/lit/ - Literature

it's because they have opinions people like /thread

egos
/bread

what the fuck are you talking about, authors have done things like give readings, give lectures, etc for a mad long time. the lecture circuit and the debate circuit were well-worn during the time of Eliot - HG Wells for instance made nearly a living off debates and lectures. and the idea of a 'public intellectual' given speeches and talking in public is old as fuck. this is not a new development. recording these things is a new development.

From the Washington Post, 1927:
>>Paris, Sept. 25 (A.P.). -- Andre Maurois, whose studies of the British, living and dead, have made him one of the most popular of French authors with English-speaking readers, is going to the United States this autumn to lecture at Harvard, Princeton and Columbia, as well as on more public platforms.

So, it's been going on for a while. Consider that authors typically do not make all that much money and are in the business of peddling ideas, which means they are attractive as speakers. It makes sense.

THEIR PUBLISHING HOUSES MAKES THEM DO READINGS SO THEY (THE PUBLISHING HOUSES) DO NOT LOSE MONEY AND IT SERVES AS PUBLICITY ALSO.

>>1710917

PUBLICITY FOR THE BOOK, THAT IS.

Hitchens is more of a journalist than an author.

>>1710895

they have to educate the populace because people still believe stupid shit (religion).

>>1711009

/lit/ should be an 18+ board. It might prevent these people from posting so often.

>>1711011
The entire website is 18+. It's one of the first general rules I think. And I agree, that way we wouldn't have so many kids who think that they're edgy because they're atheists

>>1711015

Not >>1711009, and wouldn't have phrased it as such, but his statement isn't false.

Just you wait Double-0-9, wait until you get out into the real world and the whole mass of all those idiots comes to bear on you.

It's a crucible that makes you stronger.

>>1711015
>>1711011

Being atheist isn't sufficient for wisdom or being edgy, but it is a necessary pre-condition.

You live and learn.

-Anon

Goodness, are you retarded? For fucks sake, Dickens went on tours to do public readings. This is not a new trend.

The idea of God isn't nearly as ridiculous as being religious. But it's close.

>>1711023
>-Anon
gee thanks i never would have known who said that since it doesn't say in the name field or anything

>Being atheist isn't sufficient for wisdom or being edgy, but it is a necessary pre-condition.
guess i just have to pull out this pic again
Theists: 1
Atheists: still at 0

>>1711022
There is nothing inherently 'stupid' about religion. To use OP's own poorly chosen example, DFW argued that it is impossible to not be religious in the sense that it is impossible to not worship something.

>>1711026
>>1711026

Why are you dumb, Quentin?
Is it nature or nurture?

Let me know.

>>1711029
if you could give me an actual reason as to why you think i'm dumb rather than attacking my understanding of history maybe i'll consider answering your question

>>1711027

True. But there is nothing "inherently" anything about anything.

The point is, every instance of religion happens to be stupid. Also, the mentality of taking something "religiously" inevitably ends up creating fullretards.jpg.

I don't write the rules, that's just how the world works.

>>1711031
yeah atheism has never turned out bad

>I feel like part of the vanishing breed that thinks a writer should be read and not heard, let alone seen. I think this is because there seems so often today to be a tendency to put the person in the place of his or her work, to turn the creative artist into a performing one, to find what a writer says about writing somehow more valid, or more real, than the writing itself.

>>1711031
Your points aren't worth addressing. I think this illustrates that poster's point about an age requirement.

>TS Eliot reading their pieces
Research your trolls better, Quentin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhiCMAG658M

Numerous modernist authors gave lectures, or taught in universities themselves, or published in academic journals in formal arguments with critics.

>>1711030

One good reason would be that your arguments consist of stupid pictures and tired memes.

Quentin:0
Beautiful Anon:1

>>1711034
a picture is worth a thousand words
my visual artistry can express my ideas much more clearly than my written works can

>>1711032

Mustached men killed more people than non-mustached men.

Quentin's argument is a fallacy of mistaking correlation for causation.

tripfags be trippin

So far his arguments for theism consisted of

1. Appeal to Celebrities
2. Fallacy of Causation

>>1711044
ohh shit nooo way man. i totally see it now

>>1711038
>lectures in universities & writings in academic journals
>public & live audience
derp

Theism is also responsible for the dark ages, and general human ignorance. Preventing the development of science and medicine by attributing diseases to demons and preventing the spread of knowledge and the questioning of dogma.

As a result billions of people died.

If only the enlightenment and atheism could was allowed to begin 500 years earlier. We would have had world peace by now and every stupid theist would only exist in works of fiction and fantasy.

Need I post more?

>>1711053
if theism was preventing science then how come all great scientists have been theists?

inb4 "society made them they had no choice retard tripfag!"
belief is belief.

>>1711052
Where do you think almost all of these lectures and debates happen? At grocery stores?
Doesn't change a damn thing. People pay to hear them in school, or at a school.
I know you're a troll and you're not bad with this niche you've carved out here on /lit/. I'm done now, enjoy yourself sweetpea.

>>1711055

Scientists were religious because of culture and frail human psychology. It was also safer.

They also didn't want to end up like Giordano Bruno. Being executed for being pantheistic and thinking the universe is infinite.

Or like Galileo.

>>1711060

Anon > Quentin

Quentin is probably ugly as well as a poor debater.

>>1711062
>he thinks i'm ugly
Maybe if you have a bad taste in boys
for those who can recognize beauty, i am certainly up there on their lists of most handsome teenage boys

>>1711062
Quentin is clearly a masterdebater with years and years of practice.
He's definitely ugly, too.
And also a troll.

bump maybe less retards are online?

DFW Hated public speaking appearances. He only did it as part of his contract. He has said many times that he tried feverishly to avoid any form of public appearance.

>>1712011
turned down the simpsons too

it's been going on for quite a it wasn't unusual for popular authors in the 19th century to do reading tours where they would read their books to audiences or lecture in topics of their research.

>>1711995

nah dude, you're still ugly

WRITERS DO PUBLIC SPEAKING AS A MATTER OF SELF-PROMOTION AND BECAUSE OF CONTRACTS. WHAT WOULD BE A BETTER QUESTION WOULD BE; WHY THE HELL DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY TURN UP TO THESE MORONIC LOUNGE-ACTS

>>1710895
Just satisfying the demand. People want to hear them speak. It's not like they are forced to be there.

>>1712043
I like going to those things but my fellow audience members always make me want to retract my head into a turtle shell and die

Once you master the art of laughing your ass off the second Bill Murray shows up on screen in a Wes Anderson or Jim Jarmusch film, you graduate to reacting to some droll remark Michael Chabon makes about Edgar Allan Poe like you're in the audience for Eddie Murphy Delirious

Anyone who disagrees with my belief in God is an egomaniac trying to be edgy.

/thread again

does it count as a successful troll if i don't get mad but i am genuinely confused as to whether you're trolling or just stupid

David Foster Wallace wasn't an atheist, and he hated doing readings. I think you be trollin'.

hitchens would have been pretty handsome if he hadn't been a fat bloated blotchy-faced drunk

Hitchens is also a debater and public speaker. I think he enjoys doing it (or feels a conviction to do it). I don't really see a problem at all.

since time and fucking memorial.

>>1712834
7.3/10 for me

One of your apparent favourites, Oscar Wilde, did a grand tour of America doing lectures, debates, etc.

I'm beginning to think that you actually are fucking retarded, not just a troll.

For the same reason why every music group has to tour, money. You can't just write anything anymore and expect to make all your money through that, you have to tour, either singing, speaking, debating, etc., to make what you used to make back with just writing.

Oscar Wilde.

/thread

>>1713160
Sure did a great job in court.

mark twain had a lot of speaking engagements. he was greatly in demand. fitzgerald was not or you bet he would have done it. he was fucking broke and needed the money. t.s. eliot did lectures. after strange gods was published from some of them.

>>1713163

Wouldn't have worked nowadays either. He fucked boy prostitutes dude.

The very act of being an author implies you have some kind of ego that needs boasting. That is...you know...where the word author derives from....AUTHORITY.

>>1713181
that is reductionist and just silly

>>1713184
well if it is reductionist I am sure you can easily disprove it.

Quentin is either a really good troll or an idiot. I honestly don't know which, which I guess says a lot about his hypothetical trolling abilities.

>>1713186
all writers have one motivation. really.

>>1713193
Writing is an egotistical pursuit at its core. Really.

Bertrand Russell did, but he was really a mathematician and philosopher rather than an auther.

Dickens did public readings.

They need money. It has nothing to do with ego or publicity.

even kafka did readings to friends and family

and in fact standing in front of a crowd and saying what you think/defending your views predates the invention of writing

the "New Atheists" are a journalist, philosopher, biologist and a neuroscientist. Of course they're going to have public debates and lectures.

>>1713238
>auther
>auther
>auther
>auther
>auther
>auther
>burrtrained russlleh

>>1713389

you don't mean that...speech came before text?
mind=blown