What do English scholars do? I don’t mean that in a “herf

>>8504453
>What more is there to say about century/ies-old books that have been discussed to death
Congratulations, you've just figured out why every other paper is now titled "Modalities of Spaces in the Canterbury Tales: Perspectives on Gender, the Body and Queer Politics" -- almost all on your own.

>>8504471

But is this a bad thing if the alternative is no one writing anything?

>>8504542
Yes.

If there really isn't anything left to write about then academic criticism is dead and we shouldn't try to pretend otherwise.

>>8504453
>herf derf
Go back to plebbit you fucking piece of shit

>>8504588

We may be running out of new things to find, but we definitely have plenty to rediscover.

I think the former case is unlikely anyways. It's more probable that we're living in an intellectually stifled era, kind of like Victorian era Britain. There's plenty of work being done, and quite a bit of it is good too, but it's all pointing towards the same paradigm. Read One-Dimensional Man by Marcuse. We're lacking any really exciting resistance or alternatives.

>>8504542
>>8504588
The problem is also when the old texts are supplanted by new "politically correct" ones. They are basically killing knowledge and being proud of it.

>>8504618
>>8504618
But then aren't those "old texts" always poised to be rediscovered? Like >>8504615 said. "Exhume and exonerate," as they say.

I personally think that "knowledge" as it abstractly exists (at least, as far as attitudes towards knowing go) is cyclical. Things fade out, get brought back with new ideas, then fade out until another layer of dialogue can be painted on it.

>>8504471
>>8504588
You're mistaking the abundance of mediocre and lazy academics for a lack of material to write about

>>8504633

Then what material IS there, wise guy

unless you're waiting with bated breath for Moby Dick Whale Analysis #829

>>8504633

This. While more people are going to university than ever, undergrad is essentially a daycare because 18 year old children aren't capable of being adults yet in western society today. It's literally "High School pt. 2: What a High School Degree Used to Guarantee". If you want to find anything resembling university culture of old, you need to be a graduate student. Even the Ivy league schools sound like they offer cookie-cutter bullshit undergrad experiences these days. I dunno though, maybe it's only all rose-tinted because I'm looking backwards and really it's always been shit.

>>8504649

With the explosion in college attendance, it really is all about getting students in and out he doors in as close to four years as possible for as much tuition as possible. There was definitely a spectrum of classes when I was in undergrad, ranging from insultingly easy to expectedly difficult.

Grad is definitely much more dense and work-intensive, which I love. The thing is, if you love what you're learning you're going to want to learn all you can. Undergrad is like a damn tease for what a "real" education could be.

They study the relative meaning of 'classical' literature and its historical, linguistic, and cultural elements in relation to those of literature past and present -- the study of the language as it develops into its modern form, and how it was brought to its relative limits throughout its existence as well as how those limits were redefined.

>>8504676
>as well as how those limits were redefined.

Would you say that "classical literature" can, or should even ever be, redefined?

Because one thing I do know is that there's definitely a push for redefinition, specifically the movement to make the canon/common core less Euro-centric.

>>8504649
>>8504660
Perhaps you should attend or research better universities, as opposed to hellish factories of indoctrination. Ivy League is just a better-hidden and more pristine Hell.

>>8504682
>as opposed to hellish factories of indoctrination

Institutional education is literally impossible without indoctrination of some form or another. The idea of the totally impartial teacher is a myth, although good educators may surely try to prove it wrong. But to put any kind of third party between the student and the material, to add any outside voice, can inflect certain bias.

Self-education is the only way to observe everything objectively (without a middleman), it's just a hell of a lot more difficult.

>>8504690
It also comes with the challenge of using past works to confirm pre-existing bias. Think of how many kids on here try to read TSZ without reading an introductory textbook on logic or ethics.

>>8504681
It's defined relative to our current era. Ergo it can be redefined.

In the context of my post is speaking of English literature and thereby will inherently be Euro-centric as well as focusing on NA. English 'classical' literature has to be this way, or perversions of texts into our vernacular will be studied as English texts, within an English context. If these little progressives wish to study the writings of the great Poo tribe of Loo they first must go through the 'old dead white dudes' because understanding of ones own language, and literary history and culture, is required before studying another's. The older progressives, however, are far more delusional if they believe there is a need for diversity in the literature of A SINGLE LANGUAGE WHICH IS VERY NEW, IS ONLY NATIVELY SPOKEN BY A FEW -- ESPECIALLY DURING THE 'CLASSICAL' ERA -- AND THEREBY CANNOT BE MORE DIVERSE THAN IT IS.
>>8504690
Hence my use of the adjective 'hellish'.

There is a difference between leaving the traces of 'correct' thinking onto students as desired by the institutions, and enforcing propaganda. I am currently taking a 180 from my past trajectory and going back to university, and as expected not one professor has not tried to reinforce the idea that 'Trump is bad and ignant'.

>>8504690

You right. As Google gets smarter I'm sure autodidacts will have field days with robotically compiled collections of necessary and relevant literature, sortable by chronology, country, or school of thought, and of course linked and paired up with competing or otherwise connected ideas.

Then the only worry will be who's programming those robots; we wouldn't want Frankenstein's biases appearing in his monster.

>>8504758
shit meant to quote >>8504734

I think that literature academics stick mainly to studying the classics because I feel like if you write about the work of a still-living author, you run the humiliating risk of them counter-publishing a series of essays on why that's wrong as all fuck, you little shit

>>8504453
Fair question, but no. Only a small percentage of English literature has ever been given much analysis, partly because the canon was so restrictive until lately, partly because the idea of studying English lit as a discipline isn't really that old yet. And since each generation of critics can see all the dumb-ass assumptions and blinders of the critics who came before them, but are generally blind to their own, the debate changes and morphs. Besides, there are many genres and areas of study opening up all the time. You may not care about (for instance) studying Lovecraft, comics, or medieval paratext, but it interests me, so I write and publish on it.

foreigner here

Arent most English majors High School teachers? dont you have English, which includes its grammar, reading comprehension, writing in High School? I suppose you do.

>>8504831
dfw he kill hisself 20yeas ago

>>8504453
People argue a lot. Nearly all of the time these arguments aren't resolved. It shouldn't be that hard to believe that the same thing happens in academia in terms of interpreting literature, especially concerning the details of it all.

English Academics in this era face the challenge of trying to make "the study of old texts" appear progressive... Progressive - not (only?) in the political sense - but the industrial and modern sense: constant linear increase of efficiency, production, and quality.

How to make something as past-oriented as the study of literature appear progressive/productive? New letters of alphabet? New words? Literary science? Literary engineering? Not really. Best answer found is... Enable it to produce infinite papers.

Produce hermeneutic methods and subjectivities and arguments. That is the game of English Academia now. Finding ways to multiply the number of possible papers while maintaining intellectual class status, and value of such papers.

>>8507283

pretty scary to think what public perception does to a pursuit. it's not enough that an academic approach to literature is progressive by the very fact of it's goal of reaching deeper understanding and perhaps philosophical insight, it must also look, to the outside world, progressive as well.

the production of hermeneutic methods and subjectivities and arguments is pretty scary to think about, surely, this will lead to a very bogged down, lessened importance level of literature approach in academia in the long-term, no? as, with each new invention of approach in efficiency - surely, quality of discussion is lost?

>>8504615
>Read One-Dimensional Man by Marcuse
But sniffman told me it sucks.

>>8504831
We live in a post-Barthes world, anon... you know this, right?

>>8504682
please give examples of 'better' universities