In Defense of Naive Reading

[RandomAnthony]

Fascinating article in today's NY Times...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...

Poems and novels and paintings were not produced as objects for future academic study; there is no reason to think that they could be suitable objects of “research.”

I think I agree with this. Comments?

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

Wow, is that academic language thick. If this is, read for the story, not for analysis, then yeah, I agree. I think everyone on GR agrees. We like reading. :)

[RandomAnthony]

I forgot I posted this thread.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

In general I agree with Professor Pippin, I think. Certainly in the humanities (not just in literature, but especially there) there is a disconcerting and unpleasant reliance on jargon and theory. Someone who studied literature in college or graduate school 50 years ago would have no clue what was being discussed in a graduate school lit classroom today. (The little spats in the comments section after the article were amusing in a nauseating way.) Part of the problem is that graduate students, whether writing theses or carving out teaching careers and areas of study for themselves, can't merely duplicate what's been done in the past. There has to be innovation in order for literature departments to sustain themselves. You are not going to get published writing something that could have been published 50 years ago - something clear and understandable. And the result is that areas of study get ever wackier and more abstruse, sliced and diced into ever smaller, less significant topics. So if you are an undergraduate wanting to study literature - maybe you just love reading and want to read the great works or whatever - you can't simply do that "naively" anymore. You will be subjected to theory and jargon.

The Committee on Social Thought where Pippin teaches is the same group that produced Allan Bloom and his famous "Closing of the American Mind."