Salon has an interesting article on a number of books that will really teach us how to read a novel. The article is written by Tom Lutz — a professor at UC Riverside — and he really does a nice job of surveying both the academic constipation of endless literary criticism and those rebels who profess to save us from such pomposity.
If you haven’t been in an English department for the past 15 years, you may have missed the ongoing battle between the old guard who defends The Canon of Great Books, and those whose careers are made by leveling critiques at said canon with words that most people would never weave into a conversation (Heterotopia anyone?). Anyway, Lutz does a better job than I do writing about this stuff, and the article is well worth reading. Click HERE for the fun!
The second thing is the rock roundtable over at Kurt’s Krap. This week, Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones, and The Black Crowes get the once over twice by an ever-expanding group of music bloggers (including yours truly).
Next up: A non-RIAA Mix Six for Friday!
–PK
3 thoughts on “Potpourri”
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I’ve heard of those books, perused the information a bit, and decided that I’m probably ok doing things my way.
It’s one of the hot things right now, but do you think it’ll disappear in the near future?
I started to read this article earlier…I thought it was interesting. One thing I remember about some of my Comp Lit classes in Grad School was that they could suck the joy out of a book pretty darned quickly. Some classes/teachers helped you to see the beauty of a book, but others…no, not so much.
Academic constipation. That was really funny.
That is what is wrong with all those professors college. hehehehehehee.