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01/24/2005

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Ray Davis

Secondary sources aside, university presses and academic professionals produce new editions of primary sources. Of course, the ratio of primary-to-secondary is ridiculously small, and there are alternative routes to reprints -- Gutenberg, Penguin, fan presses -- but we passionate amateurs still have at least that much dependency on the English department.

hl bird

I've begun to think a readerly commitment to pleasure -- a hermeneutics of desire -- subverts most of what I learned as a student in an academy caught up in that first blush of "cultural studies."

I tried to be cool and not admit I was seduced by something quaint as "literature" as a thing itself, but now I'm pretty well unashamed of this.

Almost ten years have passed since I was taught to "read" Taxi-Driver and women's footwear as texts, and the look of Chaucer and Elliot and Joyce on the shelf still give me shivers. I think I don't mind that literature has fallen out of the academy and into the subculture of passionate amateurs. The subculture is a great deal more fun.

Morana

So there is a continued distinction between 'Literature' and 'Cultural' (as equated with the study of media) studies in universities, but by this there is a general merging of the two. Give it about a hundred years and the Literature Academics and Culture/Media academics MIGHT consent to a merger, and a new name of 'Interpretative Studies"

'tis unlikely though.

Mary

["where is the harm of relegating the study of literature and culture to passionate amateurs? I’m not convinced that we need people permanently ensconsed in academia to keep the flame of humanism alive."]

Unfortunately, 'passionate amateurs' have not been well-regarded in the process whereby the dispassionate professionals winnow down the dialogue; that is, the knowledgeable reader is disdained, disregarded. The non-certified voice counts for little.

Rochell Ryan

this is realy a good help for my project thank you all alot

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