There’s something you should know—well, someone. That is, if you don’t know already: we have a brand new faculty member this year! Granted, my embarrassing delay in writing this profile from the time we spoke her gives her a full Stanford quarter to speak of by now, but Professor Nancy Ruttenburg still seems to walk the halls of Margaret Jacks with the honeymoon sparkle in her eyes. Although, my brief but truly stirring talk with her tells me that that enthusiasm might just be part of the package.
Professor Ruttenburg returns to Stanford—where she earned her PhD in Comparative Literature—from the faraway land of NYC, where she chaired the Department of Comparative Literature at NYU from 2002-2008. In addition to her English Professorship at Stanford, she holds courtesy appointments in the Departments of Comp Lit and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Professor Ruttenburg’s work is inherently “interdisciplinary,” (as the pedagogical talking heads like to say,) but what impresses me most about Ruttenburg’s approach is that her interdisciplinarianism is organic, seeming indeed necessary, rather than some forced attempt to draw connections for the sake of proving relevance. Her research interests entail not only literary works but also political and religious expression, and her understanding of Dostoyevsky as a “cipher” for reading a range of texts enmeshes nineteenth-century Russia with colonial and antebellum America, emphasizing her insight that “national boundaries are not set in stone”. Her current projects and course offerings highlight Ruttenburg’s thoroughly comparative approach, which she pointed out is a simple fact of being a scholar of American literature and culture. Comprised of so many different groups and interactions, looking at anything as “American” is already a comparative perspective.
Along with this profound connection to interdisciplinariansim, Ruttenburg recognizes the crucial importance of having a deep knowledge of one’s area, or areas, stating how disciplines have certainly become full-time jobs in the complex modern world that we inhabit. She called this necessary depth “a Jay knowledge,” referring to the beloved Stanford English veteran, Jay Fliegelman, with whom she studied as a graduate student and whose old office is her new residence. With Professor Fliegelman’s incredible legacy in mind, Ruttenburg reminds that we must “make it [our] business…to acquire an awareness of the paradigm in which we’re working, both its limitations as well as its full extension. The latter is particularly important for those seeking jobs in this economic climate, because when we realize the far-reaching implications of ‘in-depth’ study, we may find that our work has interdisciplinary or comparative relevance-a good thing when jobs are scarce and the job market is more competitive than ever.”
Ruttenburg’s diagnosis of our current moment in the humanities resonates deeply with me. As a student, I’ve felt myself struggle to balance the impulses toward total immersion and at the same time maintaining “perspective” of some kind, whatever that means. On the one hand, there’s a hesitance toward “professionalized literature,” the divisions of which Ruttenburg aptly compares to a divide between a cardiologist and a gastrointerologist: both working in the same unified organism, yet narrow in their scope within that body as a whole. At the same time, Professor Ruttenburg reminds us of the opposing fear—certainly one of mine—that without choosing one discipline or another, you’ll always remain, to some degree, a dilettante.
As a student trying to figure out how I fit into the grand scheme of things, these questions are ever-present on my mind, but setting aside my own inner turmoil… Professor Ruttenburg conveys a very dynamic understanding of the humanities that importantly situates literature within the contemporary political, cultural, and religious landscape. For English students compelled by these intersections, Ruttenburg offers a refreshing, and somewhat relieving, perspective that invites complex questions for the complicated terrain that is American literature. Her work responds to students who are first generation Americans or immigrants, and the desire to understand their own stories, stories with increasingly long and complex denominations that defy the old discipline-based restrictions. She acknowledges that our educations are constantly happening outside of the academic institution and seems to almost holistically unite these multiple forms of knowledge acquisition through her research and teaching.
Over the next two quarters, Professor Ruttenburg will be teaching a number of courses that coincide with her current research projects. This Winter, she is teaching a seminar on The Rise of the American Novel, 1790-1820, viewing her ideas on democratic subjectivity through the lens of the novel character. In Spring, she will teach a lecture on The Literature of Abolition and a seminar on Frederick Douglass. In addition to her naturally interdisciplinary approach, students can look forward to Ruttenburg’s excitement at being back in California, not least due to the Palo Alto weather. Though she experiences the pang of longing to go outside on a sunny day as much as the rest of us, she feels that working here gives her a good sense of balance. Ultimately, she reports that her return to Stanford has unambiguously “been a thrill”—I think it’s safe to say that the feeling is very mutual, Professor Ruttenburg. Welcome!