Literary Imperialism and Scenes of High Melodrama
When BIPOC and queer writers defy minimalism
The term melodrama is a value judgment—and as such, it can be careless. ...
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Art Making and Information
An interview with Katy Waldman
Ladane Nasseri [LN]: You wrote in a piece this year “the never-ending-ness of such a practice—of all critical practice, done right—is occasionally paralyzing.” As a literary critic, do you have a methodology to review a book in particular one that has been assigned?
Katy Waldman [KW]: When a book is assigned ...
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Pay Attention to the Language Itself
An interview with Lydia Davis
-- “The
Fly,” Lydia Davis
A classic short story -- yes, short story -- from the writer whom the Los Angeles Times Book Review has called “one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction.” In Essays One, the reader is treated to a compilation of Davis’s commentaries, explorations, and ...
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The Moral Reader and the Moral Life
Exploring Timothy Aubry’s essay, ‘Should studying literature be fun?’
Earlier this month, English professor Timothy Aubry published an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education Review with the rather querulous title “Should Studying Literature Be Fun?” The essay was a kind of précis (as far as I can tell) of his new book Guilty Aesthetic Pleasures. I have not been able to read the ...
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