The Man of Letters: Professor Barrett Wendell and the Style of White Supremacy

Abstract

Abstract: The role of racism in the history of literary studies is broadly recognized; this article, however, turns from established emphases on exclusionary canons and race science to focus instead on style. Taking up the case of Harvard professor Barrett Wendell, whose influence in the fields of composition pedagogy and US literary history has been far-reaching, it examines his mannered ways of reading and teaching as a "man of letters," which lean into tacit expression, invocations of "common sense," and often-jocular forms of insincerity. Explaining how Wendell makes reading a site for affirming shared assumptions and mutual belonging, the article argues that he celebrates literary study as a means of experiencing a common humanity that is inclusive, diverse, and entirely white. Highlighting Wendell's opposition to the liberal racism dominant at his institution, it shows how he expresses his own contrarian illiberal racism by playing the troll.