/lit/ - Literature

Bloom is probably not even the most American critic tbh.

And HB is pretty unique. I mean, a guy that supposedly read 3,000 books in 10 different languages but busies himself writing polemical bestseller to increase the online traffic of the NYT ? Others countries have people way less well-read for that job.

>>6974461
>I mean, a guy that supposedly read 3,000 books

Isn't that a bit unimpressive for a literary critic of his caliber? He's also a speedreader or something.

>>6974487
>3,000 books
That's impressive as fuck, don't kid yourself. Couple that with the fact that he actually knows a great deal about a lot of them.

Anyway, OP, literary critics as academic rockstars - that era is over. Umberto Eco's pretty famous, though.

There's Marcel Reich-Ranicki in Germany, but he died recently

>>6974700
>iterary critics as academic rockstars - that era is over
why?

>>6975243
fuck reading

>>6974461
Pretty sure he claims to have read 100,000 different books, many several times over

>>6974447
Julia Kristeva.

>>6975247
>fuck reading
kek
I guess you're not very optimistic about the future of literary art?

>>6975243
The "golden era" of theory - where it was really popular not only in English departments but across the humanities as a whole - was during the 80s and 90s, when post-structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and postcolonialism were "cool" and "mysterious." Nowadays people just think those schools of thought are bullshit and only study them for their historical context. The theory in vogue right now - queer and feminist theory - has little appeal beyond the groups it seeks to validate.

>>6975259
Fuck, I can't believe I forgot about her. Spivak isn't American either, though she lives and teaches in the US. Zizek is the same way, though I'm terrified to invoke his name on this board.

>>6975243
because "rockstar" implies feigned authenticity for an authentic image; image is slowly becoming undone. People would rather read good criticism than criticism by someone with teased hair who says Harry Potter is art.

In the poli sci world, you have Russell Brand who uses buzzwords like "revolution" but knows nothing of economics, government or philosophy in general. He is the liberal poli sci rockstar. Anyone above 3rd grade wants an actual political scientist writing material.

Thank god the rockstar era is dying.

>>6975270
>hank god the rockstar era is dying.
The so-called rockstars don't really do any damage though, they can even help introduce people to good literature, while someone who has already reached an official academic level of study about a certain subject will know what to read and pay no attention to their antics.

A critic can also be popular as well as insightful, though that's increasingly difficult. Edmund Wilson, for example.

>>6974447
Reactionary hack.

>>6975282
>Reactionary
>Harold Bloom

>>6975282
I'll bet he's voting for Bernie Sanders.

>>6975276
>don't really do any damage
I don't disagree with you at all, I just think it's hilarious that anyone could ever think of literary critics as having the potential to do anything even remotely resembling "damage."

Horace Engdahl.

>>6975296
So why are you so glad to get rid of men like Bloom? You think them irrelevant at worst, right?

>>6975306
I'm not the anon you originally responded to. I don't want to get rid of literary critics - the house they built ensures that I receive a paycheck each month.

I'm not so deluded as to think that anyone outside the academy gives a flying fuck about what they say, though, and I think it's funny that many critics throughout the past hundred years actually think their writings - which can be very thought-provoking, mind you - have any influence on what happens in the world. At all. They're irrelevant at _best_.

>>6975314
Are there critics who actually think that? I doubt even Roger Ebert was so deluded.

>>6975314
I think it's true that Bloom is irrelevant at best, but don't critics pretty much determine the canon in a way? Maybe not so much today, but without certain academics, perhaps men like Samuel Johnson, and various German critics, Shakespeare would not have the status he has today.

>>6975319
Oh my god, yes. I think it's heavily implied that theorists believe their musings actually change the world. Think about Marxist criticism, or feminist theory.

>>6975322
Well, yes and no. Those critics you're talking about are pre-New Criticism, and they were very much concerned with upholding the canon as we know it. Theory nowadays is more preoccupied with tearing the canon down and exposing its bias. Revisionism is huge, and that goes for more than just literature.