quick links

The conservative so-called lefties are at it again. I don't usually even read Crooked Timber because I find the tone and tenor of discussion there so unproductive. The Valve is a recent CT offshoot, with uber-conservative credentials (ALSC, the anti-MLA).

G Zombie has written much of the same sort of response as I would have. I really resent it when people outside my discipline claim that they *know* what's going on in literary studies. Especially since they usually claim that Theory has Killed Literature, or some such thing. (um, isn't that so 1991?)

There's a misguided assumption seen in such attacks (and in the MLA parodies and so forth) that because we study and teach literature, something that anyone could read outside of class, that all of our work should be immediately transparent to nonspecialists.

Of especial interest: Cultural Revolution wants to start up a leftier group blog to actually talk about literature, ideas, philosophy, theory...