SAST6202 - Philology and Reading Practices

In the nineteenth century, philology was forged as a preeminent “science” that defined what it meant to be a rigorous scholar. Comparative philology, often modeled on the philological methods of Classical Studies, became central to the founding of Oriental Studies departments and, later, Area Studies departments. Philological methods, privileging the study of language, historical linguistics, and grammar, left a lasting mark on Area Studies fields and debates about the relationship between language, culture, history, and religion.
This course surveys a history of philology, its critiques and its revivals across Classical Studies and Area Studies, alongside alternative reading practices informed by intersectional scholarship, postcolonial theory, and queer theory. In this course, we will read and discuss scholarship alongside applied examples of philological and alternative close-reading methods drawn from a range of Area Studies disciplines. This course is open to graduate students working across disciplines and historical periods who want to engage in close reading of literary texts, textual archives, or oral archives. The course will prepare students to evaluate the stakes of reading practices in their own scholarship.