<DIV>Actually, it wouldn't be so bad for these guys to give up philosophy, which they uniformly do badly, and devote themselves mainly to literary analysis, reading poems and plays and novels, explaining the meaning and operation of those texts. (Rather than "mine" -- that is, the ones _I_ was trained to read and analyse.) I don't presuppose any particular approach, don't suggest that they confine themselves to the language and ignore the social context, but what they are supposedly expert in is the study of literature. In this connection, it would be nice to see Carrol at work on a poem again; he doesn't do it often here, but it's very gratifying when he does, and I always learn something when he read his literary criticism. jks Chuck Grimes <cgrimes@rawbw.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> The Latest Theory Is That Theory Doesn't Matter By EMILY EAKIN These are uncertain times for literary scholars. The era of big theory is over. The grand paradigms that swept through humanities departments in the 20th century psychoanalysis, structuralism, Marxism, deconstruction, post-colonialism have lost favor or been abandoned..... ---------- Well, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. In my world, theory is just another word for philosophy and there is basically never enough of examining the conditions of life and times and arriving at knowledge, making judgments and taking action. These guys have just forgotten the other half of their job description which is teaching students how to do that for themselves. I guess I am a little disappointed that these panelists can not see that the entire world (or at least the progressive activists wings) are engaged in intense policy fights and discourses on virtually every topic they ever wrote about. What was abandoned? Chuck Grimes ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/search/mailsig/*http://search.yahoo.com">The New Yahoo! Search</a> - Faster. Easier. Bingo.