ABSTRACT
"Literature" may become a single department containing a grand hodgepodge of disparate pursuits, capped by a wide array of graduate degrees individually marked to reflect myriad subdisciplines. Even the category "literature" may be subordinated to something broader called "cultural studies." Some professors of literature have for much of twentieth century dealt with their already anachronistic position as cultural authorities by emphasizing a technical knowledge of the arts rather than openly celebrating the privileged access to taste and culture they supposedly embody. It is perhaps more than obvious that relations between aesthetics, politics, and the profession of literature are afflicted by a deep sense of insecurity, one that reflects real practical change in all certain areas. Simply acknowledging that in the university may have less of a monopoly on the process by which cultural practices are legitimated or suppressed—on the maintenance of cultural capital—will hardly make the role of culture in contemporary American social and political conflict less important or more transparent.
