"Can I use the word 'pigfucker'?" Criticism in academia.
I feel rather partial to the argument that we should be critical of weak critical theory in academia. Take, for instance, Freudian literary theory. Holy shit, if there is a more clearly flawed and masturbatory faux-scholarship, I don't know what it is. Unless it is Lacanian theory, which is where Freud fists Derrida. Seriously, psychoanalytic criticism is based on the premise that you can say that you can free associate images and meanings, which is twaddle. Take for instance, "The derailment of the train is a clear indication of the author's sexual ambivalence." The fuck it is. He needed a train wreck to move the plot along, retard. That's the sort of think that I'm talking about.
Anyway there's is an article in The Chronicle about tough criticism. It's tough love.
HJ
Seed Newsvine
2 comments:
This reminds me of my old roommate's tale of his experience in a film class. Regarding "Top Gun" (the fish-in-the-barrel of film criticism) the prof was nattering on about how the planes were phallic symbols. My roommate's observation that, aerodynamically speaking, it's very difficult to make a donut go Mach 3 was apparently not a valid alternate theory for the shape of the aircraft.
Then again, his TA for the class claimed that the electromagnetic spectrum ranged from "electricity to x-rays", causing aneurysms in physicists in a 100-ft radius.
Evidence of weak theory, or evidence that the communication arts faculty at the University of Wisconsin circa 1989 were dumb as a bag of sand?
I once read a Freudian-style critique of C.S. Lewis's fiction, where I had a strong sense of puritanism and hypocrisy on the part of the critic. It seemed very much like he wanted people to be disgusted with Lewis based on what HE strained very hard to find in Lewis's work.
This also got me thinking, how much of this sort of thing really have to do with Freud? Wasn't Freud in favor of open and positive discussion of sexuality?
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