New Books Network Suzanne Bost, "Quiet Methodologies: Humility in the Humanities" (U Minnesota Press)
Mar 15, 2026
Suzanne Bost, literary scholar and poet at Loyola University Chicago, explores alternative humanities methods rooted in humility. She discusses pedagogy reforms, non-combative scholarly practices, collage and quotation as methods, archive encounters, ethics of editing, and care-driven approaches to academic labor and the classroom.
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Colonial Habits Shape Humanities Methods
- Humanities training often reproduces colonialist, status-quo knowledge rather than generating new modes of thought.
- Suzanne Bost traced this to reward structures that prize reproducing predecessors and linear Enlightenment narratives, prompting her search for alternative pedagogies.
Hold Scholarly Claims More Loosely
- Avoid adversarial scholarly argument that insists I'm right/you're wrong and instead hold claims more loosely in crisis contexts.
- Bost argues such combative modes distract from structural transformation needed beyond conferences and elite journals.
Collage As A Scholarly Method
- Collage functions as a model for non-linear scholarship that foregrounds simultaneity, rearrangement, and multiple angles at once.
- Bost cites her visual-art practice and a Nick Cave exhibition as inspirations for cacophony-as-method.
