/lit/ - Literature

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1683204]

/lit/, do you believe there is a crisis in the humanities? By this I mean somewhat disarmingly to ask whether you think that the state of, say, literature, and the criticism of literature, in the last decade or so, has become stale and fruitless? From what I have gathered we would appear to have seen an unprecedented freedom of expression and celebration of difference over the last 20 years in writing. Similarly, on the side of theory there has been a shift towards a similar theoretic freedom in acknowledging an ultimate free play in texts, although by no means do I think this leads us into the radical subjectivism that was a fashionable means of dismissal of then-contemporary theory for some time. However, I don't get the sense as we are moving through the next decade that we are seeing anything truly spectacular in either writing or theory. What are your opinions on the state of contemporary literature and theory?

[Anonymous No.1683216]

Feels like the state of literature is stagnating. I wouldn't say it was fruitless though.

[Anonymous No.1683228]

You po-mo faggots have brought this upon yourselves. Maybe after the ravens have stripped the flesh from your diseased carcasses literature can be worthwhile again.

[Anonymous No.1683235]

Personally I think the advent of the internet which is really coming to it's height now for literature will lead to both a mass improvement and decline in literature simultaneously.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1683241]

>>1683228
>yfw

enter New Sincerity, or whatever they call it.

[scout !!1wBNr3mLJL+ No.1683246]

We have always been as free (and as aware of our freedom) as we are now, it's nothing new. Literature has not stagnated, but it doesn't enjoy the same level of "cultural currency" as it has in the past..culture is what results from promotion done by the dominant power in a civil organization..literature is only becoming irrelevant, as theater became irrelevant..this does not mean that culture is dying or decaying or any of that.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1683552]

bump

[Anonymous No.1683591]

I don't think there's a stagnation of good literature, good literature has always been rare. it's just more noticeable now, because there's more literature out there. with the release of personal computers, more people are trying their hand at writing.

also, with the rise of technology, less emphasis has been put on literature than before. people didn't have tvs and shit back in the day, so writing was the way to tell your stories. but now, more people are flocking towards other forms of entertainment (tv,movies, etc). by doing so, literature hasn't had anything revolutionary put out in a long time, while movies are constantly improving (in technological terms). not only that, but movies provide instant gratification - you can see the characters, you see what they're doing. reading takes more imagination, and fewer and fewer people seem to have it in our fast paced world.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685051]

bump

[Anonymous No.1685062]

>although by no means do I think this leads us into the radical subjectivism that was a fashionable means of dismissal of then-contemporary theory for some time.

please tell me this isn't a tacit endorsement of formalism

[satago110 No.1685069]

>>1683591
yeah man! Damn I don't have time to go into it right now but it's all about definition. is literature storytelling and/or relating of facts (nonfic), or is it the written word itself? Makes a big difference....the word is just the vessel, being replaced by more tech, as word replaced spoken storytelling/painting/song....whoa...lots of people think "literature" is struggling in the "loving" arms of Kindle, but I'm not so sure....

[Anonymous No.1685084]

>>1683246

It's a good point - the novel is a relatively new art form, and lots of people predicted it wouldn't last. It's in the nature of narrative storytelling to be superceded by whatever follows it, in the same way that the novel schooled the theatre. Now film and television are more dominant art forms (inb4 dumbing down - people were levelling the same criticism at the novel a hundred years before any of us were born) - eventually the novel will be gone, and future researchers will have to base their knowledge of it on fragments and inconclusive references, the same way we have to study Greek New Comedy.

[Anonymous No.1685085]

there's a crisis on /lit/ called tripfag.

[Anonymous No.1685089]

will to write... fading..

[Anonymous No.1685107]

I don't think anyone here can really answer this question. Let's face it, /lit/ is not as well read as they would like you to think, and even less so if we are talking about literature in the last decade. I doubt many people here even read criticism, and if they did they surely would have a large enough sample size to say it's been declining.

That said, the quality of literature (whatever you would mean by quality) is probably not declining. Changing, yes, that is necessary, but art tends to change and shift in conjunction with real world concerns. For example take postmodernism. People say a lot of shit about postmodernism. They don't like it, it's boring, it's merely masturbation, whatever. But you don't just get around the issues that the postmodernists were responding to by ignoring their existence and pretending art's still good. Some people may say postmodernism marks a "negative" change in the quality or worth or art, but it's not as though we could have all pretended we still credulous towards truth, objectivity, originality, etc. I think most claims about the declining quality of culture (which are very common now and have always been common) are simply idealizing the past.

[Anonymous No.1685117]

there's no movement and no 'edgy' thinkers that are getting to the kids. i mean fuck, my grand dad was reading nietzche just like todays budding thinkers. there's no question of values in this nihlistic culture and everyone has been taught to be too one sided for fear that their whole belief system will crumble

bring back jesus i say

[Anonymous No.1685118]

> on the side of theory there has been a shift towards a similar theoretic freedom in acknowledging an ultimate free play in texts

what sort of theory are you referring to here?

[Anonymous No.1685121]

>>1685107

>claims about the declining quality of culture (which are very common now and have always been common) are simply idealizing the past.

This is true - every generation, without fail, criticises the generation that comes after it for declining standards. Literature is not dying, but the novel may well be. Fuck it, I say, and bring on the next big thing in literature, I'm totally bored of novels anyway.

[Anonymous No.1685151]

>>1683228
people like this are the equivalent of those nerds in high school who thought they were better than you because they listened to dadrock. They are young and still growing up, and have yet to become confidant in their abilities to makes sense of the world on their own, so they imitate grown ups, which in the case of dadrock of course hate contemporary music because it is not of their time. All this mixed with a healthy contempt for their peers.

[Anonymous No.1685162]

>>1683241

"The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows."
- David Foster Dead

That's the new sincerity, in a nutshell. God but DFW is a horrible essayist.

[Anonymous No.1685172]

>>1685162

nuh uh did you read the one about lobsters?

[Anonymous No.1685178]

>>1685162
> That's the new sincerity, in a nutshell.

It's not, really. Maybe for a bit at the end there, but that passage was written before much had been done that you might call new sincerity.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685187]

what I would love to know is how new sincerity is any different from old sincerity

[ElegentiaeArbiter !bHPPL//q.s No.1685191]

>>1685178
You're a dolt. It was written in the *future tense*, he was *predicting* what would come, and it fits the idea of the New Sincerity perfectly. Go back to the mines.

[Anonymous No.1685194]

>>1685187
This is a good question. Not rhetorically, as I think you may have meant it, though. It seems to me that there must be a large difference in post-postmodern sincerity, or at least how one arrives at it.

[Anonymous No.1685197]

>>1685191
> and it fits the idea of the New Sincerity perfectly
only in the given sense that new sincerity is "To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness", or in other words, that new sincerity is sincere. Gee, thanks for that insight.

[Anonymous No.1685215]

>>1685172

Consider the Lobster? That's actually the exact one I was thinking about. I hated that whole book, but that self-consciously arch piece of shit was the stand-out shit-turkey of the book, imo.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685226]

>New Sincerity
>implying most postmodern writers do not write sincerely

>stop being sincerely insincere

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685236]

>>1685226
even a shoddy theory like hegelian dialectic would enable you to understand this yet you gotta do this.

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685240]

anyway oh my god lit theory is just sad.

[Anonymous No.1685249]

>>1685236
>>1685240

And that's that. As soon as this cunt arrives, the thread dies. Bye all.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685255]

>>1685236
P. sure that back in the day antithesis involved a bit more than tacking on the word 'new'

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685261]

>>1685249
look at this guy mad over elementary confusions.

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685265]

>>1685255
p sure i called it a shoddy theory, maybe i should have stuck with the original word i used, a shoddy metaphor

[Wildweasal !Gl2oEPzmZc No.1685266]

>do you believe there is a crisis in the humanities?
no
>literature, in the last decade or so, has become stale and fruitless?
no
>what are your opinions on the state of contemporary literature and theory?
the reader is just as important as the text. empty souls find empty pages.

[None !WvWWh.l.CE No.1685267]

even if novels are dying it's still cool to read books because it means you look smarter than video gamers and also the medium doesn't bother you with DRM shit or stopping you reading ahead, re-reading certain chapters, etc. Stuff like that. I'm incredibly sensitive to the ass-rape and extra effort needed to pirate video games. they're are in a shitty state right now.

>>1685236
>pot-shot

>>1685240
>acting superior to everyone else
and ill stop now since there's been two more posts since then. fucking aspie bitch.

[Anonymous No.1685269]

I think the essential problem with this thread is that everyone is assuming that 'novels' and 'literature' are synonymous.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685275]

>>1685266
>the reader is just as important as the text.
Let's talk about that wildweasel. Is the reading subject not himself a composite tissue of texts? For after all, if we accept that the reader, that subject (and I use this in the most minimal sense) which interprets the text, is socially determined then will not his judgements be the product of other texts, cultural or otherwise? Doesn't this simply relegate the role of a reader to an actual mechanical process, like a finger that pulls the trigger of a gun?

>empty souls find empty pages
Now, something like this with regard to what I've been saying is just as accurate; for it would mean that a reading subject with no imprinted texts would not be capable of interpretation

[Anonymous No.1685289]

>>1685275

not at all this is a gross oversimplification no real reader is going to coincide entirely with the implied reader L2narratology kid

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685290]

>>1685289
>no real reader is going to coincide entirely with the implied reader
But I'm not talking about an implied reader. I'm talking about the subject that reads

[Anonymous No.1685294]

>>1685290

...who is going to be unique in each instance, because even accepting the assertion that their judgments will be the product of texts then their judgments of those texts will in turn be the product of other texts ergo unless everybody has read the exact same texts in the exact same order they will be approaching the given text with a unique set of judgments

or w/e

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685295]

>>1685289
Actually, let me rephrase this:

I am talking about any reader ever, implied or not. This applies just as much to an implied reader, whether or not he ever existed, as it does to the actual material reader. I don't think you've understood my argument, in short.

[Anonymous No.1685297]

>>1685275
> For after all, if we accept that the reader, that subject (and I use this in the most minimal sense) which interprets the text, is socially determined then will not his judgements be the product of other texts, cultural or otherwise?

Can you elaborate on what exactly you mean here by "texts". I think you would need a very broad view of the word to include everything that the reader's judgment is a part of. Also playing part in the meaning making process is the reader's own technique or method of making sense out of the world. This can be intertwined with culture, but I think there is something more than just simply culture going on there.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685298]

>>1685294
>who is going to be unique in each instance
But socially determined nonetheless. My point still stands.

>accepting the assertion that their judgments will be the product of texts then their judgments of those texts will in turn be the product of other texts
yes

>unless everybody has read the exact same texts in the exact same order they will be approaching the given text with a unique set of judgments
Which will be socially determined. My point still stands.

[Wildweasal !Gl2oEPzmZc No.1685305]

>>1685275
let me put it a different way.
we should imagine a human who only has typographic memory.
we should also imagine a different human who only has experiential memory.

both of these men will result with totally disparate interpretations of the same text.

there is no such thing as an "empty" human. i was only saying that in jest.

[Anonymous No.1685312]

>>1685298

k still don't see how socially determined judgments makes reading a mechanical act esp when you're acknowledging that doesn't imply any uniformity thereof

[Anonymous No.1685314]

>>1685305
> we should imagine a human who only has typographic memory.
> we should also imagine a different human who only has experiential memory.

how can you have typographic memory that is not experimental? Isn't reading an experience? Also, how do you mean that the person remembers "typography"? Like they have images of linguistic signs in their heads when they remember something?

[Wildweasal !Gl2oEPzmZc No.1685323]

>>1685314
read "the mysterious flame of queen loana"

[Anonymous No.1685332]

>>1685323
can you please just answer the question i don't have time to read that book.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685335]

>>1685297
>I think you would need a very broad view of the word to include everything that the reader's judgment is a part of
That would be too broad, but that's not my view to begin with. My view is that a text is a system of signs, or that which can be read. Now, the texts I am concerned with in this thread are literary texts, but there are all sorts of texts other than literary texts, there are cultural texts, systems of signs in Fashion (see Barthes) and so on. Many, if not all, are derived.
So a system of signs is not "everything that the reader's judgement is a part of".

>This can be intertwined with culture, but I think there is something more than just simply culture going on there.
Such as? Divine inspiration?

>>1685305
>totally disparate interpretations of the same text.
Of course, because no one interpretation is the exact same as any other because each perspective is unique and situated. That's not what I'm contesting, I'm contesting that those interpretations, whether they differ or not, are constituted by prior texts, and the role of the reader becomes something analogous to a mechanical action facilitating the interplay between these texts.

>still don't see how socially determined judgments makes reading a mechanical act
I guess you have to read my posts or ask me about it then instead of trying to argue against me when you don't even understand my arguments

>you're acknowledging that doesn't imply any uniformity thereof
see my above response to wildweasel

[Anonymous No.1685343]

>>1685335

aight i was hoping you'd clarify but directing me back to your opaque ass argument is cool too, have fun threadshitting d&e

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685347]

>>1685343
I'd be more than happy to clarify anything you consider opaque

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685350]

>>1685267
you should seriously consider buddhism. don't throw away your heart like it's nothing.

[Anonymous No.1685351]

>>1685347

okay how does a reader approaching a text with socially determined judgments "relegate the role of a reader to an actual mechanical process"? isn't it still just as much of an interaction, considering that those judgments will vary from person to person?

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685363]

>>1685351
>how does a reader approaching a text with socially determined judgments "relegate the role of a reader to an actual mechanical process"?
interpretations, whether they differ or not, are constituted by prior texts (cultural, social, historical, etc). Therefore, what an interpretation amounts to in anything beyond the purely mechanical act of reading is an interplay between those texts which constitute the reader's subjectivity.

>isn't it still just as much of an interaction
It is, but it's not the same sort of interaction. The socially determined reader is essentially doing nothing facilitating the interplay of the cultural and social texts that precede him on the text that is interpreted. You cannot say of the reader that he is doing anything more than simply reading, just as you cannot say of a gun used to kill someone any more than that the gun was shooting.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685365]

>>1685363
>shooting
*firing

marginally more appropriate

[Anonymous No.1685369]

>>1685363

ah, far clearer, thank you

supposing though that a reader of text x was the first to read it after reading text y, wouldn't that constitute facilitating a new interplay in some sense?

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685378]

>>1685369
>constitute facilitating a new interplay in some sense?
Sure (it's contestable but I'm not too bothered), but that sense would afford no more importance to the reader than that which I have previously

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685376]

>>1685363
i suppose this will be dubbed textocentrism when people look back in history and say what the fuck was going on back then??

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685382]

>>1685376
>this will be dubbed textocentrism
I little doubt it already is. Although such a dubbing would be the product of textuality to begin with

we are trapped in the belly of the code and the code is signifying itself to death

[Anonymous No.1685383]

>>1685378

oh

[Anonymous No.1685385]

This thread is pure cancer.
Words like "textocentrism" actually exist ? Shit.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685392]

>>1685385
Apparently it's called "linguicentrism"

lol I wonder who got their degree out of that one

[Wildweasal !Gl2oEPzmZc No.1685396]

1) a book that you read
2) a book that is read to you

two completely different interpretations

[Anonymous No.1685397]

>>1685392

The greatest intellectual cancer I've found is the fact that words in -ism spread faster than chlamydia on an American campus.

It's so pretentious it gives me AIDS.

[Anonymous No.1685409]

>>1685084
>eventually the novel will be gone, and future researchers will have to base their knowledge of it on fragments and inconclusive references, the same way we have to study Greek New Comedy.

Not even close.

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685415]

>>1685392
no dummy that's something different.

anyway
>implying all forms of communication and meaning has to be textual
>and a bazillion other general confusions

[Wildweasal !Gl2oEPzmZc No.1685419]

>>1685409
>eventually the novel will be gone
eventually everything dies. are you saying that something will replace it?

[Behemoth !!Twl3DmqEY/B No.1685420]

>/lit/, do you believe there is a crisis in the humanities?
Ehhhh...
>By this I mean somewhat disarmingly to ask whether you think that the state of, say, literature, and the criticism of literature, in the last decade or so, has become stale and fruitless?
If anything the "crisis" is the result of over-flooding which exaggerates attitudes about subjectivity. "Just go get a library card, bro." Quality as a function of subjective taste has become a caricature due to inundation.
But that's an outsider's opinion and a simple one at that (the outsider and the opinion).

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685422]

>>1685419
seriously stop posting in this fucking thread I wasted 5 or 6 good posts mistakenly directed to someone who actually knows what they're talking about instead what I got, which was your clueless ass

[Anonymous No.1685423]

>>1683204

I cannot speak for literature, but metaphysics and philosophy have been suffering for a hundred years, and are now in their death throes. The last real thinker was Martin Heidegger.

Nietzsche's predictions about the death of metaphysics, made at the turn of the century, are coming true all around in us in the form of modern value-positing and indiscriminate relativism. And when metaphysics and philosophy have truly died, we may see a rebirth (Heidegger's Turning) of thought that comes to pass after the great minds of the future realize that modernity has crushed the human spirit and broken the soul. This Turning will not come until we've reached the trough, the great depths of immediacy, complacency, and materialism...

[Wildweasal !Gl2oEPzmZc No.1685425]

>>1685422
>yor a idiot

[Wildweasal !Gl2oEPzmZc No.1685431]

>>1685422
and i would like to add in a separate post,

you completely changed your argument halfway through and both arguments were shut down.

tl;dr you're butt pained

[Anonymous No.1685438]

>>1685422
>You have no right to disagree with my premises. I, and only I, set the terms of the debate.
You can't be serious.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685450]

>>1685425
>>1685431
>>1685438
Whatever dudes

>>1685423
>modernity has crushed the human spirit and broken the soul
Ah, a classic case of mistaking the effect for the cause, as far as I am concerned.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.1685706]

bump

[☿ !Rrxa7zePwI No.1685723]

>>1685423
>Heidegger's Turning
mfw thousands of years of eastern thought is credited to heidegger