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Last week an article was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in which I was quoted concerning my observations of English as a language of instruction at the University of Helsinki.[1] While the quotes seems to reiterate my point quite well, I realized that at least in some sense they also made my point come across somewhat stronger than I intended. I guess this is one of the problems one often faces when interviewed; something I should have kept better in mind while being interviewed.

I therefore thought I would use this space to elaborate in more detail what my (and many of my co-student’s) concerns are on this topic.

At the present there are no language requirements (such as e.g. a language test) made for teaching staff wishing to teach in English at the University of Helsinki. The ‘official’ assumption by the University is that as internationally widely published scholars the teaching staff is well equipped to convey their knowledge, also through spoken English. Vice Rector Jukka Kola, as quoted in the article, confirms this when saying: “Teaching is based on research, and our professors are very international, which should provide them with quite good English in their areas of specialization”.[2] Written English, that is. If one was prone to nitpicking, one might pay special attention to the use of ‘should’ and ‘quite good’ in the statement by Jukka Kola. ‘Should’ hardly entails much of a promise; and ‘quite good’ is that really good enough at the highest level of academic teaching? At the heart of Jukka Kola’s deduction lies an assumption of a correlation between being able to produce text for a book or an article and conveying that knowledge through the act of speaking. For most classes taught at the University of Helsinki there is a ‘requirement’ of active participation of the students and a belief in dialogue as a better tool for learning than via a Professor’s monologue.[3] While one might assume that quoting verbatim the text one has written in a book, article or lecture notes, as a monologue without interaction from the students, could have some correlation to one’s ability to produce text, it seems very hard to find any such correlation to being able to produce speech, ad hoc, while engaged with an interactive and investigative student body.

In essence, we are presented with a number of ‘English problems’ when engaging with our professors through their classroom teaching. There are those professors who can read their notes out aloud (or who have memorized them) in a clear and understandable English but who have no ability to explain, beyond their notes, what a given problem or concept means. If, as an example, a student does not understand the explanation prepared for the concept of ‘ontology’, these teachers have no other way of explaining it than repeating what they just said. If it is not in their notes they do not have the vocabulary and understanding of English actively available for them to re-phrase or contextualize their speech act. ‘Ontology’ might be one of those concepts where the harm is not so great, as there are plenty of materials available to help the students understand outside of the classroom; but what about all of those concepts and ideas which are developed by our internationally well established ground breaking scholars. The only explanation available ‘out there’ might be theirs. While this kind of English skills might correlate somewhat to the ability to produce text, as exemplified by Jukka Kola as the basis of ‘evaluating’ our teachers’ spoken English skills; it really says nothing about how well they can use their English to teach.

Another type of professors is those who, in addition to the problem described above, also ‘suffer’ from an accent so strong that it is almost beyond recognition. Finnish pronunciation in combination with English is well known for its incomprehensibility. I would doubt that such accent would be visible in their written and widely published works, but it surely impedes their ability to convey their teaching. The problem of having an incomprehensible accent would also impede the learning experience on its own (and would apply to native English speakers as well as ESL speakers) should the professor otherwise possess a completely fluent mastery of English. But still, the written work on which we judge our professors’ language skills would give no indication of such a problem.

In my opinion the only way to ensure that our professors possess the necessary English skills to teach in English at our university would be to submit them to the same language requirements as we do our students; at the very least. The method for measuring their English skills might be a different one than e.g. the TOEFL test (or similar) our international students take. I would prefer the professors to be required to give a test lecture, attended by students participating in the lecture as they would in any normal sense, as well as professionals evaluation both their language skills and their pedagogical skills. I understand Jukka Kola’s concern that we might have problems finding professors who would be willing to submit to such a test, but I do believe that with the right kind of incentive such problems could be overcome. For me it is a question of actually committing to the promise of an international education in English. In contrast; Jukka Kola’s claim, that a language test in addition to the extra work load incurred by translating their material from its original language into English would act as a “deterrent to their teaching in English”, seems to be both contradictory to the statement that their teaching is based on their research as international scholars [wouldn’t that already be in English?] and more importantly a lack of commitment to do what it takes to offer proper teaching in English for the further expansion of the “English-language offerings”.[4] On the one hand, Helsinki University wants to become more international and offer an ever-expanding number of degree programs in English; on the other hand there is a lack of willingness to ensure that the language of instruction is actually mastered by its teaching staff and professors.

I do agree with Jukka Kola that some of the problems we as students experience in the class rooms in terms of understanding what the professors say might also be related to pedagogy (or of course sometimes the complexity of the topics we study). Some professors might not be great teachers even in their mother tongue. However, I do not see how this exempts the university from ensuring that both the pedagogical skills and the linguistic skills are at an appropriate level for teaching advanced subjects. In some cases maybe the problem is solely a pedagogical one; in some a linguistic one; both are bad. But, in those cases where the problem is both, the students are completely left in the dark.

Turning back to my quotes in the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, I will end this piece by elaborating on some of them.

Among my own professors “the quality of English … has been almost uniformly poor”.[5] While I might have said something along those lines, I realized when reading the article that it came across somewhat worse that I actually feel the situation is. Thinking about it more thoroughly, I would say that around half of the professors and other teaching staff I have experienced did not master English at a level appropriate for teaching. Of those, about one third were completely incapable of moving beyond their notes and explaining anything they where teaching in other words than those written down. The other two thirds struggled with a combination of ‘rusty’ English skills and, at times, incomprehensible accents. This is the same picture I get when I talk to other international students both at Helsinki University and elsewhere in higher education in Finland. In terms of whether I would rather have relied on texts than the classroom command of English of my instructors, I am surprised if I actually said this. The reason for this is that I find book exams[6] to be the worst form of instruction available. As a tool for enabling students with different backgrounds and life situations to complete their degrees, I find book exams an ingenious invention. But, as a substitute for classroom teaching I would never prefer the book exam. At least you can try to have a discussion with your teacher if there is something you don’t understand (even if they have poor English skills), whereas reading for and writing a book exam only gives you a number on a piece of paper and no other feedback.[7]

“If professors were required to take the tests of English as a foreign language that students must pass in order to take those same courses … half the teaching staff would not be allowed to teach in English”.[8] This assessment, while I agree – and indeed reiterated it for the interview, was not solely my own, but one I was presented with in a conversation with administrators at the university while discussing the idea of testing the English skills of the professors who ‘wish’ to teach in English. Whoever said it (me or them) is, however, of little relevance. The gist of the problem is that they are not tested, and, that contrary to the ‘wisdom’ of many – if not most – higher education institutions around the world offering teaching in English, Helsinki University does not want to test. The process of internationalization has become focused on quantity rather than quality (the level of internationalization of HEIs in Finland will be a factor when receiving public funding in the future); maybe because quantity can be affirmed with numbers and statistics, and quality can always be depicted as a subjective assessment only (if at all) relevant to the individual making it. It is often easy to dispute a qualitative claim, why there is no real need to improve the quality as long as it is not overall too bad. Why spend money fixing what can be depicted as a ‘relatively small’ problem, in support of which it is almost impossible to find any ‘hard data’ (usually because none is being produced or at least made publicly available). Anyway, the only ‘objective’ way to show that the level of English skills of the teaching staff is high enough would be to test them.

Finally, I was quoted saying that this is a topic which I often encounter when interacting with other international students, and that it is one of those problems which leaves us with a feeling of disappointment.[9] This is indeed my experience. It is however not restricted to students at the University of Helsinki, but something I have heard time and time again when talking to international students from all over Finland. The main reason for the disappointment is that when you study the marketing material and websites of HEIs in Finland (including of course the ones for Helsinki University) you are left with the impression that this would be the last problem you might encounter. In addition, knowing the excellent scores Finland gets in various international tests such as the PISA; one expects the level of English to be high. When we then arrive and realize that not only is a proportion of our instructors barely capable of teaching in English, there is not even a willingness from the university side to test their skills before we are exposed to them; how can we be anything but disappointed?

Some universities in Finland actually do test their professors, and the one good example I know of, combines this with various avenues for them to get help to improve their skills, as well as a willingness to tell them not to teach in English should they not possess the necessary language command. Why does Helsinki University not walk this road too? We all want the same outcome; to make Helsinki University the best international university in Finland (maybe even the world – or at least in Europe). One part of achieving this goal must be to ensure a sufficient level of English among the teaching staff. Why not actually take the necessary steps to make this happen, rather than refusing to face the problems. Why not pause now, and fix the problems we already know exist, rather than continuing to increase the ‘official level of internationalization’ for the sake of … what exactly? I always assume that the internationalization in some sense is meant also to be for the benefit of the students and staff at Helsinki University (at least not to their detriment); why is it then, that I again and again hear both students and staff questioning the positive effects of even the current level of internationalization. It often strikes me that while it all seems to be for a ‘greater cause’, we still lack a visible willingness and commitment to make it happen. The way to visualize this would be through appropriate resource allocations and concrete actions. The current lack of action only strengthens our disbelief in the agenda presented as the official mantra.

I have had great years at Helsinki University. If it had not been for the constant sending of mixed signals I am sure they would have been fantastic. In terms of what Helsinki University has to offer both its Finnish and international students, I think it is a shame that it is tainted by this lack of willingness to fix the things we all know are broken. One first step in this direction would be to make sure that the command of English of the teaching staff is documented and appropriately high. If the language really only is a small problem, as Jukka Kola wants us to believe, then it should take only a small effort to fix it. Is a language test really that much to ask for? After all, we all had to do it.

Who is writing? Is it ‘me’, the ‘author’; is it Derrida – writing through ‘me’ as a ghost from the past, someone else, or many others? Does it have to be someone else, or could it just be ‘me’? But then, who am ‘I’[1], what constitutes/conditions my participation in this writing event? Is it possible to know for sure? Even if you find my signature at the end of this paper, can you be sure I actually wrote this by my own hand, my own uninfluenced intent? Does such a thing as uninfluenced intent even exist? And, does it matter in relation to what you read, whether I intended it or not? Going down this road of ambiguous and slightly sarcastic articulations concerning myself as an author (am ‘I’ dying as we speak?) – and later you as the reader, go some way to illustrate the issue at hand when Derrida, following Barthes, does away with the author. This ‘gentle’ euthanasia marks one of the possibly most fundamental indications made by Derrida; the idea that iteration ‘always’ – for the purpose of knowing truth/meaning – is the element which “ties repetition to alterity.”[2] As with any articulation in the Derridean complex, iteration must contain its own constituting difference within itself. It is the necessity of this ‘self’-constituting “discrepancy of a difference”, which leaves us with “the structure of the remainder, implying alteration, [which] renders all absolute permanence impossible.”[3] There is no permanence – the author must die – but for writing to be writing it must continue to be readable, “even when what is called the author of the writing no longer answers for what he has written.”[4] But since there is no guarantee about what the author intended when she/he wrote the text – or whether such scriptor consciously knew her/his own intent in full, there can only be what ‘we’ – the readers – make of it. Thus, ‘we’ the readers are the providers of meaning; a meaning which because of our own unsaturated amalgamated nature can only be even more ambiguous and indeterminate. Whatever ‘I’ think, is not from me solely, but rather a mix of continuous dilutions of influences, choices – rational as well as irrational, experiences, etc. In this sense both the author and the reader – in their total singularity – are dead. So, ‘I’ am not really here; the author in me is slowly dying as ‘my’ words spill onto the paper. Or maybe this so-called author was already dead, even before ‘I’ began.

‘I’ intervene by suggesting NO!

Even if there is no complete singular me, there are still my hands typing down these words, maybe not singular, but nonetheless mine. Whatever intent(ions) ‘I’ hold consciously or unconsciously, this text would not be without me. If the author is completely dead, and has no effect on the text, even as it leaves her/his head, we might as well replace all authors with monkeys operating typewriters. Whatever meaning is imposed on ‘my’ text, both before and after ‘I’ write it, the possibility for such meaning is articulated through ‘my’ writing and made contingent by it. There would not be anything for anyone to neither interpret nor iterate had it not been produced by an author through her/his articulations. Even with the death of the author, writing – and the signifiers thereby articulated – becomes contingent on the spatial temporality of an ‘author’ as the agent of articulation. The author can therefore not always have been dead. If the author at some point was alive, how can she/he then become completely irrelevant after her/his death? Whatever meanings are imbued on a writing, these are to some extent constituted also by the signifiers within it; signifiers ‘chosen’ by the author. How would any meaning be possible without author, receiver, nor some level of determinacy from within the articulations themselves? And since the articulations – as much as possible – are ‘chosen’ (un)consciously by the author, she/he might not be all that irrelevant after all. This does however not necessarily imply that the author is not dead in the Derridean sense. For Derrida, the death of the author seems to be ‘merely’ a signification of the suggestion that whatever the author ‘intended’, this does not necessarily directly constitute the meanings articulated by the receivers. And in a similar vein, the ‘readability’ of a writing, must remain despite the disappearance of the receiver, for the writing to be what it is. Both author and receiver can therefore die, and the text will live on regardless of their existence.

The plurality of dying authors, and whether one might live

Rather than talking about the death of the author as a singular event, such erasure of existence is a plural happening. The author dies in different senses. First and foremost, the author is dead as a singular identity. The author is furthermore dead in the sense of the possibility of ‘knowing’ her/his intent with a piece of writing, thus the lack of possibility of actually knowing what she/he intended to mean. Consequently, the author is thus also dead in the sense that the receiver’s reading of ‘her/his’ writing is not necessarily solely informed by the author.

Death of the author as a singular identity – Derrida and Sarl.

Does the author exist in her/his complete individuality? Or is the author rather some kind of composite existence? According to Derrida, one of the main reasons why the author is dead is the ‘fact’ that, she/he does not exist as a singular whole. Discussing the copyright of John R. Searle in his “Reply to Derrida”, he responds to Searle’s indebtedness as follows:

“If John R. Searle owes a debt to D. Searle concerning this discussion, then the “true” copyright ought to belong (as is indeed suggested along the frame of this tableau vivant) to a Searle who is divided, multiplied, conjugated, shared. What a complicated signature! And one that becomes even more complex when the debt includes my old friend, H. Dreyfus, with whom I myself have worked, discussed, exchanged ideas, so that if it is indeed through him that the Searle have “read” me, “understood” me, and “replied” to me, then I, too, can claim a stake in the “action” or “obligation,” the stocks and bonds, of this holding company, the Copyright Trust.”[5]

The author thus becomes a composite, an indebted entity whose text ‘springs’ from the many ‘others’ by whom she/he has been influenced, got ideas, been helped, and discussed with. There is a sense in which the author thus becomes so ‘divided’, ‘multiplied’, ‘conjugated’, ‘shared’, that it become ‘impossible’ to ascertain where the author ends and the ‘others’ begin. It even becomes questionable whether the author is not the ‘others’ from the very beginning. Is there anything which is solely his? As Derrida points out, “”société plus ou moins anonyme,” “a more or less anonymous company or corporation”” signifies the rigorousness of “ three +n authors” in the sense not only of the “debts”, but also “the entire, more or less anonymous tradition of a code, a heritage, a reservoir or arguments to which both he [Searle] and I are indebted.”[6] Thus, the author becomes the collective Sarl., the French abbreviation for “Société a responsabilité limitée” (Society with limited responsibility).[7] Such an observation seems somewhat – but not entirely – similar to the later re-formulation in Critical Realism of the concept of ‘double hermeneutics’. The critical realist signification of ‘double hermeneutics’ informs us that “a theoretically reflective scientist tries to investigate and interpret a world, which is itself meaningful … there is, first, the movement between theories and, second, the movement between the researcher, his or her explanatory models and the lay meanings.”[8] For Critical Realism, neither the ‘world’ nor the author is unaffected by ‘others’, thus the author is not a singular producer of writings, but rather a reflective, ‘divided’, ‘multiplied’, etc., composite.

The singular, signing, copyright-claiming, author is thus dead. In her/his stead we find the composite author(s) in which one is almost impossible to discern from the other. And even if one could discern them to some extent, their complexity would only grow as we would have to discern the compositions of the composite others of the author, ad infinitum. If we cannot know the singular author apart from his composite components, then the next question becomes how we can know what the intentions of the ‘author’ are?

Death of the author and her/his intentions

What does anyone intent? Can ‘I’ know? Can they – in full? And, even if we can, why does it matter what anyone intended? It seems to be commonly believed outside the circle of postmodernists, and maybe sometimes even within the circle,[9] that in order to be able to understand and/or interpret a text one must know what the ‘author’ actually intended with the text. Without such knowledge of intent, our interpretation, so ‘they’ say, would be seriously flawed, as it could then only be instructed by our ‘own’ intentions. Derrida, on the other hand, seems to think that whatever the ‘author’ intended becomes irrelevant, as it is rather what the receiver does with the text which is of interest. The author is dead. Even if we would try to reveal the intentions of the ‘author’, how would we be able to distinguish between the actual intentions and those intentions imbued on him through the influence of the ‘others’? If all ‘we’ do is somehow, to some extent, conditioned by ‘events’ ‘external’ to ourselves, then is it not illogical to talk about a singular intent of the author? Such intent would rather, like the author her/himself, become a composite of all sorts of elements. Furthermore, if the receiver inevitably will apply meanings of her/his ‘own’ regardless of the intentions, then would ‘we’ not be just as well off, by ‘killing’ off these so-called intentions, or rather realizing that when it comes to intentions, the author is dead. Laclau and Mouffe, explicated how ‘I’, the actor moves/articulates in a web of discourses, operating under the influence of various, more or less, hidden imaginaries.[10] If what we think ‘consciously’ we intent, is actually the result of a sort of ‘false’ consciousness, are those intentions actually our own, and can they be said to be real in the sense of being of our own making? If not, are in ‘fact’ the author and her/his intentions not dead? Dead in the sense of no existing in any absolute form.

If the author thus is dead as a singular identity, is dead in the sense that her/his intentions are an impossible fabrication – an “essential absence of intending the actuality of utterance,”[11] is not also the author dead as a source of informed understanding of her/his text? What then ‘informs/misleads’ ‘us’ about the text and meaning?

Death of the author – speaking from the grave?

What conditions ‘my’ understanding of a text? Is it the author, the text ‘itself’, or maybe something else? Is it possible for ‘me’ to gain anything more than a flawed insight into what informs me; to list all the ‘others’ in ‘me’? And, in order to get the ‘full’ picture, would ‘I’ not also have to list all the ‘others’ in the ‘others’, and so on, to infinity. Following the above discussion, it seems unlikely that it would, even could, be the author who informs my understanding of ‘her/his’ text. If I cannot know who, in her/his singularity the author is, then how can such a being inform me of anything.[12] Hence, the author is dead; dead in the sense of being beyond influencing ‘my’ reading of ‘her/his’ text. Rather I am informed by the ‘others’ in ‘me’. The composite ‘me’ becomes the source of ‘my’ interpretations as well as ‘my’ reiterations of the text. As ‘you’ have been able to see throughout this text (hopefully), the ‘I’ of ‘me’ is strongly indebted to a whole group of ‘others’. And even here, in ‘my’ text, it is only a small handful which I have been able to identify ‘myself’, and show them my gratitude by providing a reference to ‘their’ texts. I will not end this short paper with a copyright claim, nor did ‘I’ start it with one other than the short reference to my name, as ‘I’ would not be able to distinguish in full which parts would belong to whom of the ‘others’ in me. In a certain way this conclusion leaves one to think whether there ever were a first text, one in which the articulations belonged solely to the author – an author thus as a singular identity, ‘roaming’ the world telling the first story. The primordial author. There might have been, but for us, for our ‘world’ such speculations have become irrelevant as they refer back to times immemorial and to articulations which would since have become as small as a single molecule in the oceans of the world. We will thus have to settle with the death of the author; a death which, though plural in articulations, is founded in the lack the author’s singular identity. One result of this death is the illumination of the impossibility of a complete saturation of meaning/truth/knowledge. There are no closed boundaries, no endings, and no completeness.

The living author

Thus, if ‘I’ as an author is ‘committing suicide’ in the process of writing, is there any sense in which ‘I’ the author can be seen to be alive? What is it about the author that actually matters in relation to the writings she/he produce, if anything? Why would ‘I’ be bothered to carry out this kamikaze mission, if nothing ‘I’ add matters once it has left me?

Before ‘I’ move on, ‘I’ would like to make a small note here. What ‘I’ am about to articulate might be ‘valid’ at this very moment; but try to imagine a rather near future, when writing can be carried out completely by automatons, robots owning no allegiance or debts, other than to the programmer who created the matrix which ‘determines’ its ‘limits’; automatons which would likely be capable of creating their ‘own’ automatons. When this happens, ‘I’ would suggest, the death of the author has truly occurred. The other ‘true’ death of the author becomes possible the moment we achieve a complete separation of the mind from the body. When science steps into a phase where it is possible to leave the body behind and place ‘our’ minds in cyberspace. This might sound like science fiction, but it is nonetheless what very ‘serious’ neuroscientists are working on as we ‘speak’; and slowly succeeding in, so it seems.

But to return to the present; is there a sense in which the author survives the gentle euthanasia; a sense in which the author does maintain some kind of presence and relevance for the articulations leaving his corporal being. The first ‘key word’ here is corporal. Without the corporal being of the author there would be no writing, no articulations. It is in a symbiosis between the body and the mind that articulations are made possible. The functioning of the tongue, lips, and vocal cords; the movements of the hands (or in a rare few occasions feet); these are the part of the complex enabling articulations. In a causal sense these are necessary but insufficient parts of the causal complex conditioning the event of articulation. It might of course, with Derrida in mind, be pointed out that such life is merely of a technical essence. It does not a priori, or so it seems at least, condition the content of the articulations carried out by the author; so in this sense the author becomes nothing more than a transmitter. However, as long as articulations cannot be ‘transmitted’ without this reliance on the author, the author indeed stays alive in a very essential way. The author is thus not of complete irrelevance to the articulation, as it would not be if the author was not there.

There is a second way in which ‘I’ would like to suggest that the author survives, and maintains some level of significance for the articulations and their reiterations. This involves the possibility of choice. Though, whatever choices ‘we’ make might be conditioned by many different sources, and in many ways not ‘really’ be choices of ‘our own’; they are nonetheless choices somewhat determined by the specificity of the composition of ‘me’ as an author. In this sense after the ‘death’ of the author, the choices she/he made ‘still’ determine – to some extent – the possible iterations by the receiver. If all I chose to write in this essay was ‘mit navn er Søren’, then the possibilities for iteration would be significantly different from what iterations are possible based on what ‘I’ actually wrote. Whether it was me as an author in the singular sense, or a ‘me’ who made the choice, the possibilities for iteration would to some extent – it might be only very limited though – be conditioned by the final articulations by me; the choices ‘I’ made. If not; if the possible iterations would be ‘completely’ independent from the author, then ‘I’ could write anything and the receiver would still be able to iterate the same meaning. First of all such ‘complete’ independence seems contrary to the Derridean explication that nothing is complete; everything remains unsaturated. And, secondly, any sort of even approximated agreement over meanings would become ‘impossible’; all articulations would become nonsense.

The author is dead, yet still alive. Without the living author there could be no death. It is no longer a dichotomous relationship but one of supplementarity. The two must co-exist in a symbiosis where one fills out the ‘lack’ of what is missing in the other, and vice versa; thus supplementing each other rather than cancelling each other out. Thus the fear of dying as an author is misplaced. Instead ‘we’ should embrace our death and life in the articulations ‘we’ set upon the world; and acknowledge the plurality of our being, both as authors and as receives. To completely write off the author would be a mistake, but so would it be to only shine out light of attention upon the signatory of the text. This is why the euthanasia by Derrida is a ‘gentle’ one. Though the emphasis seems to lie with the ‘reasons’ for why the author is dead, the logic proposed in his works, should leave no doubt that without living, such death would not be possible. It would be a ‘mis’-reading to conclude that the death of the author would exclude the presence and significance of the living author; on the contrary, the death of the author exemplifies the importance of the living, articulating author.