American Academy of Religion

"Narratives into Problems": The College Introductory Course and the Study of Religion
Author(s): Jonathan Z. Smith
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Winter, 1988), pp. 727-
739
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion.LVI/4

ESSAY

"Narrativesinto Problems":The College

IntroductoryCourseand the Study
of Religion
Jonathan Z. Smith

I AM GRATEFULFORthe opportunityto meditatepubliclyon the task

of introduction. While I am aware of the debate, at least as old as
Hegel, and recentlyrevivedwith passion by Derrida,on the statusof the
"preface"(Vorrede)and "introduction"(Einleitung),I set this aside, for
the present discourse,in obedience to a counsel of prudence. For it is a
fact, despite what we may sometimes claim, that the majorityof us, as
teachers, earn our living (and our departmentsget FTE'd)by means of
the introductorycourse. This is recognized, albeit in an unfortunately
grudgingmanner, in the widespread pejorativeterm, "servicecourse."
As collegeteachers,ourprimaryexpertiseis introducing.
Thinkingabout
introducingshould play the same role in our professionas meditatingon
first principlesplays for the metaphysician. It is not a task for amateurs,
nor, as is too often the case, should it be assigned casually (or puni-
tively) to neophytes.
I take as my startingpoint the propositionthat an introductory course
servestheprimaryfunction thestudentto college-level
of introducing work,to
beginning work in the liberal arts. Its particularsubject matter is of
secondaryimport. All of my remarksin this essay are aimed at unpack-
ing this proposition from severalvantage points.
All college curricularthought, and most particularlythought about

JonathanZ. Smith is the RobertO. Anderson DistinguishedService Professorof the Humanities,

The Universityof Chicago, The College, 1116 East 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

727
728 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

the introductoryenterprise, must begin with a recognition of its rigid

temporal constraints: for example, the averageintroduction,under the
quartersystem, consumes less than one calendar day of instructional
time, some 21 hours, 20 minutes. As there is no reasonto presumethat
any student who takes such a course will go on to take another in the
same subject-indeed, there is every reason to assume that most stu-
dents won't-less than one calendarday represents,at best, for a signifi-
cant numberof students,their sole course of studyin a given subject. As
traditionallyconceived, from the point of view of subject matter, for
most students an introductionis simultaneouslya finale. Clearly,sub-
ject matter,thoughtof in some lineal progression,cannot be our primary
organizingprinciple. Given these temporalconstraints,no introductory
course can do everything;no course can be complete. The notion of a
survey,of "coverage,"becomes ludicrous. As long as we do not allow
ourselves to be misled by the notion that everyintroductorycourse is an
introductionto the majorprogram,and that the majoris a preparation
for graduatestudy in the same field-a notion that has neither factual
nor educationalwarrant-then, thereis nothingthatmustbe taught,there
is nothing that cannot be left out.
I take as a corollaryto these preliminaryobservationsthat each thing
taught is taught, not because it is "there,"but because it connects, in
some interestingway, with something else, because it is an example, an
"e.g.," of something that is fundamental,something that may serve as a
precedentfor furtheracts of interpretationand understandingby provid-
ing an arsenalof paradigmaticdata and strategiesfrom which to reason,
from which to extend the possibility of intelligibilityand significanceto
that which first appears novel, incomprehensible,or self-evident. One
of the prime tasks of the introduceris to make such exemplifications
explicit.
As I have argued elsewhere (1987), the differencebetween college
and high school-level work, that which ought to be, above all else, an
objectof continualreflectionin highereducation,nowhere more so than
in the context of the introductorycourse, lies primarilyin an attitude
towards words and discourse. In college, words are no longer thought
to be expressive of things; in philosophical terms, they are no longer
"real";they are no longer vocabulariesto be mastered("30 minutes a
day") or to be judged by the degree to which they correspondto some-
thing "out there." In college, it is we who master words. Ratherthan
evaluatethe relationshipof words to things, we evaluatethe relationship
of words to other words and to other acts of human imagination. It is a
process that has many names, but, above all, it is known as argument.
Smith: "Narratives
into Problems" 729

in particular
Forit is argument, argument thatmarks
aboutinterpretations,
college.WhatJohnRobert
modeof speechthatcharacterizes
thedistinctive
Seeley, Professorof Modem History,and one of the leaders of the late
Victorianeducationalreformmovement,said of history,in an introduc-
tory lecture to Cambridge college students in 1881, applies, mutatis
mutandis,to other fields as well:
In history, everything depends upon turning narrative into
problems ask yourselfques-
Breakthe drowsyspell of narrative;
....
you will
tions;set yourselfproblems;you will becomean investigator;
ceaseto be solemnand beginto be serious. (139)1
"Turnnarrativeintoproblems"-I know of no better imperativefor
college-level work, in distinction from secondary schooling. I should
like to develop its implicationsfor three areas of relevanceto introduc-
ing: reading and writing, argument,and lying.
If an introductorycourse is an introductionto college-level work,
thismeans,aboveall, thatan introductory
courseis concerned
withdevelop-
ing the students' and
for reading,writing, speaking--developing
capacities
them in such a way that narrativeis turnedinto problems. This leads to
some generalprescriptions. An introductorycourse must featurea good
bit of activity. For example, there should be short weekly writing
assignments on a set task that requires reflection, argumentation,and
risk-taking. (The traditionalterm or researchpaper is wholly inappro-
priateto the introductorycourse). Writtenwork should neverbe report-
age ("mere narrative,"in Seeley's term), but rathershould require an
appropriationof the materialin a formatin which there is never a "right
answer." Masteryimplies the capacity to "fool around." (Example:
How would Levi-Straussinterpret a Budweiser Beer advertisement?)
Each piece of writing must be rewritten at least once, regardless of
grade, and this requiresthat every piece of writing be returnedto the
student,with useful comments, no laterthan the next class period. Col-
laborative work among groups of students should be encouraged,
whether with respect to oral or written work, and an ethic of revision
ratherthan originalityshould prevail. Among other devices, I ask my
studentsto keep two notebooks, one for class and one for their reading.
They are to make their notes on the right-handpages and registerque-
ries, thoughts,conversations(with attribution)with other students,and,
above all, revisionaryproposalsand rereadingson the left. At least once

10OnSeeley's activitiesas an educationalreformer,see the general account in Rothblatt,and the

more particularnarrativein Wormell: 48-74.
730 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

a quarter,I call in all students'notebooks and texts. Afterreadingthem

through,I have individualconferenceswith each studentto go over what
they've written and underlined and to discuss with them what this
implies as to how they are reading and reflecting.
Please note, these sorts of pragmaticprescriptionsraise a fundamen-
tal issue of professionalresponsibility. Bluntlyput, we have as solemn
an obligationto "keep up" with the literatureand researchin education
and learning as we do in our particularfields of interest and research.
No one should be permittedto teach an introductorycourse who is not
conversant, among other matters, with the literatureon the cognitive
developmentof college-age individuals,with issues of criticalreasoning
and informallogic, and with researchin readingand writinginstruction.
(This latterhas, in the past two decades, become a separateand highly
developedacademicdiscipline).2 While there is surelyartin teaching,it
is, above all, a skilled profession.
Beyond anecdotal gossip about this or that teaching device with
respect to writing, beyond the requirementof knowledge of serious
research in the field, there are importanttheoreticalissues that entail
choices that must be made by any teacher of introductions.
There are, in fact, at least two distinct introductorytasks that we
confrontdaily, regardlessof field. The first is the introduction,the initi-
ation, the enculturationof our studentsinto the communityof college as
differentfrom those other communities they know best, most particu-
larlythe communitiesof home and secondaryschool. The formerdiffer-
ence we tend to address largely through the extra-curriculum,ranging
from residence halls (in some institutions) to a planned diversity of
admissionsand studentservices(in most). Curricularly,we addressdif-
ference from home only obliquely, by challenging notions of authority,
by instilling an ethic of everything(at least in principle) being open to
public suspicion and question. By largelyconfining the contrastof col-
lege and home to the extra-curriculum,the facultyhas allowed itself to
remain officiallyunconscious of this most central,and often most pain-
ful, process of enculturation.
The second introduction,the initiation into the differencebetween
the intellectualcommunityof high school and college, is seen chiefly as
a matter of general education-more recently, as the responsibilityof
programsin generic skills such as writing and criticalreasoning. How-
ever, there is latent in such a conception of the tasks of general educa-

2For the development of writing as a distinct academic discipline, see the importanthistorical
study of J.A. Berlin.
 into Problems"
Smith: "Narratives 731

tion a set of issues that have yet to be addressed widely by the

educationalcommunityand that requireconsiderationof a third,distinct
and more traditional,educationaltask: the initiation into a disciplinary
community as separatefrom the communityof college.
Whether one turns to newer studies in rhetoric,linguisticresearches
in fields such as pragmatics,or to important polemic works such as
John McPeck'sCriticalThinkingand Education,one finds a widespread
suspicion of the notion of a "universal audience," and, therefore, a
denial of the plausibility of generic argument and omnipurpose,
omnicompetent writing and reasoning capacities. Allow me to quote
three quite differentstatementsin illustrationof this latter point. The
first is taken from Gilbert Ryle's attack on the adequacy of universal
notions of formal logic:
A first-ratemathematicianand a first-rateliterarycriticmightsharethe
virtueof arguingimpeccably, whiletheirotherintellectual virtuescould
be so disparatethatneithercouldcopeevenpuerilelywiththeproblems
of the other. Eachthinksscrupulously insidehis own field,butmostof
theirscruplesareof entirelydifferentkinds. (21)
The second is a bold, even hyperbolic, assertion from McPeck'sbook,
CriticalThinkingand Education:
Thereare as manytypesof legitimateargumentas thereare fieldsor
subjectsthat may be arguedabout..... And fields,with theircorre-
spondingmodesof reasoning,differmorewidelythan speciesof ani-
mals. (79)
The third example is, in its way, the most telling, for the authoris inno-
cent of any theoreticalor educationalpurpose in reportingthe anecdote.
It is from a recentbest-seller, "SurelyYou'reJokingMr.Feynman,"by the
late Nobel prize winning physicist. Feynmanwrites that he decided to
spend his summervacationsnot by travelingto a differentplace but by
studyingin a differentfield. One summer,and one sabbaticalyear, was
spent working on phage experimentsin the biology laboratoriesat Cal
Tech. Accordingto his account, his results were significantenough to
interestJames Watson and to have him invited to give a series of semi-
nars to the biologists at Harvard. Nevertheless,he writes:
(The)workon phageI neverwroteup ... I didwritesomething... on
it. I sent it to Edgar(a biologist)who laughedwhen he readit. It
wasn'tin the standardformthatbiologistsuse-first procedures, andso
forth.I spenta lot of timeexplainingthingsthatall thebiologistsknew.
Edgarmadea shortenedversion(of my paper)but I couldn'tunder-
standit. I don'tthinkthey everpublishedit. . . . I learneda lot of
732 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

thingsin biology... I got betterat pronouncingthe words,knowing

what not to includein a paperor seminar,and detectingweak tech-
nique .... (62-3)3
This is indeed an extraordinarytestament. A Nobel laureatein Physics
is "laughedat" by his biologist colleagueswhen he writes up his biolog-
ical experiments. Conversely,when a professional biologist writes up
Feynman's experiments and results "in proper form," Feynman
"couldn'tunderstandit." Just how complex a matterFeynman signals
with the phrase, "it wasn't in the standardform biologists use," may be
illustratedby a number of recent, careful studies, most especially the
work of Karin D. Knorr-Cetina,The Manufactureof Knowledge,4 which
tracesand prints out the developmentof a scientificresearchpaper from
the original experiment and lab notebook through all the intermediary
draftingsand revisions (including those by readersand editors of jour-
nals) to the final published form, and CharlesBazerman'spaper, "Codi-
fying the Social Scientific Style: The APA Manual as a Behaviorist
Rhetoric"(Brazerman:257-77).5 For this readership,to take an appar-
ently modest example, one need only reflect for a time on the implica-
tions of the differencein the manner of citation between theJournalof
BiblicalLiteratureand Semeiaor Historyof Religionsand theJournalof the
AmericanAcademyof Religion,and on what they suggest as to different
presuppositionswith respect to authorityand exegesis.6

3From a different perspective, Feynman's anecdote provides a rudimentarycurriculumfor an

introductorycourse devoted to the task of enculturatingstudents into a particularknowledge com-
munity, as a first course in the majoror the like. (1) A student needs to learn something of the
domain of the knowledgecommunity,its characteristictopics, especiallyas expressedin the partic-
ularjargon of the field (Feynman'scomment about "learningto pronouncethe words"). (2) Even
more important,in many respects,than learninghow to articulateis the contraryskill of mastering
the repressionof speech, learningthe tacit conventions,those mattersstipulatedor take for granted
which do not have to be said (in Feyman'sterm, the "thingsthat all biologists know"). (3) Learn-
ing what counts-as data, as arguments,as persuasive-according to the conventions of the field
(what Ryle, in the passage quoted above, called the indigenous "scruples"of a discipline; what
Feynman refers to as detecting "weak technique"). (4) Becoming adept in the necessarilyfictive
modes of accepted disciplinarydiscourse, suggestedby Feynman'sremarkson "properform"and
that he learned "whatnot to include in a paperor seminar,"and raisedto a proceduralprinciplein
the oft-cited observationby the distinguishedbiologist, P. Medawar(169), that the conventionsof
the biological research paper not only "conceal but actively misrepresent"what occurs in the
laboratory.
4While less clearly focused on the written product, see also Latourand Woolgar.
5Bazerman'sentire collection of essays should be read in conjunctionwith the works cited in note
4.
6Allow me to develop this comparison. The "humanistic"formatof footnotes and citations was
first developed for the study of classical texts. It is relentlesslyhermeneutic. It requiresthe reader
to view what is being set forthby the authoras derivingfrom the interpretationof some other, quite
specific, text. It invites the readerto pause and comparethat text with the author'sinterpretationas
 into Problems"
Smith: "Narratives 733

Reflectingon these examples has any number of educationalimpli-

cations for curriculumdevelopmentin upper-levelcourses. It may well
be the particularknowledge-communities(as institutionalized,in most
places, in the departmentalmajors)that ought to take primaryresponsi-
bility for college-levelwritinginstructionratherthan freshmanprograms
in generic, expositorywriting aimed at an imaginedabstractand univer-
salized audience. Conversely,reflectingon such examples may lead to
the conclusion that other modes of writing-especially more reflexiveor
playful styles and genres--ought to be to the fore in general education
courses and in those introductorycourses that are thought of as being
particularlyappropriateto the task of enculturatingthe student into the
academy at large, as opposed to the introductorycourses that aim to
enculturatethe student into the severaldisciplines and knowledge com-
munities. The question of writing is but a variant of the basic educa-
tional decision: What does the introductorycourse introduce?
Closely related to the above-and my second reflection on the
injunctionto "turnnarrativeinto problems"-is the role of argumenta-
tion, especially argumentabout interpretations. For me, this question
entails two other propositions,both social in nature. The first is that a
centralgoal of liberal learningis the acceptanceof (and trainingin) the
requirement to bringprivateperceptintopublicdiscourseand, therefore,the
requirement to learn to negotiatedifferencewith civility. It is this require-
ment that,in our culture,makes religiona useful subjectfor an introduc-
tory course to the communityof college and to college-level work. The
second is the insistence that argumentexistsfor the purposeof clariying
choicesand that choices are always consequential, that is to say, they
requirethe acceptanceof responsibility. I emphasize the first proposi-
tion to counterthe adolescentcaricaturethat argumentis what occurs at
home around the dining room table when everyone shouts and no one
listens. Conclusion: keeping one's thoughts to oneself is the wisest

well as with alternativeinterpretationscited in the note. It is a paradigmaticview of reading,and

an understandingof argumentwhich privileges the conflict of interpretations. The "scientific"
formatof citation was first developed for legal and parliamentarywriting. It providesauthorityby
citing precedents,by locating the author'sintellectualpedigree. A citation such as "(Levi-Strauss,
1964-71)" does not invite pausing and interpretativeactivity. It associatesthe author'sopinion, in
the mind of the reader,with a position adumbratedby a recognizedauthority-with no expectation
that the relevantpassage will actually be ferretedout by the reader from a four-volumework of
some 1600 difficultpages. It is a syntagmaticview of readingwhich privilegesgenealogy. A deci-
sion by an author (let alone an editor) as to the format of referencingand citation will produce
fundamentallydifferenttexts, even if the words remain the same, which presupposedifferentsorts
of knowledgeand capacitieson the partof the readerand which articulatedifferentvisions of "what
counts" as persuasive.
734 Journalof theAmerican
Academyof Religion

strategy;privacy is protective coloration that leads to some ethic of

immaturetoleration;"let everyonedo their own thing." I emphasizethe
second proposition to counter the caricatureoften denoted in political
and parental discourse by the improperlabel, "relativism,"the notion
that there is "always another point of view" and that, therefore,deci-
sions can be seen either as provisional and irrationalor as being end-
lessly put off until certaintyobtains.
Attentionto mattersof choice and responsibilityought to begin on
the first day of class with a discussion of that most primarytext, the
course syllabus-a disclosure of the choices made as to its order, the
kinds and format of the data, the relationship among the topics, the
relativetime spent on each item; a discussion of the options considered
and rejectedas well as the reasons why; an attemptto account for the
intended intellectualbenefits and costs of the variousdecisions. That is
to say, I want to use the syllabusas the firstoccasion for reflectingaloud
on choices and consequences. I want to impeach the apparentself-evi-
dence of the syllabus and make plain its status as a constructedargu-
ment. For this reason, textbooksought neverto be used in introductory
courses, and anthologies,but sparingly. They shift constructiverespon-
sibility away from teacher and class to an external, all but omniscient,
narratorand authority. It is important that moments of reprise be
scheduled throughoutthe course, moments of reflectionon the relative
adequacyof the choices made as well as time availablefor the entertain-
ment of revisionaryproposals once students are more "in the know."
For example, my year-long introductorycourse, "Religionin West-
ern Civilization,"is organizedaround a single question that represents
an argumentativedefinitionof 'civilization':"Whatis tradition?""How
are traditionsmaintained,throughchange, by acts of reinterpretation?"
This issue is made concrete and consequential,on the very first day, by
referenceto the currentpolitical debates over the Constitutionand the
SupremeCourt. That is to say, there is nothing innocent about a defini-
tion of 'tradition'or 'civilization'as a contested constructratherthan a
stable deposit. Studentshave strong feelings about the question (when
put in this way) and a stake in its answer-the notion of a stake being
the proper sense in which a matter is "interesting." Ventilating this,
and encouragingstudents to commit themselves publicly, sets up opin-
ions to be tested, reformed,and revised into argumentsthroughoutthe
course. The same sort of discussion is invited by the decision to begin
the study of the "West" with the Ancient Near East ratherthan with
Greece. What are the implications and consequences of constructing
the political history of the "West" as essentially monarchicratherthan
 into Problems"
Smith: "Narratives 735

democratic? Again, engagement with current political discourse and

with students'expectationsserves to make the question both open and
interesting.
All of my introductorycourses are constructedaround a few formal
rules, each in the serviceof argumentand consequence. To cite but two:
first,alwaysbeginwiththe questionof definition;second, nothingmuststand
alone. I have just illustrated the first. The second rule requires that
every item encounteredin an introductorycourse have a conversation
partner,so that each may have, or be made to have, an argumentwith
another in order that students may negotiate difference,evaluate,com-
pare, and make judgments. While historicallygrounded contrastsare
common coin-of-the-realm,I find that anachronistic,surprisingjuxtapo-
sitions are often more useful pedagogically. For example, after reading
Durkheim's romantically optimistic account of "collective efferves-
cence," show and discuss Leni Riefenstahl'spropagandafilm of the
Nazi Nurembergrally,"TheTriumphof the Will;" afterreadingEliade's
romanticaccount of initiatoryordeals, read the sadistic, ritualisticpor-
nographicclassic, TheStoryof O. The effect is to revealthe hidden con-
sequences latent in a given position. More recently,I have adopted the
practiceof regularlyjuxtaposingSupremeCourtcases to the topics stud-
ied, if possible readingclosely split (5-4) decisions. I do this for a vari-
ety of reasons. Students often know the results reached by the Court,
they rarelyhave any sense of the processes by which the decisions are
reached. At the level of the SupremeCourt,the data are stipulated,and
there is general agreementas to the relevant constitutionalprovisions
and legal precedents. (That is to say, differenceis not a productof one
side knowing something the other side doesn't know, or knowing
"more.") Studentsare able to observe, and participatein, the construc-
tion of alternativeargumentsand plausibilitystructures,reasonedfroma
common base, concerning issues of social consequence. For example,
after reading Durkheimon the distinction between the sacred and the
profane,I have my students read the text of the PawtucketCrechecase,7
where the argumentsdepend on the question of whetherthe creche, and
other displayed symbols, serve a "religious"or a "secular"purpose. If
Durkheimhad presenteda brief to the Court,what would he have said?
Both Durkheimand the Americanissue of "separation"become mutu-
ally complicated,and yet a decision needs to be reached. By the conclu-
sion of the exercise, the students,having read Durkheim,"see" aspects

7Lynchv. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 79 L. Ed. 2nd 604, 104 S. Ct. 1355 (1984). The SupremeCourt
has agreed to hear a new creche case during its currentterm.
736 Journalof the AmericanAcademyof Religion

of the case that the Courtignored;likewise, the students,having readthe

case that describesa familiarratherthan an exotic religiousactivity,dis-
cover new implications in Durkheim'sposition.
The third aspect of the injunction,"turnnarrativeinto problems,"is
the most reflexiveof all, for it concerns how we, as teachers,problema-
tize our classroom narratives. That is to say, it concerns our habit of
"white"lying in introductorycourses-I know there are happiereuphe-
misms such as "simplification"-when we persistentlydisguise what is
problematicin our work. For example, we traditionallyscreen from our
students the hard work that results in the editorialproductionof exem-
plary texts. Despite what we know, we treat them as "found objects,"
readingthem with our students as if each word were directlyrevelatory.
Moreover,we conceal from our students the time-bound conditional
judgments that make the objects exemplary, and we ignore their revi-
sionaryhistories. We display texts as if they were self-evidentlymean-
ingful and significant and allow our students to feel guilty or dumb if
they do not immediatelysharethis perception. Thatis to say, we convey
to our students a specious perfection of the object studied, a specious
ease to the processes of reading,and a specious necessity to the history
of that object. Think of the educationalconsequences. If we present a
theoreticalwork as perfect, as having no revisionaryhistory, then we
present a work that no studentcan hope to emulate. Of more gravity,if
we present an exemplarytext without its attendantreception-history,we
appearto reduceits evaluationto the vagariesof taste or, more recently,
to the politics of self-interest. In either case, in the name of simplifica-
tion we have mystifiedthe object.
Similarly,in the name of simplification,we lie by treatingtheoriesas
if they were facts. We treat difficult,complex, controversialtheoretical
entities as if they were self-evident constituents of the universe we
inhabit. Studentscoming out of introductorycourses in the Humanities
know that there is such a "thing" as an author's intention, and they
regularlyand effortlesslyrecoverit from whatevertext passes into view.
Studentsin introductorycourses in the Social Sciences know that there
is such a "thing" as a society that functions, and they effortlesslyand
regularlyclaim to observe it doing so. Studentsin introductorycourses
in the NaturalSciences are soon wedded to what Nietzsche called "the
myth of the immaculate perception," and regularly,effortlessly, and
without embarrassmentgaze at "nakedfacts." Despite the oft-repeated
claim that, in our introductorycourses, we teach the "how" ratherthan
the "what"of a given field, we do not. When I read my students'texts
with them in conference, it is always the theoretical punch-line that
 into Problems"
Smith: "Narratives 737

they'veunderlined,never anythingof the process that led to its formula-

tion. That is to say, theoreticalproposals are being reduced to naked
facts. Discussion often takes the format of "show and tell," with stu-
dents displayingto one another these now unproblematicand self-evi-
dent conclusions. We have successfullyconcealed fromour studentsthe
methodological force of Carl Friedrich Gauss's remark, "I have my
results, I do not yet know how I am to arriveat them." This ignorance
of process (as differentfromconclusion) is buttressedby a false generos-
ity with respectto mattersof method and theory,presentingthis method
or theoryin summaryone week, that method or theory the next. None
of them is allowed to have the kind of monomaniacalimperialistpower
a good theory or method displays. Lacking this force, theories and
methods have been reducedto gossip, to mere opinions, without entail-
ments or consequences. Again, in the name of simplificationwe have
encouragedmystification.
The point of the above is to insist on an ethicthatstudentsbe "inthe
know." If the purpose of an introductorycourse is to introducestudents
to college-levelwork, then a part of that task consists in introducingthe
studentsto the academy'sethos of disclosure. The problemis not one of
difficulty;it is one of time. We need to decrease coveragein order to
allow for frequent structuredpauses in which our narrativebecomes
problematic. To take only the first issue raised above, that of the con-
cealment of the editorialwork that produces exemplarytexts, ten pages
of reading,a one-page handoutof translatedmaterial,twentyminutes of
homework, and twenty minutes of class time is sufficient to allow my
students to debate and vote on a set of carefullychosen "variantread-
ings" in the New Testament,giving them some sense of how a text is
constructedby acts of scholarlyjudgement. Experiencedonce, this exer-
cise needs only to be alluded to again with each new text encountered.8
Permit me three concluding observations. To the degree that an
introductorycourse serves as an introductionto college-level work, the
proper context for its discussion and evaluationis not the department.
One might wish for the creationof a regular,college-wide forumwhere
everyoneinvolved in the teaching of introductorycourses, regardlessof
their putative subject matters, might gather to discuss their common
pedagogicalproblems and resources. To the degreethat an introductory
course serves as an introductionto college-level work in a particular

8For a stunning set of examples of editorial and compositional histories, drawn from modem
Americanliterature,which I have used with profit as supplementaryreadingin my introductory,
year-long course, "The Bible in Western Civilization,"see Parker.
738 Journalof theAmerican
Academy
of Religion

communityof discourse, one would expect that one's colleagues would

have detailedknowledge of what has been introducedand would build,
explicitly, on it in subsequent courses.
For myself, I know of no more interestingeducationalexercise than
meeting, two or three years later, for an evening, with small groups of
students from my introductorycourses, to reread and discuss one text
from the introductionand to rereadand discuss their firstpaperson that
text. By and large,our currentgradingsystemsgive no means by which
a studentmight gauge whether he or she has gained "depth." We need
scheduled moments of reprise, formalizedmoments of returnduring a
four year course of study, so that students can see for themselves the
distance they have traveled, the mastery they have acquired. To this
end, I am much taken with experiments such as student portfolios of
their four years work coupled with "exit interviews"to review them, or
senior seminarswhich rereadtexts.
All that we do is in service of what is, for me, the chief goal of a
liberal arts education: the empowering of a studentso that she or he gains
possessionof an autobiography.This sort of masteryrequiresa
intellectual
trained self-consciousness, the acquisitionof skills in public discourse,
the capacityto negotiatecomplex materials,and occasions for represent-
ing one's ownership in focused products. Above all, it requiresan edu-
cational environment in which students are "in the know" in every
possible respect. The introductorycourse, as it works on turningnarra-
tive into problems, is a first chapterin this endeavor.

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