It's kind of freaking me out how on-the-nose this book is about today's literary academia and culture wars. It was published in 1994, and yet the introductory chapters sound like they were written yesterday- even down to the mention of emerging out of a recession. I know it's just the fact that the arguments this book is addressing are long-game arguments; they are not things that will change overnight, or even necessarily in a generation. Still, it's a little eerie.
This edition was published over 20 years ago, but the arguments presented in the introduction are the same we are having now. I wonder if the rest of the content will hold up in the same way. And I wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
I'm fascinated by the idea that conservatives are still hung up on the idea that students are "radicalized" from the top down- by charismatic radical teachers- when Tumblr and Twitter have now proven otherwise.
Panellists: John Hornor Jacobs, Laura Lam, Pierre Pevel, Jon Wallace, Kari Sperring
What are some of the characters and narratives we’ve seen enough of? Is it time for the assassin with the heart of gold to take a break? Should the farmer keep farming and stop exchanging his rake for a broadsword? Could the squabbling will-they-won’t-they couple just get a room already? More generally, why are tropes used, and what are their structural, stylistic and political implications?
This is a really useful introduction to the myriad worlds of literary theory. It makes Derrida, Saussure, Freud and all those other scourges of an English student's life sound not only readable, but actually interesting! And for all those English students who, like me, are suffering an existential crisis over what the point of English actually is, this may go some way to solving it. Possibly not all the way, but something's better than nothing, right?
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