What's the Point?
What's the Point?
Literary studies, feelings and social justice with Dr Xine Yao
Lecturer in American literature Dr Xine Yao joins Bryony Armstrong to discuss:
- Why defunding the humanities limits who has cultural capital
- Feeling or unfeeling among minoritised groups
- How researching literature from the past can teach us about the present
- The relationship between humanities and social justice
- Why we can’t turn to the humanities unproblematically
- Bringing humanities research to the public
- The different types of teaching and learning that happen in STEM/A&H classrooms
- Why do people in pubs demand that we explain our research, and then criticise it when we do?!
- The need for solidarity across STEM/A&H
Content note: this episode contains some discussion about racism and homophobia.
Find Bryony @BF_Armstrong
Find Xine @XineYaoPhD
Artwork: Riduwan Molla https://www.canva.com/p/riduwanmolla/
Music: Madaan Mansij https://www.pond5.com/artist/mansij_tubescreamer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Hello, and welcome to 'What's the Point?', the podcast where we discuss the need for arts and humanities today. I'm your host, Bryony Armstrong. We're living in a time when the arts and humanities are under threat, and I know this firsthand, having studied both English and maths at university, and now doing a PhD in English. Each week, I'll be joined by a guest to talk about what arts and humanities do for the world. If you've ever wondered, what's the point of the arts and humanities, then this is the podcast for you. Hi, everyone, welcome back again to 'What's the point?'. Today I'm speaking to Dr. Xine Yao, who is a lecturer at UCL in American literature in English up to 1900, and researches literature using affect theory, critical race and ethnic studies, and feminist and queer of colour theory. Xine is no stranger to the microphone, being the co host of PhDivas, a podcast about academia, culture and social justice, and also being a BBC Radio/ AHRC New Generation Thinker, with radio episodes on topics from Chinatown residents in North America to the idea of the perfect body. Let's get into the episode. So how did you come to choose a humanities subject?
Xine Yao:I always loved reading. And I guess there's this, perhaps...I guess one of the motivations for me was also just because I did love reading. And also, I was very successful at it. It was a combination of, like, following both pleasure, but also success and high achievement. And at least for me, for undergrad, I also sort of justified studying literature in particular, because I thought I was going to do a law degree afterwards, I thought, like, well, I will continue to do what I know I'm really good at and also I really enjoy, but then I'll do something that seems to have a much clearer pathway to, you know, social mobility, and, like, having a decent salary and so forth. But obviously, the, like, the field of literary studies continued to seduce me and I didn't end up going down the path of law in the end. But I do think that there's something sort of definitely selfish involved about sort of thinking that literary studies was not just something that I was good at at school, but also something that I found escape and pleasure in, in my private life, and be able to combine the two is what made it really compelling for me.
Bryony Armstrong:Yeah, it's super interesting as well to think about humanities as something that often is seen as, you could pick up skills that could lead you to a job, rather than maybe seeing it as like a skill or a vocation in itself. I was the same when I was doing English, I thought I was gonna go into marketing. And I thought, Oh, great. I'm learning loads of writing skills. And I could go and write slogans! Until I realised that was not something I wanted to do. And that, like you, I had this love and sort of semi success at reading and writing that then led me to doing a PhD.
Unknown:I think it's quite complicated, though, because I think like looking back at it, I've been trying to think of, like, the motivations behind why we studied humanities and also like the reasons that we give afterwards. And I think part of it is also like, as you say, like, is it about breaking down the components of skills? Or is it the thing itself? And also, I'm sort of...I'm also wary of saying, like, it's the subject itself, but because it also something is so dependent upon cultural capital. And of course, since we're talking about the humanities at a moment where so many humanities departments are under threat, there's such a sense in this current economic climate under this government, that humanities is something that's only available probably to the rich, like the people who can afford to do it. And so it's idea that again, it's not just about skills, but it's actually just about people who already have financial capital, who are then allowed to go on to have cultural capital.
Bryony Armstrong:Yeah, this is just such an important issue, because as we see humanities departments closing down, they're firstly closing down in smaller universities that aren't necessarily associated with elitist institutions. And the problem is that what will eventually happen is humanities might still exist at some institutions that are in very expensive places to live, that aren't notoriously welcoming places for minority students. And as you say, it's really a horrible form of kind of protecting cultural capital for an elite class rather than actually slashing the humanities itself.
Unknown:And I also am speaking from a place of privilege. I'm at University College London, where as, of course, like, one of the prominent universities in the Russell Group, we're fairly shielded from that and we have good student numbers and that has to do with not just...I wouldn't just say like, you know, the calibre of research etc, etc, but also like cultural capital. On this something that is something as a big motivating force, I think that there's also a very stark difference also between the diversity of London where we're based, versus the diversity of the student body, which also has been making great improvements, but then also the diversity of staff, professional staff, and then also academic faculty. And you also...you see how limiting that gets when you go through the different levels of academia, and in particular, arts and humanities, at least in my university, and I suspect elsewhere in the UK, like, has some of the worst percentages of faculty of color of other disciplines...against other disciplines.
Bryony Armstrong:Yeah, it's interesting to know, I didn't actually know that about...about your university. And it's similar with mine, I'm also in a place of privilege of being at Durham University, which similarly is in a place that has a large proportion of working class people, and it's historically known for being a mining area that obviously went through a lot of difficulty in the late 20th century. And it, it has definitely grown into sort of being a certain pocket of privileged people in an area that doesn't have so much privilege. So yeah, you're right. I think it's important that humanities departments think about where they're situated as well in...in their wider context. So let's talk a little bit about your research. So last year, you published your first book, and it was titled,'Disaffected, The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America'. So before we get into, kind of, talking about the cultural politics aspect of it, can you possibly just explain what you mean in the book by the term'unfeeling'?
Unknown:So that's a great question. Part of the reason why I focus on unfeeling is that it goes against so much of the logic of how we think about approaching literature, but especially literature by minoritized people and often with subjects that we'd now call social justice generally. That often the way that we think about doing literary studies is that it's about people expressing themselves, and then the reader, like, understanding those feelings properly and then leaving them to have the right type of politics. And...and how I analyze this is...really goes to the influence of a major abolitionist texts in then nineteenth century, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is a global bestseller, one of the best sellers of the nineteenth century, not just in the States, but also in the UK and, again, explored and translated to so many parts of the world. And the insidous part of that is that, on the one hand, it was so effective in terms of advocating for abolition, from a white perspective, it was also deeply racist at the same time, is that contradiction. And in it, the author Harriet Beecher Stowe particularly talks about the way that what every person can do is have the right type of feeling. And then, therefore, feel right. And that leads to the right type of politics. And this is still the framework that we have in terms of thinking about how, you know, literature, other forms of art, have a place in terms of creating social progress. But the thing about that is it means that there's no space for any sort of dissent from what is considered legible as...as feeling or that also puts it...puts the people who are marginalized in the position of always having to prove their feelings to those who are powerful. And so by thinking about unfeeling, I'm trying to sort of undo the usual way that we think that minoritized people have to express themselves properly, because what if it actually is about its incoherence or this refusal to...to produce feeling in the way that is expected? Also, what does it mean to be unfeeling to the powerful as opposed to the usual way that when we think of unfeeling as always, that the people in power are the ones who unfeeling people from below have to express their feelings to be seen. And that means that unfeeling is only the property of those in power, as opposed to a general condition that makes illegible the feelings of minoritized people unless done through very specific channels. And so, in my work, I'm thinking about unfeeling as this type of refusal, this descent, refusal to care, withdrawing, withholding, a type of protective defensive mechanism, type of dissatisfaction, and also particularly paying attention to the way that this tends to be racialized and queered and gendered in different ways.
Bryony Armstrong:Yeah. And I know that you...you research the nineteenth century in your book. You were talking about Uncle Tom's Cabin. And then, as you've been getting on there, your work also discusses unfeeling as a political strategy with people of colour to survive as racism continues today. So you have touched on it just then, but could you, like, possibly comment, or just tell us a bit about why it's important that we research modes of feeling and unfeeling now. And sort of, I suppose, your experience of researching the nineteenth century, but a topic that is also extremely current?
Unknown:So part of the reason why I'm drawn to the nineteenth century is because so many of our...our modern categories and modern institutions are emergent in this period. Particularly like the...the classifications, systems, that govern so much of our lives, of race, and gender, and sexuality, really emerged during that period in terms of racial hierarchy, in terms of like...even the terms heterosexuality, homosexuality, for instance. The sciences of sexology, race science, many of the formal sciences only emerge in this period. And so I think to understand today, looking to the nineteenth century, and, of course, also to earlier modes, really allows us to understand historical context. This is not something that came out of nowhere. That is not the sudden, like, turn to fascism in this particular moment, that different types of like policing of race and gender that's happening, at this particular moment, but it's a very long history. And so I think that thinking about both feeling and unfeeling is incredibly important because there's...we have such a rich archive of feminist, and queer and particularly feminist of color, queer of color writings, that have to do with the importance of expressing feeling and also having feelings validated. I'm thinking here of the work of Audre Lorde, among many others. And what I'm also emphasizing is that actually, if you read their work, it's not just about the importance of the legitimacy of their feelings. They're also talking about the uneven emotional demands upon them to, say, perform certain types of sympathy, to perform certain types of acceptable emotion. Like Audre Lorde famously talks about the difficulty of talking about racism with white feminists, and that she's exhausted from doing the work. And she wants to right to withhold from that, for instance. And she also, for instance, talks the way that Black women are the most likely to hurt each other because they are so minoritized and it's easier to turn against those who are closer to you. And that a type of unfeeling is also a necessary sort of callousness that gets built up over time over the, sort of, small harms.
Bryony Armstrong:Yeah. And I was reminded there as well of the recent title that a lot of people will probably be familiar with, Reni Eddo-Lodge's 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race', and her discussing the idea of, like, doing that labour to explain something to people is extremely difficult and tiring.
Unknown:Yeah, it's the contradiction of...in this picker moment, what is given the acronym EDI, equality, diversity, inclusion, overwhelmingly falls on those who already minoritized or were in the position of having to do all the work in order to have ourselves recognized. But on the one hand, people should turn to those with lived experience. Therefore, that would be...to...have knowledge in order to produce policy that have to do with themselves. But also to recognize that it is a completely uneven relationship. We don't want to have to do that. We have so much other work that we're doing. Like, this is not...I'm an academic who works on many other things. And it's trying to deal with that sort of contradiction of like holding space for these contradictory modes and realizing that withholding and, like, not caring about certain things, is a necessity when we're told to have to care about all the things all the time in the sort of work that we do.
Bryony Armstrong:Yeah, and EDI committee work like that is very often also unpaid...usually voluntary work. And yeah, there is that idea that if you're spending your lunch hour, for example, on an EDI committee, you're not doing something else, or perhaps not resting, for example. So yeah, thank you for for raising those points. So this is...this is quite a big question. And please feel free to answer it in any way whatsoever. But obviously, your work on cultural politics, it all has huge implications for social justice, I'd really love to hear your thoughts on how you perceive...kind of...the relationship between the humanities and social justice.
Unknown:So I think this really relates to our opening conversation about universities' humanities departments being under attack, and the real role of cultural capital. Because on the one hand, literature, the humanities, has been a site of the reproduction of cultural hegemony, but it's also the site of its transformation. It's also been the space in which minoritized people have been able to come into creative capacity, political capacity, political awakening, and that is the sort of conflict that we have to...to deal with that. I think that we can't just pat ourselves on the back that, you know, reading...reading books make you a better person, because we have so much evidence that that's not necessarily the case. Like, if that were the case, wouldn't our departments be filled with the most fantastic people? Like, a lot of them are, but a lot people are not! Right? And so...because I think that, on the one hand, there's often some version of a meme or tweet that goes around that says, like, you know, without STEM and with...sorry...when you only have STEM without paying attention to the humanities, this is how you end up with like, you know, this turn to...to fascism, etc. Which is like, I think part of the answer, but the problem is, like, you just can't just turn to humanities unproblematically. Like, again, that itself is part of cultural hegemony. What it's more about...about the sort of critical attitudes. That we're able to cultivate different types of cultural literacies, I think, and different forms of critical thinking, that give context, and also allow us to see how meaning is created and to critique that, which I think is incredibly important that comes out of our discipline. But also it's not exclusive to it.
Bryony Armstrong:Yeah, it definitely does relate to what we were saying at the beginning that, I think, among politicians who are basically trying to defund the humanities, I imagine there's a lot of fear because the more we invest in more voices, and more groups of people coming into the humanities, there will be a lot of cultural change, because so many humanities aligned thinkers have been initiators of change historically, like philosophers, for example. Or historians. I mean, literally, the historian's job is to, quote unquote, rewrite history, which is what often gets, sort of, weaponized as a problem by right wing rhetoric. Yeah, and I love your conceptualization of like, it's...it's the...it's the subject, it's the study, but it's also about who gets to do it, and what people gain from studying humanities, too.
Unknown:I guess, even though I'm not a historian, it's been very remarkable to see the hypocrisy behind, like, politicians saying that history is important, but then defunding actual historians. They don't want real history, they don't want historians to actually ask the hard questions, look at the difficult, dirty, messy, horrible histories. They want something that is like this very shiny, very shallow thing. And I think that's also what they want from the type of humanities that we're supposed to give. Like, we're supposed to give people things that rich people at cocktail parties and other exclusive venues can have, like, a little bit of chit chat about, not things that will, like, change and transform people, and transform how they engage with other people and...and help them change society.
Bryony Armstrong:Yes, because studying something like literature or history isn't about kind of producing a very pretty nugget to do with a beautiful novel. That is, it's difficult stuff, and it is challenging. And I think that's the role that it really has to play. And it's definitely, as you say, not about producing a history that creates comfort. It is about sort of changing narratives and showing what hasn't been brought to the fore in the past.
Unknown:And I guess this relates back to, like, how I'm thinking about unfeeling, for instance. Like, the sort of sense of, like, the very, even as, perhaps, we're understanding how feelings are important, and you have like rhetoric about, you know, you have to be your whole...people want to be their whole person at work. We also see how that's weaponized into a very totalizing thing. That, in this attention to feelings, it also means that...that some people's hurt feelings, who've always been privileged and then are very sensitive about it, end up being a really upset about being confronted with truth. And so I'm thinking like, what does it mean, not to just say, in this sort of flat way, all feelings matter? And the way that, say, like, a phrase like All Lives Matter gets mobilized, but actually to see the way that there's hierarchies, racial hierarchies, gender hierarchies, hierarchies of power of class, that determine whose feelings matter at different times?
Bryony Armstrong:Yes, yes, there's that kind of adage that when you're used to privilege equality feels like oppression that I hear...that I hear a lot. So coming on, from your research about unfeeling and sort of how that relates to the wider world at the moment. Sometimes...I don't know if you have found this too, but sometimes I find that humanities research can get a bad rap because there is a public perception that it's very inaccessible, despite its relevance to humans as a whole. I don't know actually why people seem to perceive a lot of humanities research as less accessible than science, for example, because I think the average person does not actually read scientific papers, we might just read scientific journalism, but there does seem to be that kind of idea. But however, you have experience of relating your work to the public via the BBC, as the BBC Radio 3 and AHRC New Generation Thinker, that allows you to develop programs and share ideas with the public. So can you tell us a bit about your experience of doing that? And for example, if you've had any feedback about how that's been received, or what that has been like for you?
Unknown:Yeah, so my work with the BBC is part of many years of doing this sort of outreach work, which actually goes to my own podcasting as a PhD studentm appropriately enough for this podcast! And I think it's, again, this really...this question of like, different literacies, different registers of engagement, which literary studies, I think, is really well set up to talk about. Because, say, if we were talking about, you know, the difference between a novel and a lyric poem versus the epic poem, for instance, we know that they're very different registers in which you're operating. Likewise, academic scholarship for different disciplines offers...operates in very different genres. And so as you point out, it's striking that science is allowed to have a specialized discourse in order to be able to talk very specifically about what it needs to, and this whole other apparatus for translating to the public. But humanities discourse, on the one hand, is expected to be both available to people, but also like not given the space to somehow have its own language, and be punished for it at the same time. And so I think this is sort of this inherent contradiction that, on the one hand, people think that humanities should be available, but they also want to punish it for not being complex enough, because it also doesn't want to see that like humanities stuff has to do with actually developing expertise and developing skills. And so I think it's also the sort of disrespect for the type of labour that we're doing that is in the humanities, but also then affects a lot of other disciplines as the sort of turn to anti intellectualism sort of continues, that everyone thinks that they could be an authority on anything, regardless of how much how much training. And there's obviously, like, you know, women academics getting mansplained, academics of color getting racist backlash, I think, It's in the humanities, but also very much in other disciplines as well. But as to my work with the BBC, I've been very privileged to be able to develop some of my own programs, which have also drawn on my own research, thinking about, say, oriental inscrutability as one, sort of, queer racialized mode. And it's been fun to sort of think, like, the sort of work that I do that I...there's a version of the work that I do in my book, and then there's a version of how I teach it, and then there's a version of how I do it on a podcast. And I don't think of as any one is necessarily better, or less than the other, it's about different genres of talking about different things. It's about different registers. It's about my own, like, flexibility as a scholar to be both, simultaneously, a researcher and a teacher at the same time. Like, we have to be able to do those things out of necessity. And it's been really great to be able to share them with people and to occasionally, like, get the occasional email from people saying, like, wow, this is really great, and like, I've been using it to help teach my students some of these concepts. And they've been really responding really well, or people reach out to me to say, like, this, it's, like...this...I've never heard anyone talk about these things before, thank you so much! And so I think it's just really gratifying in that way. And I do appreciate that the...the BBC has given me the the position to...to do that sort of work, as well, and I hope to continue in the future. And I take it very seriously. And I hope to do it not in the way of being a voice of authority, quote, unquote, even though I think that like, I want my expertise to be recognized. But I also hope when people listen to me, they're not just learning about things, but they're also learning about ways of thinking
Bryony Armstrong:It's interesting you say that, because that's often how I've tried to conceptualize humanities lectures to people. Because I think, often, why STEM students can think that humanities isn't, quote unquote, difficult, is because often we get quite little contact time, we might get one or two lectures a week. But I think lectures are, just like you say...in a slightly, maybe lectures are a slightly less accessible format than a radio program...but they're something to begin your thinking, and to kickstart you into thinking a certain way rather than telling you, these are the answers, now learn how to reproduce them, which was my experience of studying maths undergrad, for example.
Unknown:Yes, it's not about...it's not just about...it's not about delivering content. That's like the very bare baseline. But what we're doing in a lecture is giving people frameworks to think in. We're also trying to model modes of analysis, modes of presentation, like, as I've been trying to tell my students, like, go to a lecture and think about how are you learning from us? Not just about the topic of the actual lecture, but how do we model an argument? How are we looking at evidence? Like, these are all things to pay attention
Bryony Armstrong:Which is a huge skill! I was actually to, thinking about it, was it last year or a couple of years ago, voting! When you have to go and do tons of research on a bunch of different parties and figure out...I don't know...how to cut through the noise and which sources to trust. It's...it's...I consider it to be an applicable skill that I have used elsewhere outside the English classroom as well. And, wow, you speaking about the ideas of available knowledge and not available knowledge, and how that's presented, speaks to me completely! Because it does seem, I've found, to be quite a unique experience of studying the humanities that I find myself in the pub all the time, with...usually a man with their arms folded, saying like, well, what's your research about then? And if you explain it in a way that you consider to be accessible, they're not impressed whatsoever. But if you explained it in a way that was more aligned with the way you might write an academic article, it doesn't register. So it is so strange that there's sort of this expectation that we have to have knowledge that everybody can understand, and yet...and yet not at the same time. It's quite a difficult path to tread, I find.
Unknown:Exactly, or there's also probably the thing of like, because of your embodiment in the world, the very idea that you have expertise at all is something that they're affronted by. So it doesn't matter how you pose it to begin with, they're going to take issue with it either way.
Bryony Armstrong:Yes, that has definitely been my experience, I have to say. So let's...you mentioned your podcast earlier. So let's, let's move on to talking about that. So you're the co host of the podcast PhDivas. So shout out to that! It's a brilliant podcast. Whoo, whoo, PhDivas! And you share it with the chemical and biomedical engineer and cancer researcher, Dr. Liz Wayne, and you both describe the podcast as podcasting across the STEM/ Humanities divide. So just to finish up today, can you tell us a little bit about what that means to you, to be talking across the STEM/ Humanities divide?
Unknown:Because I think that the humanities are under threat in this moment, but it's not like STEM isn't as well. And I think that, to think of them as being separate struggles is a type of divide and conquer tactic from elites, which is generally this attitude of anti intellectualism. They may be attacking us for seemingly very different things, but it's also ultimately about the erosion of faith in public education and funding for our research, funding for our students, and support in general. And so I think talking across STEM and the humanities, is...operates in many different ways. On the one hand, for us initially, it just operated because, out of friendship, out of, sort of, the pleasure of learning from each other, of being able to tackle issues from very different angles, and edify people in very different ways, including each other. And seeing also like the incompatibilities in our subjects. That there's different, like, disciplinary norms, which are different for us, and to understand the way that they interact with each other does not like negate them. And so I think it's about giving us more capacity for tolerance in terms of where our disciplines can...can come together, but also maybe where they shouldn't and what...you can't just bulldoze one for the other. But also I think of this broader thing of like organizing for the importance of higher education, for the importance of education more broadly. And also thinking about the role of what we are doing as academics regardless of discipline in a society.
Bryony Armstrong:It is beautiful to think about it as starting from a friendship and growing into an area of collaboration. I do wish there was more STEM/ Humanities across the divide collaboration, and sort of solidarity and understanding. So thank you for speaking to that. Thank you so much for coming on 'What's the Point' today. I'm really grateful for you coming to chat to me.
Xine Yao:Yeah, well thanks for having me, Bryony.
Bryony Armstrong:Thank you for listening to 'What's the Point?'. If you enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to subscribe. You can also find us on Twitter @wtppod_ and send us a DM if you want to get in touch. We'll see you next time with a brand new episode!
