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A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

Lots of english academics aren't left wing at all, what the hell

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vyelkin
Jan 2, 2011

vandalism posted:

So is this guy a rare non left literature professor? Is he critical of this... hermeneutic? I'm kinda lost here.

He hates Foucault which is understandable.

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat
He's my kind of guy.

vandalism
Aug 4, 2003

A human heart posted:

Lots of english academics aren't left wing at all, what the hell

I've had a few, I suppose. I feel like it's really safe to be left leaning in any humanities field.

Antivehicular
Dec 30, 2011


I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving And something has got to give

Sham bam bamina! posted:

No reading of The Tempest was too contrived or masturbatory for my sophomore Shakespeare class to turn into an hour-long tangent.

This is reminding me of my high-school Shakespeare class and listening to a classmate very earnestly explain how Othello killing Desdemona is kind of like cleaning the toilet, because, like, it sucks and you don't want to do it, but you have to, y'know?

Frankly, I think it's a fair reading

Ras Het
May 23, 2007

when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

vandalism posted:

I've had a few, I suppose. I feel like it's really safe to be left leaning in any humanities field.

It is a safe move to not be a brainless oval office

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


vandalism posted:

So is this guy a rare non left literature professor? Is he critical of this... hermeneutic? I'm kinda lost here.

That quote is from Richard Rorty who was a liberal but who thought injecting identity politics and cultural studies into literature analysis was destroying the field and creating a lot of irrelevant readings.

While I enjoyed a lot of the English courses I took I learned the most from that professors class. Other instructors who allowed identity politics to influence their teaching seemed more interested in making connections between the text and current political movements and struggles as opposed to understanding the works on their own. Maybe they felt that gave the English field some relevance as a tool for discussing current social trends since it couldn’t provide the applied skills in the workforce of other majors.

Ccs fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Nov 17, 2018

vandalism
Aug 4, 2003

Ccs posted:

That quote is from Richard Rorty who was a liberal but who thought injecting identity politics and cultural studies into literature analysis was destroying the field and creating a lot of irrelevant readings.

While I enjoyed a lot of the English courses I took I learned the most from that professors class. Other instructors who allowed identity politics to influence their teaching seemed more interested in making connections between the text and current political movements and struggles as opposed to understanding the works on their own. Maybe they felt that gave the English field some relevance as a tool for discussing current social trends since it couldn’t provide the applied skills in the workforce of other majors.

Sounds like a good class and a good dude.

jagstag
Oct 26, 2015

Mel Mudkiper posted:

now you're getting it

nah i completely understood the entirety of the argument you are making and the theory behind it but it takes a narrow understanding of human history to argue it (mostly that of the last half century and mostly western at that). largely no, it doesn't matter if you say ts elliot was writing about lobster or crabs when he wrote about ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas (i will die if i ever read one more paper on this subject it's dumb and i don't care) or that the mountains of madness is about penguin migration. for most of these largely inconsequential takes its left solely on the reader to make a judgement. however to say that's true of all things is rather silly. society as a whole/or societal institutions have and had a large part in determining if a reading is wrong, bad, inconsequential, etc. (mostly we care about decisions that decide when a reading is wrong) and have a larger say in this. larger examples being from a mostly western source: high court rulings and decisions made by roman catholic church council's.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
you seem to really want it to be wrong but cannot come up with a reason stronger than you want it to be wrong

also lol at the interpretation of it being "narrow" because it only considers the last 50 years as if the last 50 was not informed by the previous 5000. The conclusions of modern criticism come from the extended historical debate. It's not separate from it.

Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Nov 19, 2018

jagstag
Oct 26, 2015

im not saying the theory stated behind it is narrow but to considering only the recent theory as the only valid part is narrow especially since it's a continued debate that hasn't concluded and probs never will be as long as people care about this poo poo

jagstag fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Nov 19, 2018

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

jagstag posted:

considering only the recent theory as the only valid part is narrow especially since it's a continued debate that hasn't concluded and probs never will be as long as people care about this poo poo

Please, for the love of god, read a book

Ras Het
May 23, 2007

when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.
That is good advice as long as it's not a book that Mel recommends

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

jagstag posted:

im not saying the theory stated behind it is narrow but to considering only the recent theory as the only valid part is narrow especially since it's a continued debate that hasn't concluded and probs never will be as long as people care about this poo poo
Your mistake here is caring about this poo poo.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Your mistake here is caring about this poo poo.

false

caring about literature and criticism is v. cool

jagstag
Oct 26, 2015

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Your mistake here is caring about this poo poo.

the thing is im not actually arguing in good faith here. was invited to cover critical reading theory and critique as it applies to reading histories for an acquaintance's class next week and im extremely out of practice w/ explaining why the arguments i posted prior are dumb to brad the military vet and ethel the bible studies major who i know are going to use these arguments because i have heard these before. so i kinda do have to care about this poo poo :/

jagstag
Oct 26, 2015

i can never escape academia

CestMoi
Sep 16, 2011

Mel Mudkiper posted:

you seem to really want it to be wrong but cannot come up with a reason stronger than you want it to be wrong

also lol at the interpretation of it being "narrow" because it only considers the last 50 years as if the last 50 was not informed by the previous 5000. The conclusions of modern criticism come from the extended historical debate. It's not separate from it.

do you ever read the things you argue against or make a guess based on what you think a person might say

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

CestMoi posted:

do you ever read the things you argue against or make a guess based on what you think a person might say

Considering I cited structuralists when I am a post-structuralist

yes

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

jagstag posted:

the thing is im not actually arguing in good faith here. was invited to cover critical reading theory and critique as it applies to reading histories for an acquaintance's class next week and im extremely out of practice w/ explaining why the arguments i posted prior are dumb to brad the military vet and ethel the bible studies major who i know are going to use these arguments because i have heard these before. so i kinda do have to care about this poo poo :/
:lol:

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
I demand to be cited jag

immolationsex
Sep 16, 2002
ASK ME ABOUT HOW I ENJOY RUINING STEAK LIKE A GODDAMN BARBARIAN
I have a question for you, literature thread. It's about Anna Karenina and I don't intend to post any spoilers, but if you definitely don't want to have any idea about the book going in, skip this post I guess.

I'm about 150 pages or 20 chapters in. So far I've read some exhaustive (to put it as mildly as I can) descriptions of emotions certain individuals have upon meeting certain other individuals. In fact, the majority of the text so far has been allotted to these descriptions, while I've yet to see a single sentence describing the environment, the society at large or even the society of comfortably wealthy aristocrats that the characters introduced thus far practically all belong to. What's more, not a single word has been dedicated to describing the geopolitical or Russian internal political setting, the economic environment, the historical setting, nothing. But I sure have read a lot about quickened pulses and involuntary blushes and conflicting emotions. It seems Tolstoi just assumes the reader is familiar with urban elite life in late imperial Russia.

My question is... I have about a thousand more pages to go. Can I expect anything but more of the same? If this were a typical novel published some time in the past half century, at 150 pages I'd be well on my way to the climax of the central crisis. Quite possibly I'm approaching this from the wrong angle, but so far I haven't felt challenged, I don't feel I've learned anything, and frankly I've barely been entertained. I feel like I'm reading an exceptionally slow-paced romance novel and nothing more, but this is supposed to be one of the enduring legends of world literature. Help me out here.

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat
Yeah, there's a hell of a lot more than that waiting for you, including society and economics. Keep reading.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Nov 22, 2018

OscarDiggs
Jun 1, 2011

Those sure are words on pages which are given in a sequential order!
Well, that was a fun series of disasters, upto and including a torn ligament and hair line fracture. Nonetheless The Death Of Ivan Ilyich is done. So, my stream of consciousness thoughts while reading.

- - - -

I like how up front the book is with the casual awfulness of people. 'Ohhhhh I might be the one to get a promotion! But, ah poo poo, I've got to waste my afternoon at the widows house.'

"His face was handome and above all more dignified then when he was alive.' It seems like this is mostly going to be about death and the living. Living well, regrets and so on.

Okay, I don't know if this is intentionally funny or unintentionally funny, but the idea of Pyotr just bowing and crossing himself to every little thing is hilarious.

"There was no reason for supposing this incident would hinder them spending the evening agreeably." Cold, man.

I feel like this is what would happen at a funeral by and for middle managers. Little substance and endless bowing to convention.

Haha. The worst Pyotr feels during the whole thing is when it turns out he might not be able to play bridge today.

"Ivans life had been most simple and most ordinary, and therefore most terrible." I'm sensing this will be a theme.

I'm really not sure what to make of Ivan. He really does seem like the avatar of middle management.

"Matrimony... was not always conductive to the pleasures and amenities of life." Another theme? Selfishness or something like that?

A lot of the langauge used is beautiful in it's starkness. "These were islets at which they anchored for a while and then set out upo that ocean of veiled hostility."

"In reality, it was just what is usually seen in houses of people of moderate means who want to appear rich." Ice burn. Also, yeah definetly a theme.

This got depressing in a hurry.

It's a bit similiar to Lincoln in the Bardo in a way.

"Whenever the thought occured to him that it all resulted from his not living as he ought to have done, he at once recalled the correctness of his whole life and dismissed so strange an idea." Ouch.

- - - -

I liked it, despite how depressive it was. It was satisfying in a way to have the bullshit of such a life fully examined and shown to be ludicrous in it's way. Buuuut... I don't know, it also felt a little... propaganda-y? Like the author was sitting on his high horse and lecturing me. Maybe that's unfair and cynical though.

Okay, that's another dive into Russian Lit over and done with. I now need to settle on the next thing to try. Hopefully something a little more light-hearted.

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

OscarDiggs posted:

I liked it, despite how depressive it was. It was satisfying in a way to have the bullshit of such a life fully examined and shown to be ludicrous in it's way. Buuuut... I don't know, it also felt a little... propaganda-y? Like the author was sitting on his high horse and lecturing me. Maybe that's unfair and cynical though.
No, that's definitely a fair impression of Tolstoy, don't worry.

vyelkin
Jan 2, 2011

OscarDiggs posted:

I liked it, despite how depressive it was. It was satisfying in a way to have the bullshit of such a life fully examined and shown to be ludicrous in it's way. Buuuut... I don't know, it also felt a little... propaganda-y? Like the author was sitting on his high horse and lecturing me. Maybe that's unfair and cynical though.

Yeah that's Tolstoy for you. Especially late-life Tolstoy.

immolationsex
Sep 16, 2002
ASK ME ABOUT HOW I ENJOY RUINING STEAK LIKE A GODDAMN BARBARIAN

OscarDiggs posted:

Well, that was a fun series of disasters, upto and including a torn ligament and hair line fracture. Nonetheless The Death Of Ivan Ilyich is done. So, my stream of consciousness thoughts while reading.

- - - -

I like how up front the book is with the casual awfulness of people. 'Ohhhhh I might be the one to get a promotion! But, ah poo poo, I've got to waste my afternoon at the widows house.'

"His face was handome and above all more dignified then when he was alive.' It seems like this is mostly going to be about death and the living. Living well, regrets and so on.

Okay, I don't know if this is intentionally funny or unintentionally funny, but the idea of Pyotr just bowing and crossing himself to every little thing is hilarious.

"There was no reason for supposing this incident would hinder them spending the evening agreeably." Cold, man.

I feel like this is what would happen at a funeral by and for middle managers. Little substance and endless bowing to convention.

Haha. The worst Pyotr feels during the whole thing is when it turns out he might not be able to play bridge today.

"Ivans life had been most simple and most ordinary, and therefore most terrible." I'm sensing this will be a theme.

I'm really not sure what to make of Ivan. He really does seem like the avatar of middle management.

"Matrimony... was not always conductive to the pleasures and amenities of life." Another theme? Selfishness or something like that?

A lot of the langauge used is beautiful in it's starkness. "These were islets at which they anchored for a while and then set out upo that ocean of veiled hostility."

"In reality, it was just what is usually seen in houses of people of moderate means who want to appear rich." Ice burn. Also, yeah definetly a theme.

This got depressing in a hurry.

It's a bit similiar to Lincoln in the Bardo in a way.

"Whenever the thought occured to him that it all resulted from his not living as he ought to have done, he at once recalled the correctness of his whole life and dismissed so strange an idea." Ouch.

- - - -

I liked it, despite how depressive it was. It was satisfying in a way to have the bullshit of such a life fully examined and shown to be ludicrous in it's way. Buuuut... I don't know, it also felt a little... propaganda-y? Like the author was sitting on his high horse and lecturing me. Maybe that's unfair and cynical though.

Okay, that's another dive into Russian Lit over and done with. I now need to settle on the next thing to try. Hopefully something a little more light-hearted.
This post is going to be spoilerrific.

I also recently finished Ivan Ilyich, and I'll openly admit it's the first work of Tolstoi I've read as an adult. Like you say, there was a lot of comedy and sick burns at the very beginning, and I think that, considering the tone of the latter half of the book, the light-hearted tone is meant as a warning: Go ahead, laugh it up, but your comfortable, oblivious, self-centered life could turn to utter despair at any moment.

Tolstoi paints a vivid picture of middle management life, as you put it, and I certainly came out of it with a better idea of what the Russian imperial bureaucracy might have looked like from the inside. What I'm not sure of is whether this was meant as criticism of the lifestyle described, or if it was just to set the scene for the protagonist's later suffering, and to explain the horrible doubts that beset him on his deathbed. My point is, I don't really know anything about Tolstoi, how mature he was as a writer at this point, or what 'phase' he was in (if he had those). Maybe social criticism was a thing for him, or maybe this story was mostly intended to showcase his skill at depicting powerful emotions and their origins. Or maybe he is moralizing, showing us what a miserable, cowardly prick Ivan was in life. In any case, I came out of it mostly impressed with the powerful contrast between the first and second halves, and with the skill with which he describes emotional turmoil.

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

immolationsex posted:

My point is, I don't really know anything about Tolstoi, how mature he was as a writer at this point, or what 'phase' he was in (if he had those).
I don't have the time for the effortpost that this deserves, but he was very much in his "mature" "phase" at that point. His spiritual crisis in 1879 turned him into a radical mystic and social activist who eventually had his own religious movement. His writings at this stage were a direct influence on Gandhi's campaign of non-violent resistance. I would recommend Confession and The Kingdom of God Is Within You as essential late Tolstoy.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Nov 23, 2018

immolationsex
Sep 16, 2002
ASK ME ABOUT HOW I ENJOY RUINING STEAK LIKE A GODDAMN BARBARIAN

Sham bam bamina! posted:

I don't have the time for the effortpost that this deserves, but he was very much in his "mature" "phase" at that point. His spiritual crisis in 1879 turned him into a radical mystic and social activist who eventually had his own religious movement. His writings at this stage were a direct influence on Gandhi's campaign of non-violent resistance. I would recommend Confession and The Kingdom of God Is Within You as essential late Tolstoy.
Thanks yo, you convinced me to keep going with Karenina and I'm starting to see your point, and I certainly would never have suspected what you just posted about Tolstoy. Wow.

(Also I realize 'phase' isn't the word I was looking for; I meant 'period,' as in, Picasso's Blue Period. But that's not really important.)

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat

A human heart posted:

Lots of english academics aren't left wing at all, what the hell

in the humanities? not anymore. some of the emerti, sure, but thats it

OscarDiggs
Jun 1, 2011

Those sure are words on pages which are given in a sequential order!

immolationsex posted:

This post is going to be spoilerrific.

Interesting stuff.

I'll take the fact that I was able to pick up on as little as I did as suitable improvement for my level, because I didn't get much if anything of this from my first reading. But thinking on it, it does make a lot of sense!

jagstag
Oct 26, 2015

Mel Mudkiper posted:

I demand to be cited jag

didn't because your arguments we're pretty weak and also i hate you

chernobyl kinsman
Mar 18, 2007

a friend of the friendly atom

Soiled Meat

jagstag posted:

didn't because your arguments we're pretty weak and also i hate you

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn: your arguments we're pretty weak and also i hate you

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

chernobyl kinsman posted:

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn: your arguments we're pretty weak and also i hate you

Yes please.

OscarDiggs
Jun 1, 2011

Those sure are words on pages which are given in a sequential order!
Okay.

This dip into Russian Literature has (EDIT: Very much so!) been interesting and eye-opening, and I'm eager to go back to it again at some point, but right now I think it's time to dip back out and try another new thing.

At this moment I am considering "A Confederary of Dunces" quite heaviliy, with the other options still there in the back of my mind. Also, I managed to get my hands on a few books from family, which included "A Scarlet Letter", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Heart of Darkness" and 2 different versions of "The Oddysey".

As always, feel free to tell me my chosen book is a bad choice and to suggest something different. I'll decide good and proper some time tommorow.

OscarDiggs fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Nov 28, 2018

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

jagstag posted:

didn't because your arguments we're pretty weak

says the guy who pulled a "sorry that was my little brother using my account"

OscarDiggs posted:

Okay.

This dip into Russian Literature hasn't been interesting and eye-opening, and I'm eager to go back to it again at some point, but right now I think it's time to dip back out and try another new thing.

At this moment I am considering "A Confederary of Dunces" quite heaviliy, with the other options still there in the back of my mind. Also, I managed to get my hands on a few books from family, which included "A Scarlet Letter", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Heart of Darkness" and 2 different versions of "The Oddysey".

As always, feel free to tell me my chosen book is a bad choice and to suggest something different. I'll decide good and proper some time tommorow.

I mean, those are very different directions. I would recommend identifying what wore you out with Russian lit and trying to read something that contrasts with it

OscarDiggs
Jun 1, 2011

Those sure are words on pages which are given in a sequential order!

Mel Mudkiper posted:

says the guy who pulled a "sorry that was my little brother using my account"


I mean, those are very different directions. I would recommend identifying what wore you out with Russian lit and trying to read something that contrasts with it

The Russian stuff was very... grand, I suppose. Even the short stories were deep and weighty. I wouldn't say it wore on me exactly, but starting another Deep and Weighty book right away would have started to. And I am not necessarially saying I'm going to read them all those options straight away; just that they are there if people think they might be better to read.

In that vein though, Dunces looks like it's going to be slightly more upbeat and funnier, a bit like a Twain book, which is why I'm think of settling for it right now after the Russian stuff.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
I mean, Dunces sounds like a good pick especially because the protagonist is basically a pretender version of the weighty Russian thinkers anyways

Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

OscarDiggs posted:

This dip into Russian Literature hasn't been interesting and eye-opening,
:(

OscarDiggs posted:

At this moment I am considering "A Confederary of Dunces" quite heaviliy, with the other options still there in the back of my mind. Also, I managed to get my hands on a few books from family, which included "A Scarlet Letter", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Heart of Darkness" and 2 different versions of "The Oddysey".
Read A Confederacy of Dunces, but also read Heart of Darkness in the same session; it's barely long enough to be a book.

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OscarDiggs
Jun 1, 2011

Those sure are words on pages which are given in a sequential order!
Oh wow I meant it was! It was interesting and eye opening!

It must have autocompleted as hasn't. My bad for not checking! I definitely intend to go back to Russian Lit at some point!

EDIT: I just need a short break is all.

OscarDiggs fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Nov 28, 2018

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