A (brief) Review of the New York Times article "Why Criticism Matters"

Why Criticism Matters


The thing I found most interesting about this article, is that in takes into account ways that the internet is changing our profession. The times they are a changin'! While I don't necessarily agree with all of what it says, I think we need to be mindful of the paradigm shifts that happen with changes in society and technology. I think it's worth considering what we are doing when we say we are literary critics or doing literary criticism.

I haven't done any serious study of "mass communication" or mass like phenomenons, but they are part of our profession with or without the internet. Personally, I feel simply clicking like on a literary work, isn't a valid measure of how good or important a work is.
One of our most important jobs is to read not just the canon, but the works that are neglected, forgotten. To read contemporary fiction, to see where it's going. We may or may not convince people of their importance, but we can do our part to hear the voices that are marginalized, forgotten by the world, and even by our colleagues in ivory towers.

Update

I haven't blogged for awhile so here's a quick update. I'm taking a film and feminism class (the movies are...well...interesting....), a Mario Vargas LLosa class, and a Spanish Vanguard class. I was supposed to be in a contemporay Andean Literature class, but with the nobel prize and my professor's somewhat healthy obsession with MVL as he likes to call him, we are reading contemporary novels by Llosa. I have to say, I really enjoyed (I hate you Zizek for ruining that word..but alas) the book, though as any of you that have read one of his books know, there are parts that are very difficult to read. It's about Roger Casement, an Irishman, who investigates the actions of the rubber companies in Congo and later Peru. It's hard to read about what happened, knowing it's based on history. It really broke apart some of the stereotypes I had formed about Vargas Llosa.