board of seven directors (including the executive director) who serve staggered terms of four years each. Since 1984 it has also had an honorary president. Its presidents, elected by the Board to a two-year term, have included Ralph Cohen, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Richard Ohmann, and the current president, Edward Said. Its directors are selected from among the scholars active in the Society's research projects. Currently they include Judith Butler, Susan Feiner, Regenia Gagnier, Peter Jaszi, Lawrence Needham, and Mark Osteen.
The topics to which the Society has devoted its energies have placed it in the vanguard of Literary Studies. Indeed, the record of SCE programs at the annual MLA convention shows that a striking number of SCE members have gone on to become leaders of the profession.
SCE Topics and Projects, Past and Present
SCE topics (with the date of their appearance in an MLA convention program) include: defining postmodernism (since 1978), the pedagogy of theory (since 1979), the nature of disciplinarity and the institutionalization and professionalization of literary studies (since 1983), the role of men in feminism (since 1984), post-colonial theory (since 1986), the relations of writing and reading (since 1987), the problem of affirmation in critical theory (since 1990), the pedagogy of cultural studies (since 1991), the relation of authorship and the institutions of intellectual property (since 1993), the manifold relations of literature to the economy (since 1994), and the sites, technologies and cultures of writing as a cultural force (since 1977). The timeliness of its topics has made SCE events popular, with MLA programs regularly drawing a minimum of 50, and more recently several hundred attendants -- e.g., the "Law of Texts" forum in 1992, the "New Economic Criticism" session arranged by SCE director, Martha Woodmansee, for the Division on Literary Criticism in 1991. Detailed descriptions of the active projects can be found in throughout this narrative, or click here to move to the projects section of this website.
Its research projects are the Society's raison d'etre. They are collaborative and, since the mid-1980s, increasingly interdisciplinary, including in addition to literary scholars a substantial number of scholars from other disciplines such as the Law and Economics. At least 2500 scholars have participated in the Society's projects since its founding.
Before being placed on an MLA program these topics had typically been addressed at an annual meeting of the Midwest MLA or one of the other regional MLA's and, in many cases, at one or more special symposia. Following presentation at the MLA, the majority of these topics occasioned a national conference, and a number went on to produce a significant publication.
The history of the SCE may be divided into three distinct phases corresponding to its three institutional locations, but also to three stages in the status of theory in literary studies. Phase 1 (1976-81) at the University of Washington, Phase 2 (1982-1990) at Miami University of Ohio, and Phase 3 at Case Western Reserve University, the SCE's present home.
U of Washington (1976-81)
During the first phase (1976-1981), when the SCE was located at the University of Washington in Seattle, theory was not yet widely practiced or accepted as a legitimate activity. Thus exchange itself was an important mission because it helped to disseminate theory while building solidarity and cooperation among theorists. The Society also established itself as a sponsor of innovative events, taking up "The Function of Controversy in the Language of Critical Exchange" at its first MLA convention in 1977, "Postmodernism and Criticism" in 1978, "Beyond Interpretation" and "Teaching Criticism" in 1979 (and again in 1980 and 1981).
The SCE held sessions at regional MLAs in its first years as well. At the MMLA, for example, where meetings were most interactive because papers circulated in advance so as to leave ample time for discussion, these included: "Workshop I: The Work of Harold Bloom: The Influence of the 'Influence Poetics'" and "Workshop II: The Concept of the Text: Do recent changes in theories of the text require adjustments on the part of practicing critics? (James Joyce's Araby will be a focus for discussion)" (1978); "Workshop on a Literary Theorist: Refried Frye" and "Workshop on Literary Theory: The Relationship between Theory and Practice" (1979).
While in Seattle the SCE also began sponsoring annual conferences at Indiana University: "Theories of Narrative" (Oct. 1980) and "Theories of Reading" featuring Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Peter Brooks, Louise Rosenblatt, among others (Sept. 1981). The next Indiana Conference, "Theories of Representation" (Oct. 1982), explored the problem of reference and representation in four contexts, asking which is the more general category, and what is the role of collectivity in acts of reference and representation, the relation between language and other media, and the role of the individual subject. These three SCE-IU conferences were multidisciplinary, with philosophers, linguists, art historians and critics attending. They were also experiments in conference design. To encourage exchange, papers circulated in advance of the conferences rather than being presented orally, making it possible for plenary panels as well as smaller seminars to be devoted to discussion. This has developed into standard practice at all conferences sponsored by the SCE, as well as at regional MLAs which support such circulation (notably the MMLA).
Its innovations in both topic and format, evident at the SCE's MLA sessions and the IU conferences, rapidly gave the SCE a national reputation much larger than its small membership during the period would suggest (200 members). This tradition has survived the growth of the organization (to over 800 members) and its moves first to Miami of Ohio and then Cleveland, and today its conferences are legend: almost anyone who has attended an SCE conference, if querried, would be likely to describe it as among most intellectually intense and satisfying conference s/he can recall attending.
To enhance and preserve critical exchange, the SCE founded a small journal at this time, SCE Reports. Selections from the proceedings of many of its early public programs were first distributed in this journal -- e.g., "The Language of Criticism" (SCE Reports #1) and "The Function of Controversy in the Language of Critical Exchange" (SCE Reports #3). Many of the themes of other early issues culminate in the important Fall 1980 issue, "Deconstructive Criticism: Directions" (SCE Reports #8). The contributors to this issue, including Barbara Johnson and William V. Spanos, developed in its pages what may now be recognized as the chief insights of poststructuralist thought.
When the SCE moved to Miami of Ohio, SCE Reports was transformed under the editorship of James Sosnoski into two publications: News and Notices, which assumed the tasks of a newsletter, including circulating calls for papers and reporting on the SCE's activities in Oxford, Bloomington, and at the MLA and its regional conventions, and Critical Exchange, a journal designed to disseminate research-in-progress of the Society's various projects (making it easier for this work to get reprinted in other journals and books).
Several issues of Critical Exchange proved to be major contributions, especially #14 (Fall 1983) on the work of Fredric Jameson, #17 (Winter 1985), which included an interview with Jacques Derrida, and #23 (Summer 1987) on the work of Gerald Graff. Other issues led to significant publications, most notably #18, which served as a basis for the collection on Men in Feminism edited by Alice Jardine and Paul Smith and published by Methuen in 1987. Still other issues, such as #22 (Spring 1987) on "Third World Theorizing," took Literary Studies into altogether new intellectual territory.
Miami of Ohio (1982-90)
During its second phase at Miami University of Ohio (1982-1990) membership increased steadily to over three hundred as did the Society's national reputation. New activities reflected the growing institutionalization of theory -- its increasing legitimacy in literary studies. It became less necessary to promote theory, and the SCE could devote its energies to contributing to theoretical practice. Several collaborative study groups and collective research projects developed during this period: GRIP, the Group for Research on the Institutionalization and Professionalization of Literary Studies, MURGE, the Miami University Research Group Experiment, PRISM, a collaborative inquiry into the interconnections of writing and reading, and an investigation of the "Sites and Sources of American Cultural Criticism." Another project, VOCAT, which had as its goal an ambitious reference work on modern criticism and theory, was only partially successful. As indicated above, the active group at Miami also published thirteen issues of Critical Exchange (#11-25).
Under the direction of James Sosnoski, GRIP, the most successful project launched during this second phase, investigated the ways in which the various "social institutions of knowledge create and constrain choices for teaching and research in literary studies." The program of one of seven meetings devoted to this subject, the SCE-Indiana University conference "Deciding What to Know: The Professional Authorization of Knowledge in the Humanities," may be found in the Archives section of this website. Four issues of Critical Exchange had been devoted to GRIP by the time it became independent of the SCE in 1990. Since then it has produced several more conferences and a book series with the U of Virginia Press, "Knowledge, Disciplinarity and Beyond," the first volume of which, Knowledges: Historical and Critical Studies in Disciplinarity, ed. Ellen Messer-Davidow, David Shumway, and David Sylvan, appeared in 1993. Portions of the project have also appeared in Poetics Today.
An experiment carried out by graduate students at Miami of Ohio, MURGE, resulted in a semiotic analysis of James Joyce's "Araby" which was published in the James Joyce Quarterly (Spring/Summer 1981) together with commentaries by Seymour Chatman, Jonathan Culler, and Gerald Prince.
Numerous programs devoted to the place of Men in Feminism, including a session chaired by Phyllis Franklin at the MLA convention in 1984, and an issue of Critical Exchange (#18), led to publication by Methuen of the collection editied by Alice Jardine and Paul Smith, Men in Feminism (1987).
The VOCAT project to establish a reference data base of the vocabularies of twentieth-century criticism and theory, initial work on which was funded by an Ohio Challenge Grant ($25,000) and by the Online Computer Library Center ($5,000), came to a halt when, although recommended at each stage of review, a grant application to the NEH for $1,200,000 to complete the project was not approved. Some of the work of this project came to fruition, however, in the New Literary History International Bibliography of Literary Theory and Criticism edited by Ralph Cohen, Jeffrey Peck, Christopher Camuto, and Charlotte Bowen which Johns Hopkins UP published in 1988.
Case Western Reserve U (1990-present)
In its third and most recent phase, the SCE moved in January 1990 from Miami to Case Western Reserve University where it was initially directed by Martha Woodmansee and Gary Lee Stonum (1990-94) and is currently under the direction of Martha Woodmansee and Max Thomas (1994 - ). In its new home, Critical Exchange gave way to an on-line forum, the Electronic College of Theory, and a number of innovative new research projects have been initiated. The distinguishing feature of these new SCE projects is their interdisciplinarity: they have opened up substantial continuing dialogue between literary theorists and scholars in both the Law and in Economics. This has increased membership in the Society to approximately 850.
The Electronic College of Theory (ECOT) is an electronic-mail discussion group (or list) devoted to literary and cultural theory. In operation since October 1991, it is one of the oldest continuously operating discussion groups in the humanities. (Prior to fall 1991 the College operated for about a year as a newsgroup or bulletin board maintained on Cleveland FreeNet, but this proved technically inconvenient for members.) ECOT is an organ of the Society inasmuch as subscribers are expected to become dues-paying SCE members and a substantial number of postings are devoted to Society topics/projects, but much of the material broadcast on the list also concerns general topics and events in theory. Typical mailings include calls for conference papers, questions about the teaching of theory, and comments about current issues in the profession. ECOT operates as a moderated list in that subscribers, or others wishing to contribute, send e-mail texts to the moderator, Max Thomas, who bundles and edits them before broadcasting an issue to the membership.
The SCE's move to Cleveland was marked by a conference on "The Role of Theory in the Undergraduate Literature Classroom" (September 21-23,1990). Organized by David Downing at Indiana U of Pennsylvania, the conference represented the culmination of many years of SCE interest in this subject. (Programs going back to the Society's inception may be found in the Archive section of this website). A selection of the conference proceedings has been published in Changing Classroom Practices: Resources for Literary and Cultural Studies, ed. David Downing (NCTE, 1994).
Problems of Affirmation in Cultural Theory (PACT), a project initiated by David Downing and James Sosnoski, after several meetings at MLA (1990) convened over 50 scholars in Cleveland in 1993.
A project devoted to Woman - Nation - Narrative constituted the focus of a double MMLA session in 1992 and an MLA session in 1993. An ongoing project of the Society, which is now under the direction of Mary Layoun and Anu Dingwaney Needham, it has gradually expanded to investigate nationalism more generally in a session of the MMLA in 1993 and in a day long workshop involving approximately 30 scholars, "Nationalism(s): Definitions, Explanations, Alternatives," held April 2, 1994, at Case Western Reserve U. In its newest incarnation, "Rethinking Anderson," this project aims to provide a long-overdue reconsideration of the impact of the work of Benedict Anderson for literary theory and especially postcolonial theory.
The now widely acclaimed Intellectual Property project was inaugurated in April 1991 at a conference which brought literary theorists together with legal scholars "to explore all aspects of the social and cultural construction of authorship in relation to the evolution of proprietary rights in ideas." A selection of the conference papers commanded a special issue of the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (Vol. 10, No. 2 [1992], 277-725) and were soon reprinted by Duke University Press under the title The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature, edited by the project directors, Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi (1994). Some of the issues that emerged in this initial phase of the project became the topic of a forum, "The Law of Texts: Copyright in the Academy," at the 1992 MLA convention. Twenty-four scholars and practitioners of the law and literature/rhetoric participated in the forum's plenary session and four workshops devoted, respectively, to "Collaboration: Institutional and Cultural Constraints on Collective Production," "The Construction of Authorship," "Author-ity in New Media: Academic Practice in the Digital Environment," and "'Fair Use'" Scholarly Access to Unpublished Materials and Classroom Photocopying." A comprehensive summary of the conclusions reached in/by the forum may be found in "The Law of Texts: Copyright in the Academy" by the project directors Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi in College English 57 (1995): 769-87.
In a third phase of the Intellectual Property project, "Cultural Agency/Cultural Authority: Politics and Poetics of Intellectual Property in the Post-Colonial Era," the Rockefeller Foundation hosted twenty-five lawyers, cultural historians, policy makers, anthropologists, development specialists, and representatives of culture industries from the developed and developing worlds for a week-long seminar in March 1993 in Bellagio, Italy. A policy paper prepared at the seminar is currently circulating internationally and a volume of conference papers, contracted for publication by Duke University Press, is in preparation. The work of Bellagio has subsequently been carried forward in programs devoted to the "Legal Foundations of Cultural Authority" and the "International Politics of Cultural Appropriation" respectively at the 1993 and 1994 MLA conventions. Issues of somewhat narrower domestic and institutional concern, meanwhile, have been taken up at regional MLA meetings and at the annual Conference on College Composition and Communication. Thus, for example, in 1994 the MMLA was the site of a program on the construction of the notion of plagiarism in the academic setting in relation to the traditional privileging of authorship over corporate forms of cultural production; a Caucus on Intellectual Property and Composition Studies, first held in 1994, has become a standing event at the 4 C's; and at this past MLA convention an SCE session was devoted to "Law and Order on the Information Super Highway." Finally, under the project directors' editorship a new book series, "Cultures of Authorship. From Gutenberg to Internet," is being launched by Duke University Press to investigate historical and theoretical relationships between the ways in which information commodities are produced, disseminated, and consumed, on the one hand, and the process by which the meaning of texts is constructed on the other.
The interrelations between the disciplines of economics and literary studies constitutes the focus of a current SCE project on New Economic Criticism inaugurated by the appearance on SCE programs at the MMLA and MLA conventions in 1991 of U of Iowa economist Donald McCloskey, known for his work in the rhetoric of economics. With McCloskey's help over forty economists interested in "critical" examination of their discipline were identified and brought to Cleveland October 19-21, 1994 to meet with sixty literary scholars such as Marc Shell, Jennifer Wicke, and Barbara Herrnstein Smith as well as many younger scholars whose work intersects that of the economists in diverse ways which it was the aim of the conference to explore. A selection of conference proceedings, being edited by two of the project directors, Mark Osteen and Martha Woodmansee, will be published by Routledge in 1997.
This promising project continues through programs at the MLA and MMLA, and a second conference, to be held in Exeter, UK, is scheduled for 1998. Click here for further details about the New Economic Criticism project.
The SCE's newest project, Cultures of Writing was initiated in 1997. In response to the changing demographics of PhD employment, and to the realignment of priorities regarding the humanities in the academy, it is becoming clear that the intersection of "theory" and "composition" is an emerging intradisciplinary need. Its potential importance is hard to overestimate, since it allows for the kind of cross-fertilization that could produce not only PhDs better equipped for the vagarities of initial employment, but also an academic culture better able to respond to the changes that it faces.
Cultures of Writing examines writing and writing instruction in diverse, often interrelated contexts; specifically, it investigates economies and technologies of writing--materials, practices, places, and uses, including ideological ones--at academic and non-academic sites. Inside the academy, it treats writing and writing instruction within various spaces (e.g., electronic sites and interfaces), places (the classroom, the computer lab, the writing center, etc.) and institutions (the community college, professional school, liberal arts college, research university). Outside the academy, it studies the production, circulation, and dissemination of writing and writing instruction in the "extracurriculum," the marketplace, the community, and elsewhere. In addition to qualitative studies, Cultures of Writing draws on historical studies of the material and cultural conditions of the production and dissemination of writing. It thus explores how such studies might affect our professional and disciplinary histories, the design of curricula and programs in preparing future faculty; the content and delivery of instruction; "working" relations between composition/rhetoric, literary studies, cultural studies and "creative" writing programs.
The kickoff event in this project was a conference entitled "Cultures of Writing: Places, Spaces, and Interfaces of Writing and Writing Technologies" and held from 28 February to 1 March at Case Western Reserve University. For the conference program and for further information about this project, click here.
Brief Overview of the SCE SCE Projects, Past and Present Detailed History of the SCE (in 3 phases):
