"How can we assist in the emergence of the future by reading texts written in the past?" asked David Fieni, visiting assistant professor of Romance studies, at a standing-room-only forum that raised more questions than it answered about the future of literary criticism.

The Dec. 2 forum, a French studies event organized by Laurent Dubreuil, professor of Romance studies and comparative literature, was a response to October's PMLA Journal topic, "Literary Criticism for the 21st Century," which was edited by Class of 1916 Professor of English Jonathan Culler and professor of English Cathy Caruth.

"The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior," Walter Cohen, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of comparative literature, told the crowd, pointing out the continued movement in criticism -- from literary to cultural, from national to international and especially from the intellectual to the institutional. He suggested that literary criticism had become "the least disciplinary of the disciplines."

But "literary criticism never was a discipline," declared Dubreuil. Because of this singular situation, he said, the teaching of literature at Cornell and elsewhere tends to be confined to undergraduate studies, with graduate seminars focusing more on cinema, popular arts or continental philosophy. "I take this as a symptom of unease," he said, before arguing in favor of a "maximalist" position, with literary criticism as indiscipline.

For Goldwin Smith Professor of Classics Pietro Pucci, the future holds a literary criticism more concerned with politics; he sees the spread of popular culture pushing criticism in this direction. And more and more universities are offering courses in comics, manga and graphic novels, he said, questioning whether Cornell should follow suit.

But Naoki Sakai, professor of Asian studies and comparative literature, warned that if literary criticism is too loosely defined, "it will be very difficult to differentiate between possibilities generated by it and things like comments on Twitter."

Sakai painted a grim picture of criticism's future, using Japan as an example. From 1920 to 1980 Japanese literary criticism was a thriving independent industry; now virtually no literary critics exist outside of academia. Sakai contended that the field's demise has resulted in a related decline of foreign language education and research at the graduate level. As audience member Maria Antonia Garces, professor of Romance studies, pointed out, the United States has also seen a decline in foreign language hiring in recent years.

Culler reflected on the "curious experience" of editing the PMLA issue, describing a proposal he received for a Wiki-type criticism. "I think there is a future for this; we've all become addicted to Wikipedia," he said.

He noted that the proliferation of digital literature could result in new evaluative critical modes, though they don't yet exist. "And it may be that the electronic media will encourage certain kinds of literary criticism that's now discouraged because it doesn't fit the format of academic presses," he said.

Film criticism has already seen a change, with more blogging and commentary online, said Culler. "It's conceivable that such a thing will happen with criticism. People will start blogging, and they won't submit articles to PMLA, and they'll enjoy it a whole lot more. They won't get copy edited by ferocious copy editors who won't let them write perfectly decent English sentences," he said to considerable laughter.

Fieni responded by pointing out that there are already "an amazing array" of websites doing "pretty high level criticism."

Professor of Romance studies Richard Klein predicted a Derridean future. As Klein wrote in his PMLA essay, Derrida noted the possibility of "a future from which literature -- and, a fortiori, literary criticism -- might be absent."

But Culler reassured the packed room, "I think literature will survive."

The forum was co-sponsored by the Departments of Comparative Literature and of Romance Studies, the Society for the Humanities, and the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Linda Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.