/lit/ - Literature

Why are you a racist, sexist bigot, tho

>>3860606
Is that a question? Because minorities are terrible writers, unless you're retarded or a minority yourself.

Cool appreciation of the arts, bro. Maybe this isn't the right board for you.

/b/ is that way ----->

/pol/ pls go

>>3860613
>>3860616
You guys are real cool. Are you minorities? Who are your favorite female/minority authors?

>>3860606
>expressing dismay that the pillars of a literary era have been ignored for the sake of political correctness
>racist

Oh dear

Troll is Trollin, trollin, trollin. Rawhyde.

You are spot on op. Don't mind these brainwashed dead beat cretins. They will never amount to anything.

Seeing as I'd already want to be taking classes on those sort of things, I wouldn't be put off. Taisho-era women writers and ethnic minorities of Japan? I'm interested.

>>3860622
Of the late-modern poets, I think Tupac is probably my favourite

>Ain't no heaven for a thug nigga
>That's why we go to thug mansion
>That's the only place where thugs get in free and you gotta be a G
>... at thug mansion

Beautiful

>ITT OP has zero accomplishments and claims other people do too

srsly when did /lit/ become the place for /pol/tards to blow off steam

>>3860623
no one's doing that, though. no one's talking down the classics. all i can see is someone trying to supplement. no one is trying to replace. and any true lover of literature can understand that approach.

>>3860622
>>3860632
>being this desperate to bait an argument

go back to troll school troll
or /pol/

>>3860636
When minorities/women began using their positions as English professors to start forcing their poorly written agendas down our throats?
>hurr durr so cultural

>>3860638
Don't respond. Sage, ask /pol/ leave, and move on.

Like so:
/pol/ pls go

>Your Face When an English class is offered in the literature of your favourite genre or era, only the reading list consists exclusively of obscure female and ethnic minority writers to add "a multifaceted approach to a remarkable literary era."
Then take a different class, this isn't about being PC, the class clearly focuses on minority lit. I hate to say it, but if you have an issue with classes on minority lit exists you're probably a bit of a bigot.

>>3860640
>not one

My Face When such reading is incredibly easy and only a loafer or mental little person wouldn't be able to supplement it with "real" literature outside of class

or were you hoping to get something out of class discussion, lel

>>3860647
>forcing their poorly written agendas down our throats
This, when I take a class on the so called "Harlem Renaissance" I expect a fair bit of literature from the great white writers of that era. STOP FORCING THIS STUFF DOWN MY THROAT, ALSO I'M NOT A BIGOT I SWEAR!

>>3860600

>waaah I do not like it when people are different from me

kill you'reself

>>3860647
let's read some of the straight white male fiction you've written

>>3860658
a class on Northern European art from 1400-1550 called "Art of the Haarlem Renaissance" would be great though

>>3860660
>straight
Now you're skewing the lines a bit. I mean, everyone's a little gay.

>>3860640
>being so racist as to assume extolling one of the greatest works in Tupac's canon is "trolling"

Welcome to the 21st century, dirtbag. Please leave your Jim Crow attitude at the door.

>>3860650
OP: "English class is offered in the literature of your favourite genre or era"

Reading comprehension 2/10

Go back to high school, please

It's annoying for sure. I signed up for 19th CE American Lit only to discover our prof was going to teach everything from a queer studies perspective. Great. I'm not homophobic at all and totally cool with gay stuff, only I have no interest in queer theory or queer lit, and hearing about how Ahab's lust for the White Whale, along with his phallic peg leg and dom/sub relationship with Starbuck was a facepalm of Picardian proportions.

>pic related

>>3860707
only if you go back to /pol/

>>3860707
>Missing the point
The class clearly focuses on the minority lit. of that era. Bitching about that fact is like complaining that your class on poetry of the Harlem Renaissance doesn't focuses on white writers. Care to reevaluate my comments /pol/?

>>3860714
Oscar Wilde
You're an idiot.

>>3860716
>The class clearly focuses on the minority lit.
>clearly

It's not clear at all in the provided example. Syllabi and reading lists are not always released with course descriptions and anyone reading the course name (e.g.: "Early 20th Century British Modernist Literature") would not immediately assume the course focuses on minority groups of the time-period if it's not explicitly mentioned. Do you even university?

Probably not. Too busy being bohemian in a fedora for school.

>>3860714

But actually you are homophobic. Reverse the situation.

"I'm cool with straight stuff, only I have no interest in reading about it or hearing about it whatsoever."

I sound like a dick, right? That's how you sound.

Moby Dick is about a ship, where there's only men. It's well documented gay stuff happened all the time. Every single voyage, like. To ignore this perspective is ignorance plain and simple. Enjoy your symptom! The disease is stupidity!

>>3860731
Oscar Wilde was British, moron, and his works expand far beyond the fact he liked to fuck men

>>3860714

GUISE! HALP! I CANT INTO KANTIAN ETHICS! IM DOOMED TO BE AN ASSHOLE FOREVER AND EVER AMEN.

>>3860736
>The example
>Anything but fictitious
Good one. Anyway, I did overlook that fact but no one is forcing OP to stick with the course if he knows that they focusing on a subset that doesn't appeal to him. Incapable of simply dropping the course? Deal with the class, who knows? There is a tiny chance that if you put aside your preconceived, /pol/ informed views of minority lit. for just a bit you might actually get something out of the class.

I wait, I forgot, it's not cool to be open-minded on this board anymore.

>>3860737
Iol @ the ignorance and failed logic mixed in with personal insults

It's not homophobic at all: the issue is with the overarching themes that contextualize a work into its historical era (as per the course) being trumped by the application of a niche field of literary theory. Had it been a seminar in the topic, sure, but it was a survey course in 19th CE American Lit, full stop. Bringing a lit. theory that's both narrow in scope and anachronistic into the analysis is inappropriate, especially with no heads up to students.

>Moby Dick is about a ship, where there's only men. It's well documented gay stuff happened all the time. Every single voyage, like. To ignore this perspective is ignorance plain and simple. Enjoy your symptom! The disease is stupidity!
In this post: mistaking what is recorded as having happened on some ships of the era with what explicitly appears in Melville's text.

Especially funny since the prof never leveraged anything so foolishly literal, as all his analyses had to do with abstract gender dynamics and the power models generally projected onto gay relationships. Keep applying those grade 11 critical thinking skills.

>I sound like a dick, right? That's how you sound.
No, you sound like a B- student who's taken a few lit classes and who thinks he knows what the fuck he's talking about.

>>3860752
>Good one. Anyway, I did overlook that fact but no one is forcing OP to stick with the course if he knows that they focusing on a subset that doesn't appeal to him.
>no one is forcing OP

OP: Your face [reaction] when X happens.
>hypothetical situation to discuss
>not looking for advice

Reading comprehension: 1/10

Why are you even posting in /lit/? Is /b/ too boring at the moment?

>>3860763

Your professor is just putting you through what every queer person goes through by default: having a lifestyle you have no interest in shoved down your throat. I applaud his efforts and just because you say you're not homophobic does not make it so.

>>3860769
But, he's a teacher. Also, if the quthor's were talented and not "different", we wouldn't be having this conversation.

>>3860772

Is quthor Lex Luthor's inbred cousin, or am I missing something?

>>3860648
>reasonable response you can't deal with
>must be /pol/
Makes sense, really.

>>3860775

You obviously didn't get Moby dick at all. Ishmael and Queegqueg get it on when they first meet. >That indirection.

>>3860678
Not I.

;-)

>>3860774
Forgive my typos. If the stupid fucking minorities could write, we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's eloquence, not race, arrogant fuck.

>>3860774
you might be thinking of Lex Luger

>>3860766
Okay. I can see that you're not interested in doing anything but insulting me for disagreeing with you. Have a nice day /pol/.

>>3860775
>Faced with classes dealing with literature from different cultural background
>Oh no, the minorities are destroying the glorious white canon and making the teaching of literaturee nothing but political correctness!
There is no world where that is reasonable. If anything, it should be seen as a good thing that the academia is expanding its scope and looking at a wider variety of literature, rather than offering the same courses ad nauseum.

>>3860769
>alienated gay guy likely living in some shit part of the USA or other homophobic wasteland detected

>>3860786
>makes nasty insults
>has his argument picked apart for being fallacious
>"Okay. I can see that you're not interested in doing anything but insulting me for disagreeing with you. Have a nice day /pol/."

No, I showed how you didn't even understand the premise of this thread, THEN I insulted you. The first part is important.

I don't know if OP is a troll, and i don't really care. I've noticed this in my college /lit/ classes as well. The teacher will completely ignore the best books written in that genre (or time period) in order to promote obscure and poorly written texts by minorities and women. I don't mind if the novels have actual literary merit or importance, but don't shove your anti-white male agenda down my throat and call it a curriculum.

>>3860792
You have not picked apart anything and you've been insulting me all along. I conceded that I overlooked a fact in the OP and rather than attempting to have a discussion, you turned to nothing but insults. You're not very mature, which is to be expected to the undergrads that populate this board, but would it hurt to at least try to have a civil discussion?

>>3860787

Well, you're just wrong.

>>3860822
Faggot? Dike? Trans?

>>3860808
>You have not picked apart anything and you've been insulting me all along.
Scroll up and learn to read, it's obvious you you hadn't a clue what this was about

>I conceded that I overlooked a fact in the OP and rather than attempting to have a discussion
Exactly, failure in reading comprehension, get out of the thread now while you still can, save what's left of your dignity

>You're not very mature, which is to be expected to the undergrads that populate this board
>using simple adverbs
>implying him/herself to be finished undergrad
Oh dear

>but would it hurt to at least try to have a civil discussion?
Not with a fool, waste of time, more fun to insult you

>>3860769
>shoved down your throat
what? living one's own life is not shoving one's life down someone's throat. if I made a literature course based on heterosexuality though, that is kind of shoving it down your throat.

accidentally, the expression "shoving it down your throat" is getting me hot since I imagine you as a male homosexual

>mfw one of my libraries puts fucking Hunger Games in the classics section

>>3860835
>get out of the thread now while you still can, save what's left of your dignity
I'm attempting to have a civil discussion while you're masking your inability to do so behind a veil of insults? Let's face it, I'm not the one who lacks dignity here.

Yes, as you have seen I make typos. The fact that you would rather focus on small details than have a simple discussion is sad.

What is wrong with you?

>>3860795
I took a Modern Political Thought class and we did read The Straight Mind by Monique Wittig, which was pretty much what you and OP referred to.

We also read Atlas Shrugged. The less said about that the better.

And we read Nauseau by Satre and Madness and Civilization by Foucault. Both of those authors were white males, albeit ones that seemed to dislike their own country (France) in favor of Third World nations they had little personal connection with.

I never had that problem because I never took a class that didn't have at least a tentative book list.

Although taking that one required course in Canadian literature and having to choose between "Anti-racist Literature in Canada" and "Jewish-Canadian literature" was pretty painful. I went for the jews because I already like Mordecai Richler, but fuck if having to read all of these 2nd-, 3rd- and worse-rate writers just because they were jews didn't make me something of an antisemite. Didn't help that the prof would go off on tangents about the "miracle" of Israel and about how the chosen people have basically done everything good ever.

>>3860600
what if the class is white supremacist and misogynistic

>>3860907
OP, being a /pol/ron, wants this to happen

>>3860907
>>3860606
>>3860636
>>3860715
>>3860737
When the Zulus produce a Tolstoy we will read him

>>3860828
>Gays aren't marginalized at all!
>lol faggot dike [sic] trans

>>3860737
It's more akin to signing up for a queer literature class and then finding out the professor is going to be teaching it from a straight perspective and boil everything in the queer works down to how much the author wanted to put his penis in a vagina.

>>3860854
>lel
Its is lel right? D
Doesn't something have to be 30 years or older to be a classic?

i would be excited to be exposed to new authors

>>3860937
>americans raise and clap passionately

>>3860937
>racist
>reading Tolstoy

TOP most LEL go kill yourself

>>3861001
... Not him, but I don't think that the point he was making is racist. If certain cultures have failed to produce significant artistic works, isn't that just reality? I don't think ignoring reality ever got anyone anywhere.

>>3861008
yeah I kind of agree with this. that doesn't mean that academics shouldn't keep watching those cultures closely, but they certainly shouldn't make a course on a sector if said sector or culture hasn't produced something that's worth it

>classics class
>could be doing so many things
>stuck translating completely unknown and unremarkable female poets because they're female

The failure of feminism epitomized in one decision by one ivory tower dipshit intellectual. Laud them or being female, not for being good. That'll inspire modern female poets to be good! Yeah!

>>3861008
It is kind of arrogant to assume a 'significant artistic work' has to resemble a Tolstoy novel.

>>3861027
> has to resemble a Tolstoy novel.

That's clearly not what >>3860937
was implying. The meaning was someone as artistically significant as Tolstoy.

>>3861008
>"the Zulus"
>Nothing of artistic merit from Africans ever

Come on.

>>3861020
Everything important in classics has already been studied, forcing scholars to come up with bizarre gender and sexuality-related topics to study.

>>3861044

Smells like David Hume in here.

>>3861048
That looks interesting

>>3861048
not so much that everything has studied but that only new, significant findings about those cultures can bring new light to those studies

>>3861048
I don't mind that stuff in itself. What I mind is forcing gender studies horseshit down my throat when I'm trying to get the basic undergrad education. I don't need to learn about !!!BREAKING NEWS: CULTURAL MARXISTS NOW BELIEVE ROME WAS OPPRESSIVE PATRIARCHY, MORE AT 11!!!! when I could be learning about the second Battle of Bedriacum. Just the facts.

Sappho is wonderful though. I want to go back in time and eat Sappho's ass.

>>3861074
The fact that use you "cultural marxist" unironically is key that you don't care about facts to begin with.

>>3861074
you can't avoid those gender study courses tho? isn't that part of electives?

>>3861074
Yeah, this is what a lot of people don't understand. The problem isn't the existence of these weird new literary fields like gender studies, its their replacing basic undergraduate instruction.

>>3861078
Cultural marxism is a real term, dummy. It's not something that was made up on 4chan.

>>3861074
>!!!BREAKING NEWS: CULTURAL MARXISTS NOW BELIEVE ROME WAS OPPRESSIVE PATRIARCHY, MORE AT 11!!!!

what channel was this on

>>3861081
but aren't they constricted to electives. I'm not from the USA so take in mind I'm asking sincerely

>>3861086
>captcha: concerning entsaap

>>3861086
On 4chan it is universally used in the sense of an academic conspiracy to replace MUH WESTERN VALUES with multiculturalism and gender equality.

>>3861079
I avoid anything that sounds like it wouldn't have been a legitimate course 50 years ago like the plague, and I still get inundated in feminist shit. Our Roman history course only had one or two lectures on all of the basic historical narrative of Republican Rome, but one lecture each on: Women in Rome, Sexuality in Rome, the Family in Rome (i.e. Women in Rome 2: Electric Boogaloo), and I think one or two others like this. One or two of them were given by a feminist/gender studies graduate student.


>>3861078
If I had said critical theory you wouldn't have cared. It's a perfectly legitimate term anyway, it's consciously, explicitly Marxist.

And anyway, I'll use less polemical terms for those frauds when their standard of scholarship rises above a closed circlejerk for people who tow the party line. If I have to read one more fucking feminist article that says "COLONIALISM WAS IMPERIALISTIC" like it's fucking news, and cites a bunch of secondary sources with names like "Patriarchal Imperialism: A Two Part Discourse in the Patriarchal Imperialism of Patriarchal Imperialism" in lieu of actual evidence or argument, I'll go nuts.

>>3861108
Holy shit, you're not even trolling.

>>3861108
"cultural marxism" =/= critical theory

>>3861108
Try teaching yourself what you want to learn instead of complaining that the course doesn't cater to your exact requirements.

>>3861121

#rekt

Be a good goy and read whatever professor Steinberg puts on the syllabus.

>>3861101
But that actually is what cultural marxism advocates.

>>3861121
I have taught myself what I want to learn, I have a 4.0 and was essentially ready for comps in my first or second undergraduate year. Undergraduate curricula are pathetic. That's not the point. It's like saying "try finding a loophole when the law doesn't work properly". Yeah, loopholes will always exist, and a clever enough person can always find a way, but the system should be respected.

>>3861119
Adorno is one of the biggest hacks in western intellectual history. It is staggering how infantile some of his most "seminal" work is.

>>3861086
I'm a classics minor and I've even taken a "Greek and Roman women" class and I've never experienced any of this. I feel like a lot of this is just dumb history majors wanting to feel like they're under attack or something.

also come on man, Spartan marriage laws were "well if you bust into her house and beat down her family she's yours, I guess"; don't tell me that's not patriarchal
also if you think learning about the family unit is irrelevant to Roman life you're pretty dumb

>>3861146
ah, well then it's clear that you're here to just hurl abuse and misuse terms. carry on.

>>3861146
>I have taught myself what I want to learn, I have a 4.0 and was essentially ready for comps in my first or second undergraduate year.
I see we've wandered into fantasy land.

>>3861141
Let's take a look at that.

>Culture
The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group

a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period
>Marxism

The political and economic philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society's allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society.

>>3861146

Adorno is one of the biggest hacks in western intellectual history.

Wow you really showed Adorno up there. Mind = Blown.

>>3861149
>Don't tell me _____ wasn't patriarchal!
No one is saying it wasn't. But that's all that needs to be said for a basic course that is meant to cover much more important shit. Yes, it was patriarchal. Yes, it was horrible. But we can talk dispassionately about Roman slavery for a single lecture, arguably one of the most horrible things humanity has ever done tbh, note how shitty it was, and move on, whereas we apparently need to dwell on Roman patriarchy for eternity.

>Social history is obviously important!
Of course, no one is saying it isn't. I don't even have a problem when a prof expresses an intent to focus PRIMARILY on social history. I think that's a valid approach. But it's still overboard. When you have a Greek history course at a fairly good institution, and people are walking away from it with more information about the daily lives of Greek women than about the Peloponnesian War, something has gone horribly wrong.

>>3861153
I was classically and privately educated. Undergrad curricula are pathetic.

>>3861146
>one of the biggest hacks in western intellectual history

I would nominate Camille Paglia.

>>3861157

Let's take a look at the word research

>Re

Again

>Search

To look for

Research = to look for something again
blind = mown

>>3861165
>Of course, no one is saying it isn't. I don't even have a problem when a prof expresses an intent to focus PRIMARILY on social history. I think that's a valid approach. But it's still overboard. When you have a Greek history course at a fairly good institution, and people are walking away from it with more information about the daily lives of Greek women than about the Peloponnesian War, something has gone horribly wrong.

this is a good point

>>3860737
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

>>3861165
>I was classically and privately educated.
This makes no difference. I'm sure you're hoping or had hoped to get a 4.0, but you clearly are not that calibre.

>>3861173

I can get behind this one.

>>3861182
I don't know why you think that's such a big deal. If you write well and you are one of the few people who should actually be in academia, you can get a 3.8 minimum without thinking. If you're willing to suck professor dick once in a while and actually pull your shit together, a 4.0 is not exceptional in the slightest.

I know two other people with 4.0s. One is brilliant and eclectic, the other is just reallllly really good at organization and self-discipline, and not an original thinker in the slightest.

>>3861173
I have to agree but she's fun in interviews at least

>>3861165
You seem to be fetishizing military history, which is boring as fuck and basically irrelevant to people who don't have a personal interest in it. Also, "dwell on Roman patriarchy for eternity," really? These things have been an academic focus for maybe 40 years; try being a little less hysterical, sweetie.

>>3861202
Also, if we're being really real here, that basic historical picture, chronology of events stuff is stuff you should know before undergrad, not something you should be learning during undergrad.

Whether or not that actually happens in the modern educational world.

>>3861202
>People should know about the Peloponnesian War.
>OPERATIONS HISTORY FETISHIST!!

Confirmed for not knowing a fucking thing about history, and ironically proving my entire point at the same time. Perfect. You'd fit right in at my university.

>>3861218
I think they're probably more referring to your comments about the second Battle of Bedriacum not about the Peloponnesian War. And I think that adequately displays a useful distinction between the useful and the overly specific military history.

This thread is just depressing.

It confirms that there are people on /lit/ that actively support the degradation of modern academia with queer theory and social marxist crap. They don't even argue for their points either, all they say is stupid shit like "gb2 /pol/", and I wish that was a strawman argument but I have not seen one compelling argument on here in support of all of this politicized bullshit that goes on in American curriculum.

It's very depressing and it makes me think that this board is being taken over by white, "liberal" females that can't even hold an argument and merely scream "that's racist" or "/pol/ infestation" at every threat to their ideological nonsense.

>>3861191
>I don't know why you think that's such a big deal.
I'm not saying it's a big deal, I'm saying you're not. I'm not seeing the level of perspective or critical thinking you'd expect from an undergrad student with a 4.0

>>3861238
maybe if your post wasn't exactly like a million others that we've seen from people on /pol/, and which we have learned very well that it's utterly pointless to engage in, and people who make posts like yours hadn't displayed over and over you're pretty much always arguing in bad faith, this wouldn't happen

but as it is, nothing is lost when someone points out that you're a retard /pol/ spammer troll bigot

>>3861238
Blame the dumbing-down and commercialisation of American universities, not queer theory and 'social marxism.'

>>3861246
That's just an easy cop-out and you know it.

>>3861238
As long as you defend your stance intelligently then it isn't dead. The status quo will always have its zombie horde of mindless defenders, and right now it leans toward progressivism. Just ignore them unless they present actual arguments in good faith.

>>3861239
When I think of my GPA I don't think of depth of "perspective" or critical thinking. I think of exam mnemonics, pandering essays, eavesdropping on professor preferences.. And a lot of time that I would gladly have traded for actually productive work, if I didn't think it was necessary for my postgrad prospects.

Getting into a pissing match over it is even more embarrassing than posting it. It represents everything wrong with the university system right now. Confucian exams.

>>3861259
If they're modern-day Confucian exams, it's a grim joke, because at least Confucian exams got one into a locked-in lucrative career and the possibility of power - not a position in academia, and likely a tenuous one.

>>3861246
>"you're a retard /pol/ spammer troll bigot"

I have said nothing in this thread besides that one post.

Will you please point out what in my post makes me retarded or "from /pol/".

Are you really this bad at basic reasoning skills, or do you have to resort to sophomoric name-calling and pointing fingers?

Do you not see your faults?

>>3861259
>When I think of my GPA I don't think of depth of "perspective" or critical thinking. I think of exam mnemonics, pandering essays, eavesdropping on professor preferences.
And tada we're back in fantasy land. You're imagining you can "cheat the system" for some reason. I'm guessing you've got a much lower GPA, but you tell yourself it'd be higher if you only pandered.

>>3861275
..It's not cheating, it's just attending to the specific criteria of the grading system.

For example: if 40% of grade is seminar participation, you'd better fucking know how the professor grades that shit, exactly what to do and what to look for. If you can get above a certain average in that chunk of the grade, you can accommodate failures to impress the professor sufficiently for an A+ term paper. A 95% paper/exam can compensate for an 85% paper/exam. You can edge out of the 80s in general by talking and listening to the professor extensively to figure out his preferences and what he is looking for in an essay. If the course has a big focus on things you don't particularly care about, even if your term paper was on something that really excited you, you know the exam is going to cover a lot of shit you that didn't, so it's time to break out the mnemonics, derived from notes taken in a fashion that records the professor's personal view of things.

All of this is enjoyable, really! I'm really glad I still have mnemonics for twelve possible essays on Vichy France burned into my brain after two years! I'm glad I didn't draw on any of the deeply based knowledge of the material which really interested me, but on the specific historiographical disputes which interested the prof! Never pander! Original thought 4ever!

what is and isn't ethnic?

>>3861295
>For example: if 40% of grade is seminar participation
This never happens.
>You can edge out of the 80s in general by talking and listening to the professor extensively to figure out his preferences and what he is looking for in an essay.
What clown college are going to where Profs and lecturers write your essays for you?

>>3861295
>All of this is enjoyable, really! I'm really glad I still have mnemonics for twelve possible essays on Vichy France burned into my brain after two years! I'm glad I didn't draw on any of the deeply based knowledge of the material which really interested me, but on the specific historiographical disputes which interested the prof! Never pander! Original thought 4ever!

The reason people are criticizing you is because you haven't internalized these preferences and learned to pretend that they're your own. The really successful people - and the ones who are criticizing you from within the system - have done, and you're at best violating the code by talking this way. It's simply Not Done. It's vulgar, in that kind of circle.

>>3861318
>The really successful people - and the ones who are criticizing you from within the system - have done
Higher grades are simply not achieved through saying what someone wants to hear. Rarely does the same prof that manages the class actually mark the majority of your work, you won't find a marking criteria that has things like "Did they say this thing about Marx?" either. They're inevitably looking for a certain level of critical appraisal alongside familiarity with course content.

>>3861323
>you won't find a marking criteria that has things like "Did they say this thing about Marx?" either

Of course you won't. It's not ever going to be that simple and certainly not that explicit, either in the marking criteria or even in the mind of the people involved. I did not imply that it was, nor, I think, did my co-respondent.

>>3861268
you're posting pictures of Japanese women and composers from mainstream "art" films, so you're clearly some sort of faggot

>spend centuries examining classics which almost always only offer the perspective of a straight white male.
>after beating the dead horse of that perspective for a few centuries, try and bring in the attitudes and perspectives of the previously marginalised, to examine it from a post civil rights movement and queer rights movement perspective
>WAAAAAAAHHHH STOP DEGRADING MY LITERATURE WITH YOUR MULTI FACETED VIEWPOINTS

>>3861342

You're the ones reducing human perspective to a matter of sex and race. You're the ignorant ones.

>>3861342
Idiots like this person exist in real life. Remember that.

It is a mark of scholar to read a piece without any preconcieved notions. Drop the prejudices, judgements and previous notions you have and maybe you may just learn a thing or two.

>>3860632
He actually had some decent poems, in his posthumous 'The Rose That Grew in Concrete'.

>>3861338
>I did not imply that it was, nor, I think, did my co-respondent.
>The reason people are criticizing you is because you haven't internalized these preferences and learned to pretend that they're your own.
There's a pretty strong implication there. No, you can't only state opinions with no argument or backing that the professor disagrees with, but equally you won't attain the higher marks by throwing up what you think he wants to hear. However, if you demonstrate knowledge of what has been covered in class with further reading and appropriate critical appraisal, whether the person marking agrees is immaterial. If you ever end up sending off your own work for publication you will find some reject it because they don't like conclusions, but undergrad you can more or less say what you like so long as it's appropriately thought out.

>co-respondent
What the hell.

>>3861314
Man, it's not Ivy League, I'll admit, but I think you're trying a little hard to discredit me. Is your orderly worldview so threatened by someone with contrary opinions possibly maybe having a good GPA?

I've been in two classes where participation (incl. in-class group assignments, presentations, attendance, and general participation) was 35% and 40%. And they sucked ass.

>>3861323
For a GOOD prof? Fuck yes. But I've met like three of those, and one of them was just a schizophrenically subjective grader, so it was only more stressful. Most don't have the time, the interest, or the intellect to appraise undergraduate work on that basis unless they have some special reason. Meanwhile I've had more profs than I can count who revealed their grading rubric to be based on some arbitrary thing like demonstrating you did all the readings, but who didn't reveal this unless you lucked out or used diplomacy.

I got my lowest grade ever, 78%, for work I would have been proud to publish, and some of my highest grades have come from simply taking extensive notes on what the prof personally thinks caused the French Revolution. When I did have a prof who clearly wanted a creative, deeply personal answer, one that demonstrated a comprehensive rather than a rote knowledge of a subject, it was a lot of fun. But that happened rarely. And you could tell it was done out of passion for education, and at the cost of personal time and energy on his part.

tldr; save your creative energy for projects that matter, not meaningless papers that are literally going into the fucking trash. Some dipshit prof grading your paper isn't a peer review.

>>3861318
Glad to see someone who feels this way. Feels stagnant, man.

>>3861350
Who cares, honestly. Anything that glorifies or portrays in a any kind of positive light the 'thug life' and horrible culture that is inextricably linked with rap music should be discarded and obliterated from the collective consciousness.

>>3861354
>Man, it's not Ivy League, I'll admit, but I think you're trying a little hard to discredit me. Is your orderly worldview so threatened by someone with contrary opinions possibly maybe having a good GPA?
No, it's just I know you don't have a "good GPA", and I know calling you out on it will annoy you.

>>3861355
Read the poems. He had poems about his first love, his mother, the current black panther revolution.

For fuck's sake the man danced ballet.

>>3861347
Yeah, in theory, you can treat all perspective equal, but that's not how the real world works. By not examining race and gender and how it affected their writing, you are being ignorant. ignoring racism/sexism isn't going to make it go away.

>>3861354
If you've got such quality work, why aren't you publishing it? Why buy into the degree system if you're too smart for it and your work stands on its own merit?

>>3861355
>who cares about merit if it's from a rotten culture
and now we're back where we started

>>3861359
You're arguing with a racist, ignore him.

>>3861356
>go to office of the registrar today to get some redundant forms
>dude brings up my grade transcript
>"So what you want to d-- wow, nice grades, by the way."
>"Thanks bro."
>go home and post on /lit/
>get told I have a low GPA
>by someone who advocates critical reading as the cornerstone of good grades
>and then fails to respond to any actual arguments or points in the next, resorting instead to "YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A HIGH GPA NA NA NA"

I don't give a fuck about my GPA bro, I only cited it to give the institutional credibility which drones like you crave so badly.

>>3861364
Solely for more mobility in postgrad. I am working on publishing some stuff now, but ironically, mostly because it looks good on a resume as well. Goddamnit.

>>3861366
Why on Earth do you think I'm a racist?

>>3861342
>perspective doesn't change at all over centuries or geographical areas!
>the perspective of every single straight white male that ever lived is exactly the same!
The problem is not that there are authors that are black male-to-female trans lesbians. The problem is that there are people who think that her book is more notable or of higher value than a book by a straight white male, regardless of actual literary quality.
The canon is sacred, and when a minority or queer author writes a book that provokes an enormous change of such significance that the course of English language literature is changed forever, or when that person writes a book that perfectly describes the feelings of an age, then I will gladly accept that work into the canon. But it is ridiculous and silly and undeserving of merit to teach someone's book solely because the author is not a straight white male, unless the object of the course is literature written by non-straight white males. That, I think, is the core of the rage illustrated in threads like this: people think that classics that happen to be written by swms are being abandoned in Lit 101/related courses in favor of tripe like Americanah (just the most recent example that comes to mind). This is a misunderstanding.

In any serious study of literature you will be forced to digest work by people of all sorts of ethnic or religious or sexual backgrounds. The correct answer is to embrace Barthes and just throw all that shit out the window. To end, I quote Steinbeck in one of his letters:

Dear Mr. Birkhead:

I am answering your letter with a good deal of sadness. I am sad for a time when one must know a man's race before his work can be approved or disapproved. It does not seem important to me whether I am Jewish or not, and I know that a statement of mine is useless if an interested critic wishes to ride a preconceived thesis.

>>3860937
This, basically. You can't shoehorn literary significance and stylistic prose into a work that's substandard. Sorry the vast canon of a European language is composed of European writers. How racist of us to assume otherwise.

>>3861363

So by caring about the race and gender, or, the identity of the author, you are going to understand how it affected their writing, and you are going to interpret the text more accurately? That's not very postmodern of you. Death of the author, etc. After all, isn't the subjectivity of interpretation what spawned queer or feminist readings of classics?

>>3861373
I agree with you notions. Read the text, anyhow, and drop your judgements. Going by steinbeck's word, you should judge the quality on the work.

And if you know some conspiracy that teachers of literature are intentionally giving preference to a certain 'ethnic' background, then show it. Prove it. Otherwise, read the literature, then make your judgements.

>>3861375
How do you feel about non-europeans who can write, English, well?

>>3861381
It doesn't have to be a conspiracy. People are praised for being progressive, and progressivism currently means showing how much you repudiate the patriarchal rule of DSWM's, and how sensitive you are to any kind of repression whatsoever.

>Have you heard of Nbwaandande Kubuokeke's newest slam poetry 'TRANS*CUNT: My Journey to the Centre of Womyn'?
is the new
>Some of my best friends are black!

>>3861376
>not tracing the genealogy as you unearth the archaeology
that post's not very modern of you

>>3861376
It very well may be. I'm just arguing that its important to study otherwise ignored authors. Also, subjective interpretations of text isn't the same as death of the author, and I doubt many feminist queer critics would go as far as to agree with 'death of the author'.

>>3861381
Are you restating my terms, or commanding me to do such things? Because if those are commands directed at me, you misunderstood my post.

>>3861391
I'm emphasizing Steinbeck's words. Let the quality of the work be judged by the words themselves, not any of that non-reading factor rubbish like the author's race and gender.

>>3861369
>>by someone who advocates critical reading as the cornerstone of good grades
Yeah, critical reading is different to critical appraisal. You might know this if you paid attention in class.

>>3861390

Yeah, I'm just pushin' ya. I'm a realist about authorial intent and historical reading, but it's fun to push these arguments this way, now that.

>>3861386
This!

And God bless George R.R. Martin! He may be "wrong" in every identity politic aspect. He may not be a Tolstoj or Dostojevskij (yet). But by Jove, he shows what quality is.

>>3860600
This happened to me. Tenth grade, we were studying the industrial revolution in an English & History integrated class, and we were assigned to read, of all books of the era, Frankenstein.

This makes me want to skip out on uni,

sounds like some terribly cancerous shit is being pushed on you guys.

>>3860600
This thread is seriously depressing, I cannot for the world understand how so many people on /lit/ defend the politicization of literature.

>Shakespeare
Oh he is just a white male you know
>Iliad
Glorifying the male traditional role as a fighter and hero
>Odyssey
Trite propaganda for family values
>Bible
No thx, i'm an atheist
>The Aeneid & Metamorphoses
Rome is the model for the colonial and patriarchal society you know

>>3861539
Go stem if you can bear it. Read on your freetime. You'll never get a job going lit major anyway.

>>3861533
You'd better be trolling, bub. What novel would you consider to better encapsulate themes of technology, alienation, and romanticism which define the industrial revolution? If you say something by Dickens people will still call you a fag.

>>3861546
I think I'll stick with my entrepreneur route.

>>3860600
i can appreciate that members of another group/culture should like to read about topics that are significant/relate to them. for the last thousand years or so the dominant topic/s in western literature have revolved around the white heterosexual male experience (why this is the case and whether it is justified is a discussion for another time). regardless, the last fifty years of art/literature/university curricula has realized this, and a reaction against it taken place, emphasizing the experience of "the Other" (female, queer, non-white etc.)

this becomes a problem when the reader/viewer (namely, OP) does not/cannot relate to the subject matter. one can read about it out of dry intellectual interest, but it is hard to care about.

in that sense, i can sympathize with you, OP. there is quite obviously an strong emphasis on the "the Other" literature in most lit courses. it's probably not fair, but i fully understand it. it's just the nature of reaction. it'll pass.
the western canon still exists in any case, read it

>>3860600
I would much prefer that to the usual shite offered by university English.

>>3861546
I'm in law school and one of the first classes was Roman law (it being the foundation of some of Europe's first civil law codices). All I heard in that class was how women were opressed in ancient Rome (duh - really?). That was three years ago, nowadays there are three mandatory "gender whatever" classes for every field of study while important classes are left out. And that's Law School in Central Europe, where 99% of the professors are white, conservative old men. If everything will continue that way, we're going to have really shitty lawyers in the next few years.

>>3861549
I actually can't think of anything that I've read, I just assumed there was some better book out there, considering how many "classics" come from that era.

>>3861542
Agreed. Po-mo tho

>>3861560
It will lead to you having some seriously fucked up laws in the future.

>He raped me emotionally

>>3861560
If you think we're going to have shitty lawyers "in the next few years," you're one of them.

>>3861556
However the constant beration of traditional society and perpetuation of white guilt has lead to a mindset white people in white countries cant even reconcile whats good in their society instead they are running for the hills. Anyone noticed like the minority migration? People are basically doing anything to become a minority, there is a competition of whom can be most opressed by the patriarchy.

My part of the country has historically been opressed, or rather exploited, by the state some what, and we've never given a fuck once or twice. Because we've never really seen ourselves as opressed. Or rather the people that you'd call the real inhabitants of my region. All of the suddenly you get this outburst from people who moved away as young, or they have like one quarter blood of the people from my region claiming they speak for us, and how they find their way back to their roots (even though they still live in the capital with all their fancy stuff) and how the realized that it was because they alienated themselves from their roots that made them lose their way. All the while they dont know the slightest about "our way". It's very infuriating.

>>3861568
I am. I've already billed two hours today and I was on 4chan the whole time.

ITT

>>3861253
>Blame the dumbing-down and commercialisation of American universities, not queer theory and 'social marxism.'
This. Liberal arts education is now daycare for rich manchildren. It's no surprise that it is heavily biased towards not-hurting-feelings and hedonistic degeneracy instead of manning and doing your homework.

>>3861355
'Thug life' was a deliberate mind virus launched by militant black nationalists to destroy American government. Tupac's godmother was on FBI's 'most wanted' list among other domestic terrorists.

The political angle is the most fascinating one here.

>>3861733
source? that's some crazily interesting shit

>>3861604

thats very clever

>>3861722

>Liberal arts education is now daycare for rich manchildren.

if you read about the history of academia, youd know its actually less that than its ever been

>>3861734
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakur

Tupac was born into a family of Black Panther domestic terrorists.

He invented 'thug life' based on their militant revolutionary ideology: http://www.thuglifearmy.com/code-of-thug-life.html

Is it just me or does it feel like all smart people recently have been jumping ship to STEM and Finance & Banking?

Are the true intellectuals not even the literature field anymore?

ITT : United States of America's paradox.

>>3861756

no true scotsman studies finance

>>3861756
It's just you.

>>3860977
lel lel lel
lel/10

Some people on /lit/ aren't smart or wise enough to be silent and observe.

>>3860600
>>3860612
And, on this glorious day, I left /lit/ full of idiots and trolls who prefer to be right than to find truth.

>>3861342

What new 'attitude' or 'perceptive' can a non-white or gay person offer? Do their brains work differently or something?

>>3861785
try harder foggot

>>3861774
See you again tomorrow!

>>3861774
A glorious day indeed.

>>3861048
It's not really that bizarre. Women/slaves/etc. were ignored for ages in the classics, they're only only just being focused on.

It's a well-known fact that Classics has often been the repository for a weird kind of conservatism.

>>3861542
Nobody thinks these things. The people who discredit the canon without actually reading it are never really taken seriously. Stormfags can go home.

people post about this kind of thing on /pol/ a lot so then naive people visiting /pol/ think it's actually a serious real-life problem

holy shit this thread is bad

Sure is /pol/ in here

>>3861238
>It's very depressing and it makes me think that this board is being taken over by white, "liberal" females that can't even hold an argument and merely scream "that's racist" or "/pol/ infestation" at every threat to their ideological nonsense.
More like it's being taken over by nonwhites.

>>3862126
>>3862131

>WAAAAH PEOPLE DON'T AGREE WITH ME

both sides of the 'libtard'-'/pol/tard' divide make complete asses of themselves every time one of these threads crops up.

>>3862224

Not really. No one who disagrees with OP has written anything that wasn't typed through a hail of tears or makes any sense

>>3862229
what about that idiot who was trying to argue against ellison's invisible man being included on a syllabus for a course covering counter-cultural literature? actually, he didn't make any real arguments, just kept repeating some bullshit about diversity and affirmative action. that's just one small example of a type of attitude that i encounter on here all the time these days.

>>3862248
Do you honestly think Ellison would have been included if he would have written the same book but was white? Be honest.