Lit Crit 2007

[Lawrence Bryan]

I tried reading a bit of the stuff and couldn't make heads or tails  
of it. Just seemed like mindless jibberish. I figured there must be  
something there with so many intellectuals going on about it, but I  
guess I was too dense to figure it out. Then I read an interview with  
Chomsky. He admitted he too couldn't figure out what they were  
saying. I felt somewhat vindicated in my gut feeling that it was  
really pretty much nonsense. Then there was that physics guy who made  
up a paper in the post modern style and vocabulary. That was it for  
me. I'd been hoodwinked.

Lawrence

On Sep 19, 2007, at 11:12 AM, David Morris wrote:

The home page apologizes for their site snags.  It took a long time,
but it finally appeared for me.  But don't complain about him before
you read him.  This is his re-review of the state of contemporary
literature 25 years after his first review for this magazine.
Personally, what I've seen of PoMo LitCrit is unintelligible insider
lingo and useless.  So I was not inclined to dislike him.

David Morris

On 9/19/07, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/19/07, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> http://newcriterion.com:81/archives/26/09/the-literary-life-at-25/
>>
>> "Theory in academic literary criticism seems to be playing itself out
>> by the sheer force of its deep inner uselessness. Not a single
>> significant book, nor any dazzling essays that I know of, have been
>> produced in American literary criticism that are owing to their
>> author's adaptation of one or another kind of critical theory,
>> imported or domestic, from deconstruction to queer theory. Such stuff
>> continues to be taught, as it was taught to the people now  
>> teaching it
>> and who themselves consequently know little else to teach. But one
>> senses that the day of the predominance of theory in English
>> departments is coming to a close: the fever has abated, the flame is
>> guttering. Derrida and Foucault are no longer fighting but
>> yawn-inducing words."
>
> The Old Crysmearion page won't come up for me, which cranky old man of
> letters is this there?  And does he even bother to give examples, much
> less counterexamples?
>