Who killed literature? NP but profs, in the classroom, with candlesticks and test

[Matthew Cissell]

"That said, the notion that the victims of the assault on the Humanities... are to blame for the decline in any and all fields of study is absurd."

Yes it is, glad I never said it. However, crap univeristy teaching in the Humanities (I'm referring more to teaching in English studies - as was Siegel) makes it an easy target for those set on taking it out. Maybe Alice only had fine Profs at whatever Candlebrow U she attended, lucky gal, but I have had less enviable experiences. I have seen more than one professor come in and shoot from the hip the whole semester and others who let their politics get in the way of good teaching. The fact is that some teachers have made Lit dept.s easy targets. Oh, it is these same lack lustre profs who refuse to retire and leave room for the next generation to step in. This is not "blaming the vicitm", it's cleaning up your own backyard. Get to the business of triage or the vultures will finish off the moribund.

And Al, maybe we should consider the Big Men and Women of belles lettres (or is it the heads that are big?) before we put on the war paint. We too must re-evaluate our values and question our questions.

ciao
mc


________________________________
 From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: Who killed literature? NP but profs, in the classroom, with candlesticks and test
 

I can only speak about the USA here.

I doubt that the WSJ and their ilk, who are certainly hell bent on
de-unionizing education and making it, as it has science and technic,
an arm of the corporate state, will succeed in killing the Humantires
or Literature. Of course, I may be wrong. Who could imagine that they
would kill science and math and make it an arm of war and consumer
oppression. Some Little men of Science still refuse to this and think
they are doing science.

In any event, we do, in the USA, live not in 1984 but in a Brave New
World. Students of that novel, and of the Play from which it takes its
name (The Tempest)know that the cultural forces that gave rise to the
Humanites and to the study of Literature and to the Literary forms,
such as the novel, are huge and complex, they are, as the forces of
Science and Math once were, not secular and certainly not divorced
from magic and the spiritual forces...and can be traced back to the
Ancient Worlds, to the Greeks and to Chinese and Egyptian and so
forth...highly developed cultures in America and Africa etc... and
through the so called FDark Ages and the Printing Press that, as
Hugo's (Hunchback) Deacon sez, killed the Cathedrals.

That, says the Deacon of Notre Dame, as he points to a book, will kill
this (the Cathedral).

Any student of P must know what Adams was talking about when he wrote
his books on US History, Education, and the Cathedrals of Europe, must
surely understand the logocentric themes, of colonialism, of the
European Companies that, as we learn in that Play that gave the tile,
_The Tempest_ , treat Others as Calibans, use greater
Magic/Science-Technic to subdue them, and, having run out of Frontier,
have turned their attention to the spaces of our minds. And we, as in
Brave New World, are complicit, not victims, but participants.


That said, the notion that the victims of the assault on the
Humanities, an attack that seeks to divide and conquer by focusing its
brutal charge at teachers of Humanties, and also on Educators
generally, are to blame for the decline in any and all fields of study
is absurd.

Who needs any of this? DId Bill Gates or Mike Bloomberg or Steve Jobs
need any of this?

Will the study of Literature help raise the standard of living of the
average American? no. It will hurt their chances. The Humanites may
construct clever arguments but its all sophistry and self-serving
rhetoric.

Today, as Carl Sandburg sez, I worship the hammer.

Itz Ok to be Luddite. Ask anyone who knows what the teachers are only
now beginning to understand" Science-Technic is an arm of the
Corporate state and they will replace you with a robot.

On 7/14/13, Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es> wrote:
> WSJ trying to kill the Humanities (LIT., notice he doesnt say out with hist
> or philosophy) Still trying to get rid of the poets. this guy... What a
> slug.
>
> That said, the HUmanities are in danger, we (those of us in the Hum or
> trying to get in) should think about that with every paper we write every
> conference we attend. This time of crisis shall pass but what will remain of
> the Humanities? Will we write of our own demise even as we orchestrate it?
>
> mc
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 1:09 AM
> Subject: Who killed literature? NP but profs, in the classroom, with
> candlesticks and test
>
>
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323823004578595803296798048.html
>
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