Idk Atomika it sounds like you dont buy Death of the Author as a starting point for analysis at all these days, and without analysis how can one engage in criticism?
This is film holism and what is holistic medicine but one step from naturopathy and crystals smh
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The danger of accepting that lived experience matters ofc is that a critic in the academic tradition, much like the ideal American juror and Jerry Seinfeld, have none in anything germane to anyone
Tumin on
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thatassemblyguyJanitor of Technical Debt.Registered Userregular
Sweden is on the list for their lack of laundromats.
Idk Atomika it sounds like you dont buy Death of the Author as a starting point for analysis at all these days, and without analysis how can one engage in criticism?
This is film holism and what is holistic medicine but one step from naturopathy and crystals smh
the author has never been dead and to pretend otherwise has always been a polite fiction
I put it in the same bucket as the "free market" of economics and "to serve and protect" of law enforcement
never actually true, and pretending they were true only served to preserve an unjust status quo
i can see skipping a season or something. but are you actually talking about watching just the best rated episode of a thing, even if it drops you in the middle of a plotline you don't understand? that seems like psycho behavior
Having done no research and being confronted with a real query from Kosh, I was forced to confront the reality that I dont even know if Twin Peaks has seasonal plots or is merely bottled episodes like animated Xmen
Anyways all English Majors are dead inside
I don’t think there’s ever been a well-adjusted great writer. It’s almost mandatory to self-destruct or die penniless in order to be considered one
I think that’s one of the things that gets my hackles up about advanced English scholarship, in that the people discussing the better works are generally not overlapping a lot with the lived experiences of those generating the works
It’s one of the things that makes Dostoevsky fascinating to me, as he was definitely a very slight and foppish author…right up until he got sent to Siberian prison for anti-Tsarists bullshit; then he started really throwing down hot takes like the Bolshevik Rust Cohle.
I dunno. I think it’s the curse of all humanities study to exist largely outside the experiences being scrutinized, but I think most of the other forms of such scholarship (cinema, music, painting, et al) also have heavier emphasis on both applied practice and historical appreciation. I may be wrong.
there's a tension in most creative fields between creator and critic which I think you highlighted pretty well. the misguided adage that "those who can't do, teach" is a hyperbolic misrepresentation of this reality. it's wrong, but in the way that a funhouse mirror is wrong. it's not totally wrong.
it's incredibly hard to get at the heart of this without overgeneralizing so much as to get useless. we can talk about "lived experience" as a kind of baseline but that's just chauvinism about what we consider to be a valid lifestyle (is there any kind of experience that isn't lived?)
the thing about visual arts - the ones you mentioned - is that formalism is the basis for a significant portion of critical analysis. there's some psychology to this (maybe) but in a medium of pure language formalism makes no fucking sense as a critical framework. we aren't worried about how the visual cortex parses words on a page when we discuss Virginia Woolf. it's difficult to talk about the audience experience of listening to an oration of The Odyssey when all we have surviving are texts.
(you can get into formalism for analysis of poetry but that's beyond the scope of this post. I consider the prose/poetry divide an illusion, that's neither here nor there)
to employ a kind of chauvinism of my own - critical analysis of purely semantic media struggles to achieve the same level of popular awareness as visual media because those sensory experiences aren't an inherent part of it. we are visual animals and the spectacle of film will never cease to capture our attention. the barrier to entry is lower, both to consume a visual medium in the first place and to engage with its critical discourse. a screenplay will never be as exciting as the finished product it brings into being.
I didn't even get into the point I wanted to make about "lived experience" and this is already long enough. it's just plainly obvious to me why film criticism is an exercise anyone with eyes feels they can approach while literary analysis remains the domain of the ivory tower.
I think the ivory tower aspect, as you put it, is the point that bothers me the most, as I feel it so largely (though not completely) works against the didacticism of literary purpose. It might be why I’ve largely forsaken literature altogether, as I no longer understand who the audience is anymore. Most new popular fiction seems overly sentimental and maudlin without giving depth or new voice to the literary canon, while higher-aiming work seems to currently be focused on the fantastical or niche. It also feels that the zeitgeist for the last twenty years has largely been predicated on telling the stories of marginalized groups from authors or points of view outside of those groups, in some kind of mass paean of virtue signaling, recursively thrust back at the only people who are too vapid or credulous to see it for the pandering it is.
But also, let’s not forget I am a very difficult person and regularly over-scrutinize everything, so I’m not sure how valid any of this criticism is. I am, however, currently of the mind that if great literature isn’t now dead, it’s certainly dormant.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Idk Atomika it sounds like you dont buy Death of the Author as a starting point for analysis at all these days, and without analysis how can one engage in criticism?
This is film holism and what is holistic medicine but one step from naturopathy and crystals smh
---
The danger of accepting that lived experience matters ofc is that a critic in the academic tradition, much like the ideal American juror and Jerry Seinfeld, have none in anything germane to anyone
Yes, it’s terribly paradoxical, and no, I’ve never supported Death of the Author theory, and find many who support it do so either without fully understanding its aims or out of bad faith to whittle out niche interpretations that better fit their own singular benefit.
Idk Atomika it sounds like you dont buy Death of the Author as a starting point for analysis at all these days, and without analysis how can one engage in criticism?
This is film holism and what is holistic medicine but one step from naturopathy and crystals smh
---
The danger of accepting that lived experience matters ofc is that a critic in the academic tradition, much like the ideal American juror and Jerry Seinfeld, have none in anything germane to anyone
Yes, it’s terribly paradoxical, and no, I’ve never supported Death of the Author theory, and find many who support it do so either without fully understanding its aims or out of bad faith to whittle out niche interpretations that better fit their own singular benefit.
I dont see any real paradox to it; either your sense of a lack of real discourse and understanding or the relegation of authentic, thoughtful, empathetic introspection in American mass entertainment. Shrug. It seems logical.
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Amy what if there are no deep truths to harvest on the human condition
What if it's maudlin sentiment and gold leafed shit all the way down
*eyes well thumbed copy of Tortilla Curtain suspiciously*
Anyways all English Majors are dead inside
I don’t think there’s ever been a well-adjusted great writer. It’s almost mandatory to self-destruct or die penniless in order to be considered one
I think that’s one of the things that gets my hackles up about advanced English scholarship, in that the people discussing the better works are generally not overlapping a lot with the lived experiences of those generating the works
It’s one of the things that makes Dostoevsky fascinating to me, as he was definitely a very slight and foppish author…right up until he got sent to Siberian prison for anti-Tsarists bullshit; then he started really throwing down hot takes like the Bolshevik Rust Cohle.
I dunno. I think it’s the curse of all humanities study to exist largely outside the experiences being scrutinized, but I think most of the other forms of such scholarship (cinema, music, painting, et al) also have heavier emphasis on both applied practice and historical appreciation. I may be wrong.
there's a tension in most creative fields between creator and critic which I think you highlighted pretty well. the misguided adage that "those who can't do, teach" is a hyperbolic misrepresentation of this reality. it's wrong, but in the way that a funhouse mirror is wrong. it's not totally wrong.
it's incredibly hard to get at the heart of this without overgeneralizing so much as to get useless. we can talk about "lived experience" as a kind of baseline but that's just chauvinism about what we consider to be a valid lifestyle (is there any kind of experience that isn't lived?)
the thing about visual arts - the ones you mentioned - is that formalism is the basis for a significant portion of critical analysis. there's some psychology to this (maybe) but in a medium of pure language formalism makes no fucking sense as a critical framework. we aren't worried about how the visual cortex parses words on a page when we discuss Virginia Woolf. it's difficult to talk about the audience experience of listening to an oration of The Odyssey when all we have surviving are texts.
(you can get into formalism for analysis of poetry but that's beyond the scope of this post. I consider the prose/poetry divide an illusion, that's neither here nor there)
to employ a kind of chauvinism of my own - critical analysis of purely semantic media struggles to achieve the same level of popular awareness as visual media because those sensory experiences aren't an inherent part of it. we are visual animals and the spectacle of film will never cease to capture our attention. the barrier to entry is lower, both to consume a visual medium in the first place and to engage with its critical discourse. a screenplay will never be as exciting as the finished product it brings into being.
I didn't even get into the point I wanted to make about "lived experience" and this is already long enough. it's just plainly obvious to me why film criticism is an exercise anyone with eyes feels they can approach while literary analysis remains the domain of the ivory tower.
I think the ivory tower aspect, as you put it, is the point that bothers me the most, as I feel it so largely (though not completely) works against the didacticism of literary purpose. It might be why I’ve largely forsaken literature altogether, as I no longer understand who the audience is anymore. Most new popular fiction seems overly sentimental and maudlin without giving depth or new voice to the literary canon, while higher-aiming work seems to currently be focused on the fantastical or niche. It also feels that the zeitgeist for the last twenty years has largely been predicated on telling the stories of marginalized groups from authors or points of view outside of those groups, in some kind of mass paean of virtue signaling, recursively thrust back at the only people who are too vapid or credulous to see it for the pandering it is.
I find it a little curious to talk about the "didacticism of literary purpose" in the same paragraph as you describe (accurately if with too much cynicism, I think) an overreaction of the literary press toward point-of-view works.
but here we maybe run into a problem of definitions that's possibly not so much of an issue in other media: "literature critics" and "literary criticism" have absolutely fuck all to do with each other. book reviews are not engaging in any kind of analysis at all.
the popularity contest of what books you should read in order to demonstrate your (progressive, inclusive, still firmly neoliberal but left-curious) bonafides is little more than mutual morality masturbation. it's kind of startling how this dynamic just doesn't play out for film critics or game reviewers - the occasional backlash against regressive works usually gets constrained to radical left discourse while the mass market still buys tickets unless the movie is dire in other ways.
that doesn't mean there aren't authors writing compelling, groundbreaking, thought provoking fiction now. there are! 99% of them are just never going to get a mention on Oprah, or really any publicity whatsoever that breaks out of the book ecosphere. the audience for books is just smaller and smaller every year and it suffers from a discoverability problem the same as TV and movies and music and games do but even worse.
Idk Atomika it sounds like you dont buy Death of the Author as a starting point for analysis at all these days, and without analysis how can one engage in criticism?
This is film holism and what is holistic medicine but one step from naturopathy and crystals smh
the author has never been dead and to pretend otherwise has always been a polite fiction
I put it in the same bucket as the "free market" of economics and "to serve and protect" of law enforcement
never actually true, and pretending they were true only served to preserve an unjust status quo
Oh, definitely. Though I think the concept may have had merit its drilling into the minds of school children as foundational and part of how Serious People Discuss Canons is a horrific disservice to how my generation (not sure when it got popular) was taught to consider Good Works
Idk Atomika it sounds like you dont buy Death of the Author as a starting point for analysis at all these days, and without analysis how can one engage in criticism?
This is film holism and what is holistic medicine but one step from naturopathy and crystals smh
the author has never been dead and to pretend otherwise has always been a polite fiction
I put it in the same bucket as the "free market" of economics and "to serve and protect" of law enforcement
never actually true, and pretending they were true only served to preserve an unjust status quo
Oh, definitely. Though I think the concept may have had merit its drilling into the minds of school children as foundational and part of how Serious People Discuss Canons is a horrific disservice to how my generation (not sure when it got popular) was taught to consider Good Works
it's the spherical cow of literary analysis
useful to learn basic principles in LIT 101 but if you aren't chuckling about it by LIT 301 you aren't cut out to be an engineer a critic
That's right, they even issued me a degree that said I'm qualified to not be a complete idiot in those two topics, and might be able to define Cumputer Science.
Yes I said Cumputer because that was the typo on the electronic certificate they issued originally.
My course was voted last in both real-world applicability and academic merit in a poll one of the student newspapers ran: "not scrapping the bottom of the barrel but clawing at the underside trying to get in", I think was the quote
Not that I hold a grudge against the English Lit-dominated editorial team or anything
[Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
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joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
My course was voted last in both real-world applicability and academic merit in a poll one of the student newspapers ran: "not scrapping the bottom of the barrel but clawing at the underside trying to get in", I think was the quote
Not that I hold a grudge against the English Lit-dominated editorial team or anything
Damn that's .... very harsh. But something to be proud of.
Don’t let someone place a falcon on your head, that’s how they got me one time.
So far in this small (?) Sicilian fishing town, I have not encountered any sort of tourist trap. Unless you count the dozens of gelato places that are calling my name
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TavIrish Minister for DefenceRegistered Userregular
Don’t let someone place a falcon on your head, that’s how they got me one time.
So far in this small (?) Sicilian fishing town, I have not encountered any sort of tourist trap. Unless you count the dozens of gelato places that are calling my name
small towns in italy are lovely, big cities in italy are just tourist traps and beggars and restaurants putting extra charges on your meal because you don't have enough italian to tell them to fuck off
Don’t let someone place a falcon on your head, that’s how they got me one time.
So far in this small (?) Sicilian fishing town, I have not encountered any sort of tourist trap. Unless you count the dozens of gelato places that are calling my name
small towns in italy are lovely, big cities in italy are just tourist traps and beggars and restaurants putting extra charges on your meal because you don't have enough italian to tell them to fuck off
I got in a very public argument at a restaurant in Rome because they did some crazy bread service plus fake extra charges. Normal bread service is like 4 euro. It was over 20 euro and a 18% service charge on the total bill - not counting tip. My poor American first-time-in-Europe friends were like "no no it's okay" and I was like "they are literally robbing you".
Posts
The children yearn for sauna
This is film holism and what is holistic medicine but one step from naturopathy and crystals smh
---
The danger of accepting that lived experience matters ofc is that a critic in the academic tradition, much like the ideal American juror and Jerry Seinfeld, have none in anything germane to anyone
the author has never been dead and to pretend otherwise has always been a polite fiction
I put it in the same bucket as the "free market" of economics and "to serve and protect" of law enforcement
never actually true, and pretending they were true only served to preserve an unjust status quo
I think the ivory tower aspect, as you put it, is the point that bothers me the most, as I feel it so largely (though not completely) works against the didacticism of literary purpose. It might be why I’ve largely forsaken literature altogether, as I no longer understand who the audience is anymore. Most new popular fiction seems overly sentimental and maudlin without giving depth or new voice to the literary canon, while higher-aiming work seems to currently be focused on the fantastical or niche. It also feels that the zeitgeist for the last twenty years has largely been predicated on telling the stories of marginalized groups from authors or points of view outside of those groups, in some kind of mass paean of virtue signaling, recursively thrust back at the only people who are too vapid or credulous to see it for the pandering it is.
But also, let’s not forget I am a very difficult person and regularly over-scrutinize everything, so I’m not sure how valid any of this criticism is. I am, however, currently of the mind that if great literature isn’t now dead, it’s certainly dormant.
Yes, it’s terribly paradoxical, and no, I’ve never supported Death of the Author theory, and find many who support it do so either without fully understanding its aims or out of bad faith to whittle out niche interpretations that better fit their own singular benefit.
TO THE AUTHOR
because we live over the pub, it means nothing ever gets done until the pub opens which is usually like 2/3pm
fucking great
I dont see any real paradox to it; either your sense of a lack of real discourse and understanding or the relegation of authentic, thoughtful, empathetic introspection in American mass entertainment. Shrug. It seems logical.
---
Amy what if there are no deep truths to harvest on the human condition
What if it's maudlin sentiment and gold leafed shit all the way down
*eyes well thumbed copy of Tortilla Curtain suspiciously*
I find it a little curious to talk about the "didacticism of literary purpose" in the same paragraph as you describe (accurately if with too much cynicism, I think) an overreaction of the literary press toward point-of-view works.
but here we maybe run into a problem of definitions that's possibly not so much of an issue in other media: "literature critics" and "literary criticism" have absolutely fuck all to do with each other. book reviews are not engaging in any kind of analysis at all.
the popularity contest of what books you should read in order to demonstrate your (progressive, inclusive, still firmly neoliberal but left-curious) bonafides is little more than mutual morality masturbation. it's kind of startling how this dynamic just doesn't play out for film critics or game reviewers - the occasional backlash against regressive works usually gets constrained to radical left discourse while the mass market still buys tickets unless the movie is dire in other ways.
that doesn't mean there aren't authors writing compelling, groundbreaking, thought provoking fiction now. there are! 99% of them are just never going to get a mention on Oprah, or really any publicity whatsoever that breaks out of the book ecosphere. the audience for books is just smaller and smaller every year and it suffers from a discoverability problem the same as TV and movies and music and games do but even worse.
Oh, definitely. Though I think the concept may have had merit its drilling into the minds of school children as foundational and part of how Serious People Discuss Canons is a horrific disservice to how my generation (not sure when it got popular) was taught to consider Good Works
it's the spherical cow of literary analysis
useful to learn basic principles in LIT 101 but if you aren't chuckling about it by LIT 301 you aren't cut out to be an engineer a critic
how is it
Death of the Author makes less sense when the actual death of the author was 1400 years ago
Not that I hold a grudge against the English Lit-dominated editorial team or anything
2 points because it is pretty efficient, -8 points because it's 10000% humidity and they have no air movement or aircon. 🤬
It spurred us on to win the inter-subject Big Game
And then the English Lit team fell into the river and their girlfriends left them for us and we all had a big party
You have to put yourself in your work, but your work isn’t a straightforward and transparent window into your psyche
I should probably read the original Barthes essay sometime
👻👻👻👻👻👻
So far in this small (?) Sicilian fishing town, I have not encountered any sort of tourist trap. Unless you count the dozens of gelato places that are calling my name
small towns in italy are lovely, big cities in italy are just tourist traps and beggars and restaurants putting extra charges on your meal because you don't have enough italian to tell them to fuck off
(It’s a trap because I can’t resist them and I’ll just eat all the gelato)