You know, I looked this up because I was curious. Seems to not be a real class at all. |
Answer these two questions regarding your bolded statement, Comrade: - What is the "proper" teaching of literature, precisely. - Who in academia believes that. Please focus on your word "replace" and provide evidence. Academics write papers for a living so it should not be hard for you. |
Speaking of conspiracist plots, have you looked at what you wrote? |
None of you appear to understand the study of literature. At all.
-- someone with an graduate degree in it |
I don’t understand why OP is saying that things like feminism or Marxism are faddish. These ideologies have been around for hundreds of years if not more … at what point do they stop being a fad? Does OP also think that women wearing pants is a passing fad? Or representative democracy?
I posted above about the podcast talking about the feminist and radical political messages in Canterbury tales. These themes have been in literature forever. And talking about them makes old stuff more relevant to readers of today. I’m a huge Tolstoy fan and studied it in college — even then we talked about tolstory’s really complicated and troublesome attitudes towards women. I don’t see how you can read Tolstoy or Austin or Dickinson without talking about feminism or how you can read dickens or Shakespeare without talking about class politics. |
But in today’s climate you wouldn’t read Shakespeare or Dickens or Tolstoy, because they’re just dead white men. And you most likely wouldn’t read Austin or Dickinson because they’re dead white women. |
DP - More platitudes, Comrade, that advance your agenda but completely avoid PP's informed and reasonable position. Fail. |
The problem isn't talking about women or class. Scholars have been talking about these things long before the woke ideologues came along. What's happening now is very different. The main problem is identity politics where mediocre writers are promoted as literary greats in the name of diversity, and students either avoid the canon altogether or are taught to dismiss it as racist dead white males. |
You keep typing the BS, and when asked for evidence do not provide any. Name a top college that doesn't teach Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, Ibsen, Tolstoy, or the like. None? OK, name a lesser one that doesn't teach those. None AGAIN? Well then maybe your post is bullsh*t, Comrade Snowflake. |
Of course you would. Moron. |
If this is how you express your thoughts, then you are not well educated. |
And, I wrote this because I am genuinely interested in reading your thoughts on this thread topic. |
cAnOn |
One of the great fallacies in the study of the literary and historical past is the assumption that what we have - even if we admire it - is the best version of anything. Just because something is old and famous doesn't actually make it good or even correct. That's why the inclusion of writers you haven't heard of already in an attempt to learn more about any given culture is so important. It's the sum total of the evidence that matters, coupled with the humility required to admit that the evidence is never going to give a full picture even when it is approached from every possible angle.
This doesn't mean that the entire human race is lost in a sea of moral relativism. It just means that all assumptions at the outset shape the conclusions at the end. And the assumption that a canon of western texts are all trending towards the same narrowly defined value set is a modern superimposition. You can use those texts that way if you want to. Just don't pretend that that was their original (homogeneous) message within the cultures that created them. |
The fact that she did not provide web links upon your command is not proof that what she said is inaccurate. Your thinking so is a logical fallacy, and your confidence in it is telling. On web forums, people have discussions assuming the ones they are engaging with have a level of familiarity with topic at hand, enough to day I've seen that in person or have experienced it or have read about it, and agree or disagree with the perspective. Yelling show me proof means you are not able to engage on the topic in this way. Lastly, your visceral outrage is something we are supposed to care about. Why is that? |