/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6518162]

Any english/philosophy majors here? What are you doing right now? Was the major worth it?

[Anonymous No.6519080]

>>6518162
English major.

It.

We'll see.

I love my lit classes, so at least ill be able to say I enjoyed that.

[Anonymous No.6519100]

What english is does. Cat hasn't tones fat cat html.

[Anonymous No.6519108]

English major here, still an undergrad.
All I do is study.
I love my major though, no regrets. I'll probably get a masters then a doctorate and keep studying for the rest of my life and never get a job because in my country you get money to study if you're good, I'll be able to have just enough income to survive. Who needs anything other than books and the occasional trip?

[Anonymous No.6519109]

>>6518162
let me save you a lot of time, anon:
business or STEM. just the fact that you're asking the question means you're set to Humanities your potential down the toilet.

[Anonymous No.6519116]

>>6519108
what country?

[Anonymous No.6519125]

>>6519116
Brazil.
I wanted to get my masters abroad but I don't know which countries would do the same and allow me not to work.

[Anonymous No.6519126]

Dropped out near the end, on welfare now, 10/10 would do again.

[Anonymous No.6519136]

I'm majoring in both, loving it. Will probably just do another degree (in pure mathematics) when I finish though. There are time when I wish the English core units could be a little more focused on the canon but what can ya do

[Anonymous No.6519144]

I have my B.A. in philosophy.

I'm now a sushi chef and cook at a fusion restaurant.

I would say it was worth it because I really had not been acquainted with philosophy/philosophical texts before, and probably wouldn't have been for some time after.

[Anonymous No.6519148]

Majored in classical humanities. Taught English in South Korea, tested video games for a giant Japanese company, started a short-lived production company, worked at a youth hostel overseas, tried to be a writer, backpacked through Asia, then finally used my social network to land a job as an AutoCAD irrigation system designer (they trained me on the job).

It was a long ten years of wandering, but hey, I'm buying my first house in the next few weeks. I'd advise against getting a useless major like I did- yes, I went on all sorts of adventures, but hell I could've done all that without college and ended up in the same place.

[Anonymous No.6519150]

>>6519144
I should add I got that degree for free and was able to work making about 12k a year while doing it.

[Anonymous No.6519175]

Graduated a year ago with an English degree

Unemployed for 7 months, got a job earlier this year doing administrative work and the occasional writing. I live comfortably and debt-free, but I'm with my parents.

I kind of wish I had gotten a degree in something more practical, but I'm not that bitter about my decision. Plus, there is always grad school if I want it.

[Anonymous No.6519179]

Also, post GPAs

3.866

[Anonymous No.6519225]

>>6519179
I am
>>6519144
Graduated with a 2.98 if I remember correctly. Something like a 3.7 in my phil classes, though. Started out with a different major for the first two years and partied way too hard, never went to class or studied, first semester GPA was 2.07, pretty hard to come back from that. Still was accepted to the #20 law school at the time (GPA was 2.79 or something like that when I applied to law schools).

[Anonymous No.6519231]

>>6519225
I also was working about 60 hours a week, including pretty much all day every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so that didn't make things any easier.

[Anonymous No.6519631]

>>6519148
Sounds pretty fun. Was a degree not required to teach English?

[Anonymous No.6519666]

Phil Major.

For me it was certainly worth it. I honestly believe I would have been an edgy life hating fuck for my entire life had my education not sorted me out. And I think I really needed to do philosophy for that to happen.

But to be entirely honest I have not done as much post grad as I could have.

I had originally wanted to go to law school, and could have, but ultimately decided I could not make the commitment at this point in my life for a job I'm almost certain I would hate.

Maybe a few more years of being poor with fix my shit up.

Currently I'm editing for a small publication and sell writing services and essays on the side. This is enough to pay loans and travel a little; which is currently the only thing I care to do.


The one thing I will say about a Phil degree, and maybe this goes for an english degree as well, is that, besides law, you must make your own opportunities. You will learn enough to do many different jobs, but nobody will hand you a job like you might get out of some college courses.


Having parents that might let you bum on the couch for your first year out of school could make the world a difference as well.

That all being said, Phil majors tend to end up in Law, management positions or selling things. Probably all that tangential sophistry you pick up.


It's late and I was out drinking earlier. Sorry if any spelling implies supreme retardation.

[Anonymous No.6519679]

>>6519225
>3.866
If there was somehow a way to auto-ban people who feel the need to post their GPAs on here to boast or their acceptances or attendance of law school, I wish it were put into place. Literature is not about names and numbers that convey status, but rather meaning.

[Anonymous No.6519718]

English Major @ U Chicago

Not writing the novel I should be writing, not doing the reading I should be doing

It's alright I suppose. It's nice that I can read books for class as opposed to doing math. But I don't know how much you can get out of the academic study of literature that an intelligent reader can't get on their own. Also, reading for class trades off with stuff I'm reading for fun, and not all the stuff we read is super riveting.

I regret going to this school too. The workload is pretty atrocious, and I don't have much time to write.

[Anonymous No.6519737]

Phil major, graduated with a BA last year.

Have spent the last year supporting my parents and brother. They were drug addicts and drug dealers and no longer are. Still a lot of problems they have to deal with.

Making decent money as a tutor and a cashier. Will be moving out this fall.

I'm the happiest person I know, I'd say it was worth it. Though, I don't know how much my education at uni is the cause for my happiness.

[Anonymous No.6519741]

>>6518162
Phil major. About to finish my Master's Degree. I was stupid however and didn't pick any practical courses (management, sociology, economy, advertising, medical ethics, etc.) so now I'll just have to impress with muh ontology. I'll probably go for a PhD and try to learn something in yje meantime. I didn't even get my teaching module (or whatever it's called, the course that allows you to teach afterwards). Maybe I can make up for all this in these few years of PhD work.

[Anonymous No.6519753]

I have an undergrad in Philosophy and a postgrad in Creative Writing.

The latter was definitely worth it. I meant, it wasn't worth shit and I everything I got from the degree I could have easily got from free writing workshops and by reading widely and thinking about it critically. But, before the course I barely wrote anything and now I am making a living as a freelance writer and have won a few short story prizes. That wouldn't have happened without the course and before I did it I was working in retail.

Philosophy was worth it - to an extent. It transformed how I interpret the world quite radically and made me a lot more logical. I write quite a bit of copy now and the ability to analyse something and make a convincing argument that sells it has been very useful. There are also quite a lot of job opportunities in various fields of analysis, advertising, law, research and civil service.

I'd just say that degrees don't get you jobs. You get a job. If you know what you want to do and start preparing for it at college and take advantage of the resources and networks the university and department will have they are very useful.

[Anonymous No.6519769]

>>6519753
So the postgrad in creative writing mainly helped you by forcing you to write?

[Anonymous No.6519778]

doubled in political science and philosophy. teacher aide at a high school, will probably go back and do a teaching diploma

money isn't everything, I value what I studied over the mate who did compsci and earns 2x what I do as a programmer, or the mate who did economics and earns 3x me as an analyst for investment bankers

[Anonymous No.6519787]

>>6519769

Pretty much. It gave me a lot of confidence in my writing abilities which I'd never had before. Not that I was the best writer ever or even a particularly gifted one. I just knew I could bust out content quicker than most people and people actually enjoyed reading it.

The course I did was also rather good. It was taught by a few very talented writers and they had a lot of events with publishers and successful writers. You learn quite a lot by having your stuff picked apart and having to pick apart other's work.

I'd also avoided post-modern fiction and never done any literary analysis so I found that stuff pretty useful because now I know that shit is fucking awful, that literary criticism is intellectual fraud and the reason literary fiction is allegedly dead is because the idiots who write it have no interest in telling stories or making the reader feel anything.

In the end though - it was just that it made me write. Quite a lot every week by the way. I had written a short novel by the time I finished.

[Anonymous No.6519794]

>>6518162

Phil Major, beginning to work on an honours thesis so I can graduate with Honours. I'm also in line to graduate with First Class Honours, which is essentially the equivalent to Summa Cum Laude. So by the looks of it I can get into a good grad school and from there I will make my way to teaching Philosophy. I know that I will make mediocre money and first and will have to deal with nepotism, but I really can't imagine not doing Philosophy full time, anything else seems worse than death to me.

[Anonymous No.6519802]

>>6519787
Same guy who asked you the first question here.

Could you please, please, say as much as you could on this?
>I'd also avoided post-modern fiction and never done any literary analysis so I found that stuff pretty useful because now I know that shit is fucking awful, that literary criticism is intellectual fraud and the reason literary fiction is allegedly dead is because the idiots who write it have no interest in telling stories or making the reader feel anything.

I've been reading DFW's short stories as my first read in metafiction/pomod. I don't like it except two short stories so far and I don't know what to make of it, especially since I know nothing about contemporary literature, pomod literature, or the people who enjoy either.

[Anonymous No.6519807]

>>6519794
What specifically do you want to study? Is your thesis related to what you want to study in grad?

[Anonymous No.6519815]

English, philosophy, or creative writing - I can major two out of the three. Which combination would maximise or strike the right balance between economic viability and creative output?

[Anonymous No.6519826]

>>6519802

I actually really love DFW's short stories and his longer ones. His writing is complicated but he tells comprehensible stories - they don't feel like mere play with the literary form that is done at the expense of the reader. A lot of experimental/post-modern stuff feels very masturbatory to me and I feel like I'm on crazy pills when I'm reading it because I don't know why it is getting praise when I'm not entertained and I don't really feel anything because I just read 4 pages without taking a word in.

DFW though writes about real people and he'll make the reader feel something by having actual fucking characters. In my opinion The Depressed Person is one of the best short stories ever written.

[Anonymous No.6519839]

>>6519815
>creative output
Creative writing classes are a waste of time imo - instead of wasting a degree on it, just read a lot, write a lot, show people your work and be prepared to take criticism. As for the other two, its entirely dependent on what kinda position you're looking for. A lot of English graduates I know have gotten jobs as copywriters, but I can't speak for philosophy since I really don't know enough people studying philosophy

[Anonymous No.6519841]

>>6519826
The Depressed Person and Forever Overheard are the two I mentioned before.

Good Old Neon is currently the one I am thinking over, as well as The Soul Is Not A Smithy.

Could you talk about any of these short stories? No one on this damn board ever wants to talk about his specific short stories except for one anon who couldn't fully remember what he thought of Good Old Neon.

For me, his writing so much of the time just seems superfluous. I understand why he does what he does and I appreciate it. A lot of the time it is information that is supposed to be boring and he is actively trying to make this information not boring, while at the same time usually using this information as a red herring for a second plot that will be revealed fully about half way through the story if not later.

But why? There are so many different ways to get across the point "find beauty in the mundane", or to show the mental paralysis that comes with persistent reflection coupled with courageous doubt. The Depressed Person is a great example of this. Shows the process well but for me fizzles as a whole piece. It set up something very well but then didn't take it anywhere. I mean, he didn't really need to spend so much time on showing the guilt cycle the way he did.

[Anonymous No.6519847]

>>6519787
>literary criticism is intellectual fraud

>tfw people call your intellectual pursuit a 'fraud'

If it isn't for you then fair enough, but don't just disregard an entire field simply because you don't have the horrendous amount of preparatory knowledge to make sense of lit theory

Srs that shit is literally like a pick and mix of philosophers from classical antiquity right up to modern day, to the point where I literally have to carry this fucking paving slab to almost all of my seminars

[Anonymous No.6519857]

>>6519807

I'm going to be focusing on Scholastic/Aristotelian Metaphysics and also Contemporary Metaphysics,elucidating the benefits of dialogue between Meideval thought and contemporary thought on metaphysical issues. All my recent term papers have been more or less part of that general project, one was on applying the cosmological argument to a critique of an infinity of supervenience levels, and the other was on different perceptions of time and the problem of divine prescience and free will, where I unite the theological/metaphysical thought of both Duns Scotus and Boethius with contemporary metaphysics based on relativistic physics to show how free will could operate in a 4-dimensional block universe, and how we can make sense of Boethius' answer to the problem of divine prescience and free will. I will also have Philosophy of Religion, 17th Century Rationalism and Political Philosophy as some subjects that will be a minor focus. I'm writing my Honours Thesis on Causation specifically, following the general program I outlined above.

[Anonymous No.6519860]

>>6519847
I don't think your points really justify what you are saying, no offense.

The selection you could be choosing from could be a poor one, and the interpretation could be poor as well.

As a philosophy major I never got along with lit crit majors as well as English majors that were more aligned with lit crit. They didn't seem to understand the canon in a very weird way, like reading Sartre without understanding Heidegger, or reading Heidegger without understanding Aristotle.

No offense really. It's just a curiosity to me. Also I am not the anon you are replying to.

[Anonymous No.6519863]

>>6519857
Any chance you've read Heidegger?

[Anonymous No.6519895]

>>6519666
>Phil majors tend to end up in Law,management positions or selling things
I'm planning to study philosophy. Obviously not doing it because I would have so much work opportunities but because I'd enjoy it. But ending up using my degree to manipulate people would be both depressing and ironic.

[Anonymous No.6519902]

>>6519847

Well obviously I am being a bit facetious but I stand by what I said. People in literary criticism still look to Freud and Plato. Not neo-Platonists but actual fucking Plato. Coming from the analytic tradition I read people like Barthes and Lukacs and I'm just like "WTF is this bullshit?" and I feel embarrassed when I have to even engage with it at all when it's so icky.

The constant desire to interpret everything in terms of gender and identity is ridiculous and you read papers where people with a childish understanding of economics argue that a novel is commenting on late capitalism or whatever.

Literary criticism takes thinkers from a whole range of fields, fails to understand them and then puts those ideas into an interpretation of fiction to create an argument that nobody outside of a very narrow field has any interest in. It's all fucking sophistry and nobody can create real arguments because it's all this post-structural-Marxist bollocks where nobody can be wrong. My final essay for my MA from a prestigious University got a really good grade but I could have very easily argued the opposite using the same evidence. I didn't even make a real argument from the texts. I just made an argument then I flicked through a novel and found some passages that vaguely fit my argument and "close read" them until they made it.

Now I don't think all literary criticism is bad - when it is dealing directly with literature and not using a bunch of weak philosophy to make intellectually dull and pointless arguments it can be quite good.

[Anonymous No.6519905]

>>6519860
>The selection you could be choosing from could be a poor one, and the interpretation could be poor as well.
Of course it COULD be - but it's pretty unreasonable to suggest an academic field could've gotten this far if its theoretical foundation was based off an arbitrary list of philosophers with no real underlying development from one to another. I can definitely agree that they take a very alternative look at the history of philosophy as well as the history of the lit canon, but it's not a case of misunderstanding it. Much of philosophy gears itself towards the experience of subject privilege, whereas theory is (if you want a huge oversimplification) the process of decentralising it within textual analysis so that texts don't become meaningless as post-structuralism threatened, but meaningful-in-flux, which necessarily requires a complete rethinking of philosophical development. A contemporary critical article might seem to many like obscurantist gibberish, but in reality its a very diverse and complicated interweaving of various schools of thought, which naturally results in its jargon-heavy reading.

[Anonymous No.6519914]

>>6519895

Don't worry, by the end of your degree you will have gotten rid of all that juvenile liberalism, and will be able to guide people to live lives much better than they would have left to their own devices.

Its a benevolent manipulation.

[Anonymous No.6519922]

>>6519863

I've read his essay on Humanism and have done some secondary literature on him, but nothing too serious. Interesting stuff, though it's not my favorite kind of Philosophy.

[Anonymous No.6519927]

>>6519857

>on relativistic physics to show how free will could operate in a 4-dimensional block universe

That's literally the least compatible view with libertarian free will.

[Anonymous No.6519932]

>>6519905
>Of course it COULD be - but it's pretty unreasonable to suggest an academic field could've gotten this far if its theoretical foundation was based off an arbitrary list of philosophers with no real underlying development from one to another.

It isn't unreasonable, it is reasonable. The fact alone that something has survived long enough isn't sufficient enough.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean to offend or to just fuck with you. I just mean, I mean really, look at the argument you made. Why the hell that argument? I'm sure there is a variety of arguments to justify lit crit in a very simple and brief way that would fit in a /lit/ context like this, but instead you say it would be unreasonable to not just accept something because it has survived long enough? Not only that, but this tradition is based off philosophy, the very place where the trite and assumed are questioned as a reflex? Come on.

I also don't like the jargon point. I've ready some decent philosophy and with any argument worth its weight, there is always a way to summarize and to make accessible the argument.

[Anonymous No.6519941]

>>6519922
From what you said you might like Being and Time.

[Anonymous No.6519942]

>>6519927

That's why I had to bring Scotus in to explain how to make it work when it prima facie obviously does'nt. That was what made the paper interesting.

[Anonymous No.6519946]

>>6519902
>People in literary criticism still look to Freud and Plato.
Freud might've been pretty wrong a lot of things, but the way literary academics read Freud is almost definitely not the way Freud himself intended people to read him. As for Plato, I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from - as far as I'm aware he holds a pretty minimal role.

>The constant desire to interpret everything in terms of gender and identity is ridiculous
I agree that the field is oversaturated with critics who are there simply to push agendas, but like I said earlier, a big part of lit crit is the decentralisation of the subject - it's a long-overdue response to Hegel from the side of the bondsman.

>nobody can create real arguments because it's all this post-structural-Marxist bollocks where nobody can be wrong.
this is just wilful ignorance, no one ever claimed that you can't be wrong, for an essay to be accepted it still requires a huge amount of textual evidence and support to back it up. If you think its all bollocks that's simply because the kind of evidence which is derived from literary analysis is very different to 'empirical' evidence or data derived from the natural sciences, because language, regardless of how it works in the brain, is a phenomenological observation and something that requires an alternative view of the history of philosophy.

>I didn't even make a real argument from the texts. I just made an argument then I flicked through a novel and found some passages that vaguely fit my argument and "close read" them until they made it.
Why should that invalidate your criticism in any way? Isn't that just the equivalent of testing a hypothesis?

[Anonymous No.6519965]

>>6519932
>philosophy, the very place where the trite and assumed are questioned as a reflex
>there is always a way to summarize and to make accessible the argument.

Can't you see the contradiction here? In order to summarise and be 'accessible' one has to play into the realm of the reader's assumed knowledge, which itself is a deceptive act of sophistry. The reason why lit theory is so jam packed with jargon is because the pre-exisiting philosophical language makes presuppositions which cannot and shouldn't be made in regards to texts. It doesn't mean that those presuppositions are necessarily wrong, just that they aren't relevant and can result in a misreading or the obscuration of another reading.

>I just mean, I mean really, look at the argument you made.
You're putting far too much weight on that first sentence, it was supposed to be just a little introductory line which fed into my main point about the subject privilege pervading the history of philosophy and the necessary thumbing-of-the-nose on the part of lit crit in order to form itself as a valid enquiry.

[Anonymous No.6519969]

>>6519946

>this is just wilful ignorance, no one ever claimed that you can't be wrong,

That's true (both that I am ignorant and nobody said that) but my point is that you can basically make any argument you want and then manufacture the evidence to back it up and due to the nature of a lot of thinking in literary criticism you can kind of argue whatever the hell you want about anything. I do agree that I dislike it because it doesn't meet the same kind of rigor as natural science or analytic philosophy.

>Why should that invalidate your criticism in any way? Isn't that just the equivalent of testing a hypothesis?

It invalidates my argument because my evidence was made up and I could have easily argued the opposite. It wasn't based on a logical argument or fact. It was just sheer invention on my part. I'm not testing a hypothesis - I'm making up evidence to prove a theory I just pulled out of my ass.

[Anonymous No.6519970]

>>6519941

Yeah, I've heard allot about it. One day I'll definitely do at least my own serious reading of it.

[Anonymous No.6519985]

I can straight up knock out an English degree at my school within two semesters, thinking about supplementing it with a Marketing Degree.

[Anonymous No.6519995]

>>6519942
I'm not familiar with most of the things and authors you mentioned, but I am curious about it and it does sound interesting., could you give me a basic explanation of what Duns Scotus' argument is?

[Anonymous No.6519999]

>>6519965
The more and more you talk the more and more you sound like the caricature in my head.

You have to always "play into the realm of the reader's assumed knowledge" when communicating with another human being. There is no escape from that I can't believe you even tried to make that a point. Come on.

Heidegger creating new words like Dasein is not inconsistent with him using preexisting words to describe what the new word Dasein means.

By the way, the reason Heidegger did it is because he had a legitimate problem with language in regards to metaphysics versus ontology. You have to make your case for that sort of thing, which he did tediously in his work before he even allowed himself to begin his project.

This does not justify some general rule that you seem to be pointing to.

>You're putting far too much weight on that first sentence
I really am not. That sentence is outlandish, and the rest of what you are saying I just went over.

Honestly it is like this weird thing of 1950's forward continental philosophy being perverted and then being incorporated into other fields.

>>6519970
If you do read it I hope you enjoy it. Good luck on your work, sounds fun.

[Anonymous No.6520043]

>>6518162
Double majored in Philosophy and CS.
The combination gives me good job prospects (CS) and makes me stand out as a more well rounded character (Philosophy).

Cannot tell if it is useful in practice, as I am now continuing with a MSc in ISM and an MA in Social Anthropology at the same university, more or less parallel.

Not sure where I'll end up. I'd be interested in strategic marketing management. I think this is the most closest "practical" activity to my private research interests.

[Anonymous No.6520734]

>>6519969
>It wasn't based on a logical argument or fact. It was just sheer invention on my part. I'm not testing a hypothesis - I'm making up evidence to prove a theory I just pulled out of my ass.
Practical New Criticism and beyond has always derived from interpretation, which has been fundamental to gaining some insight into the functioning of texts. Interpretation does include making up clever semantic bullshit, because that bullshit is still, to an extent, a response that can be validated and peer-reviewed regardless of whatever nonsense you were aiming it to be. Why should it matter if they see something in it better than you do if the entire field is based on interpretation and not vocalisation of intent?

>>6519999
>Heidegger creating new words like Dasein is not inconsistent with him using preexisting words to describe what the new word Dasein means
Where did I ever suggest otherwise? I meant that, in the natural evolution of language, particular phrases and cultural appropriations spread across an uncountable number of discourses, gaining a certain notoriety as they do; they can express in themselves a certain truth or a notable flaw in an element of philosophical thought which is considered inadequate in response to the self-perpetuating multiplicity of language. It becomes a constant manoeuvre through landmines of phrasing and self-expression, we only have to look to DFW for that. Dismissing pre-existing thought is ludicrous, but it would be a mistake if we failed to avoid the traps laid by more manipulative discourses, by spooks if you're one of the stirnerists all over the board.

>metaphysics versus ontology
but literarcy criticism identifies itself, to a certain extent, as that 'versus'; it posits that the only possible distinction between the two can be formed in language, because we can only be aware of either from the diverse and interweaving discourses across history, providing us with their signification.

>Honestly it is like this weird thing of 1950's forward continental philosophy being perverted and then being incorporated into other fields.
funny that you chose to separate 'perverted' from 'incorporated' because you know that it is some pretty bad cognitive dissonance to say that they are somehow the same thing.

[Anonymous No.6521466]

>>6519125
If you're good enough, you can find funded masters and doctorates in the US.

[Anonymous No.6521618]

I replied to this question in a similar thread months ago and got flamed. But I have a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing and I'm now CEO of a modestly sized charity. Both degrees were definitely good for my career. The MA in particular led me to teach creative writing as a volunteer to people with disabilities. That was my first step on the ladder in the "third sector"

[Anonymous No.6521666]

>>6519946
>textual evidence and support
You are aware that you can find citations for any position no matter how riddiculous because the peer review system has long been undermined, right?

[Anonymous No.6522198]

>>6521666
undermined how exactly? you're suggesting that peer review is something inherent in critical studies, whereas it extends to the natural sciences as a standard academic practise.

>“Into this wild Abyss
> The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--
>Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
>But all these in their pregnant causes mixed
>Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight
>Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain
>His dark materials to create more worlds,--
>Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend
>Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,
>Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith
>He had to cross."

>tfw stan trips

[Anonymous No.6523922]

>>6520734
>Where did I ever suggest otherwise?

>The reason why lit theory is so jam packed with jargon is because the pre-exisiting philosophical language makes presuppositions which cannot and shouldn't be made in regards to texts.

That is not a sufficient reason for why they should have jargon. You have to make your case for creating new jargon, hence my example with Heidegger. He didn't throw out all of the jargon of philosophy that came before him, and he is the one who created the very concepts of phenomenology that you keep referring to.

> I meant that, in the natural evolution of language, particular phrases and cultural appropriations spread across an uncountable number of discourses, gaining a certain notoriety as they do; they can express in themselves a certain truth or a notable flaw in an element of philosophical thought which is considered inadequate in response to the self-perpetuating multiplicity of language.

Could you say anything more trite? Yes, new words need to be made as things advance.

My original point is that the jargon can be moved past and any argument worth its weight can be summarized and made accessible.

You said that this was somehow a contradiction because I was assuming my reader's knowledge, a moot point since that must necessarily be done when writing anything other than a journal entry.

You then defend lit crit's jargon by saying that new words need to be made.What a joke. This blanket defense does not defend any and all new jargon created. It allows for new jargon to make its case for its existence and utility, and this defense is so trite it is beyond bewildering why you would bring it up since no one is arguing that new words can't be created.

>we only have to look to DFW for that.

His fiction is not philosophy of language. Stop it.

>but literarcy criticism identifies itself, to a certain extent, as that 'versus

You're a damn sophist aren't you? My point about bringing up Heidegger's ontology was to make a case point. He created jargon because he felt he needed to in order to speak about metaphysics in a new way.

The relevant part of that example is that he made a defense for it. Since you've mentioned phenomenology, I'll assume you've read Being and Time and then know what great lengths Heidegger went to prove that his new jargon was not only relevant but necessary for his project. If his project failed then it failed, but in order to pull of the project he needed new words.

That, is not some mystical first time Heidegger thing. It happens everywhere all the time. Aristotle did it. Kant did it. Descartes did it. etc.

You then saying lit crit is this versus is just...what the fuck even man? Everything that is trying to move forward in academia is that versus do you really need to prove that lit crit is doing the bare minimum? The point is to move past this and then make your case for each piece of jargon.

>funny that-
You're not fooling anyone

[Anonymous No.6524432]

>>6523922
>trite trite trite trite
you seem a little flustered.

>You said that this was somehow a contradiction because I was assuming my reader's knowledge, a moot point since that must necessarily be done when writing anything other than a journal entry.
Demanding summaries from literary academics is an exercise in futility, and its right that it should be that way. You just don't appear to be paying attention to anything I'm saying.

The alternative interpretation of the history of philosophical thought posited by the new criticism isn't wrong, just different, and works off a very light-footed route in order to avoid the traps laid by more malicious discourses which hide in presumed knowledge. Again, I'm not making any claims as to the validity of those presuppositions. I'm simply saying that they carry a lot of linguistic baggage when it comes to their application in criticism, and as such it makes it incredibly difficult to work around without intersectional vocabulary or even newly constructed terms.

>It allows for new jargon to make its case for its existence and utility
Which any academic with half a brain does so with an extraordinary amount of precision and careful tracing of its usage, something you'd know if you'd actually attempt some reading.

>this defense is so trite it is beyond bewildering why you would bring it up since no one is arguing that new words can't be created.
Again, I'm working off a very different set of presuppositions to you, because as I said earlier, new criticism is the decentralisation of the subject, the dethroning of the master, or the reply of the bondsman all at once which has never properly been addressed throughout the history of philosophy until new criticism. Attempting to trace said presuppositions would be ludicrous, but I could certainly point you in the direction of helpful reading material to get started.

>His fiction is not philosophy of language.
He's an essay writer as well you tit

>You then saying lit crit is this versus is just...what the fuck even man?
I think you failed to notice the 'to an extent'; it would be unreasonable to suggest that the verses is occupied totally by lit crit. Instead, the intersectionality of contemporary academia is tracing how that 'verses' functions, which grew out of the literary studies of the latter half of the 20th century. See what I mean? I can't even use the term 'lit crit' anymore because its reach has spread across so many boundaries and into so many other fields. Who'd have known that certain phrases could be rendered inadequate by radical developments in academic thought?

>You're not fooling anyone
I offer a valid response to your ridiculous condemnation of the 'incorporations' of continental philosophy, and you childishly swat it away. You're only further proving my point about your cognitive dissonance, except this time you can't even sustain yourself to hear an alternative view. You could almost say you're subject privileged

[Anonymous No.6524436]

>>6519108
>who needs anything other than books and the occasional trip
Jesus Christ you poor manchild

[Anonymous No.6524455]

>>6519778
Why does this board have a need to constantly compare themselves to those in well off jobs?

[Anonymous No.6524462]

>>6519787
What school did you attend for this? Curious about the curriculum

[Anonymous No.6524471]

>>6519847
Honest question, why do you want to be a literary critic?

[Anonymous No.6524484]

>>6521618
Sounds pretty cool dude. Why'd you get flamed?

[Anonymous No.6524488]

Italian guy here, I love philosophy and I'm planning to follow some philosophy classes and study it by myself, while taking an International Studies degree. I always thought I could be able to learn it on my own, does taking a philosophy course and degree make that much of a difference?

[Anonymous No.6524492]

>>6524471
Partially because being paid to read and write sounds like an ideal job (disregarding all the bureaucratic nonsense), but mostly because I find the theory of language/semiotic systems/texts utterly fascinating. I sometimes wonder the phenomenological experience of consciousness can only be indebted to them, that we are only capable of cognitive thought through our entrance into the sign, which if it were true (unlikely as it is) it would flip the whole notion of what it means to be human on its head. It's both scary and awe-inspiring to think of just what is at stake when we talk about language and literature.

[Anonymous No.6524510]

>>6524492
did you find out this passion for semiotic in college or did you have it before?

[Anonymous No.6524530]

>>6524510
Up until I was around 16-17 I just read a lot of fiction, and I was pretty great at straightforward, formal language analysis, but then my A-level teacher gave me Bloom's anxiety of influence and Eagleton's introduction to literary theory and it just sorta went from there. I'm 19 now and coming towards the end of my freshman year, but I can definitely say that the course contributed a lot to my interests, we did a hell of a lot on post-war criticism right up to contemporary, post-modern practises.

[Anonymous No.6524535]

>>6524488
Look if you want to make philosophy your life then doing it at university is worth it, there is a certain depth available through that option that is just not really feasible on your own, especially if you go postgrad. However, if you read widely and pay attention to secondary sources you can still get the bulk out of philosophy while studying something else perhaps more practical.

If you have the option to take some classes definitely go for it, I studied on my own before I studied it officially and I was surprised at how much I learnt, how much more there was to everything and so forth

[Anonymous No.6524537]

>>6524432
>you seem a little flustered.
Truly embarrassing. Please stop doing this sort of thing. It isn't impressive.

>Demanding summaries from literary academics is an exercise in futility, and its right that it should be that way.

Really? Then why is that such a necessity in many philosophy departments? To learn how to be concise and sufficient?

>You just don't appear to be paying attention to anything I'm saying.
Likewise. I'm making this comment after reading the rest of your reply and you don't seem to be taking in my point about making a defense for each, concrete, specific, piece of jargon. You seem to think I am against all lit crit jargon. Let's go back to my very first response to your jargon point.
>I also don't like the jargon point. I've ready some decent philosophy and with any argument worth its weight, there is always a way to summarize and to make accessible the argument.

> I'm simply saying that they carry a lot of linguistic baggage when it comes to their application in criticism, and as such it makes it incredibly difficult to work around without intersectional vocabulary or even newly constructed terms.

And again, that is obvious and not what the argument is about. Again, I am saying that each piece of jargon should be taken case by case.

>Which any academic with half a brain does so with an extraordinary amount of precision and careful tracing of its usage, something you'd know if you'd actually attempt some reading.

The above point, yet again.

>He's an essay writer as well you tit
And it's my personal opinion that those essays aren't relevant here. You might think so but I don't.

>I think you failed to notice the 'to an extent'; it would be unreasonable to suggest that the verses is occupied totally by lit crit.
What? What? That was not what I said. I didn't say that at all, I didn't even imply that. In fact I said the very exact opposite of what you just said in the very next sentence.
> Everything that is trying to move forward in academia is that versus do you really need to prove that lit crit is doing the bare minimum? The point is to move past this and then make your case for each piece of jargon.

>I offer a valid response to your-
My "you're not fooling anyone" was specifically in response to your embarrassing assumption about my supposed cognitive dissonance. You assume so much in that one sentence and with such self-fawning that the only way to respond to it without vomiting was to simply not play this silly, lame, and cringe-worthy game you have going by skipping it and just saying what I think.

You think that it is incorrect that your field actually perverted continental philosophy, or that the philosophers you are referring to perverted past philosophers, as I think Sartre did with Heidegger.

That is fine, that is a position worth defending and one worth engaging with. I disagree and we could talk about it.

But this passive-aggressive game you have, man. It's just weird.

[Anonymous No.6524544]

>>6524492
>>6524530
That isn't true. Spatial reasoning doesn't require the sign.

[Anonymous No.6524548]

>>6524535
This makes sense, I don't think I'm ready to commit my life to philosophy, but I will continue to study it on my own and take some classes. Thank you kindly.

[Anonymous No.6524570]

Norway here.

Finishing my MA in Japanese studies with an undergrad in sociology and pedagogy.

Going to do another year of pedagogy and then get into teaching.

Long term goal is to work in education, like dep. of education, etc.

[Anonymous No.6524582]

The only good people who graduate with Philosophy degrees are ones who actually stay in Philosophy and not go to shitty Law.

>Studying the love of Wisdom for money and not the sake of it.

[Anonymous No.6524594]

>>6524537
>Again, I am saying that each piece of jargon should be taken case by case.
But literary theorists do exactly that, my god, Deleuze and Guttari's 'anti-oedipus' is one notable example is where an entire book is written around the foundation of a single phrase which completely subverts one of the holy trinities of analysis, mummy-daddy-me. Criticism is indefinitely self-perpetuating, revised and reworked into other materials and even other fields - the jargon is either meticulously examined and broken down by the academic, or the reader will have to use basic literary analysis with respect to other fields and its current context in order to divulge what its usage is. It isn't as difficult to grasp as many assume, because most people are profoundly skeptical about bringing critical analysis into philosophical enquiry that the jargon is rendered incomprehensible.

>That was not what I said.
No, I was clarifying that I myself didn't suggest that the verses is occupied entirely by literary criticism, hence the 'to an extent'.

>That is fine, that is a position worth defending and one worth engaging with. I disagree and we could talk about it.
An argument about the validity of literary criticism - a practice founded on individual interpretation - has come down to subjective differences. WHO KNEW

>But this passive-aggressive game you have, man. It's just weird.
It's not passive-aggressive to be accommodating. I'm an intersectional analyst, I believe that true enquiry is not necessarily a process of following one set of firmly held presuppositions, but of deriving individualised meaning from a sequence of points plotted along the innumerable multiplicities of thought which we have gained from the modern world. I won't attempt to make any claim as to the validity of your presuppositions, it just irks me when people fail to take in the potential value of any exertions of the intellect.

[Anonymous No.6524600]

>>6524537
BTFO

[Anonymous No.6524604]

>>6519718
>I regret going to this school too.
Don't. It will pay off in the end. It's probably the most academically serious school in the country, if not the world.

[Anonymous No.6524609]

>>6524544
Of course it does, at least, in a practical application from a phenomenological perspective. We duck when we walk through a doorway which is shorter than us because the height of our view in relation to the doorway arch signifies us as to whether we can pass through without banging our head. Spatial reasoning doesn't signify to us the purpose or reason behind why the arrangement of physical objects before us is the way that it is, but the sign of 'space', when contextualised as a doorway for example, does.

[Anonymous No.6524643]

>>6524594
>But literary theorists do exactly that
Great, that would have been something to bring up when I mentioned Heidegger, especially Deleuze. Instead you went on about how language evolves which really was a point that didn't need to be made.

>No, I was clarifying that I myself didn't suggest that the verses is occupied entirely by literary criticism, hence the 'to an extent'.
Right, and I am saying, that I never suggested that you said that. I don't know where you got that idea from.

>An argument about the validity of literary criticism - a practice founded on individual interpretation - has come down to subjective differences. WHO KNEW
You are really reaching here. You have made up a series of points that didn't need to be made, confused yourself about what I said making you think I was in disagreement with you, and then when I calmed you down to show you we were never in disagreement, you then make some offhand comment.

>It's not passive-aggressive to be accommodating.
You were being passive-aggressive, not accommodating. Stop rewriting the history that is a mouse-wheel scroll away.

Look guy, you are severely confused about what has been going on here.

Some other anon made a point that he didn't like lit crit. I jumped in and said the same, and pointed out I didn't want to be offensive but that lit crit majors seem to misunderstand the canon of philosophy. Reason being, I think, they don't study philosophy and so don't understand the conversation. Again, reading Sartre before Heidegger and Aristotle. It's anecdotal. Big woop.

You then made some points that were bizarre.

That it is unreasonable to question a tradition if it has survived long enough.

Again, it is perfectly reasonable to question this.

You also assumed that the other anon was dismissing the tradition simply because "you don't have the horrendous amount of preparatory knowledge to make sense of lit theory". That is an assumption. You two would need an actual conversation to figure that out.

You make vague comments, like "much of philosophy gears itself towards the experience of subject privilege". So now you know the entire canon of philosophy and can make such comments? Not to mention vague ones. Great.

Then I say this.
>I also don't like the jargon point. I've ready some decent philosophy and with any argument worth its weight, there is always a way to summarize and to make accessible the argument.
You then confuse this point multiple times.

>In order to summarise and be 'accessible' one has to play into the realm of the reader's assumed knowledge, which itself is a deceptive act of sophistry.
Nonsense, it is a necessary limit with human communication and you know it. Lit crit and any other field will hit this wall. A moot point.

Continued..

[Anonymous No.6524651]

Studying history & philosophy.

Nothing, it's summer. Just bought a bunch of Platonic dialogues that I'm planning on getting deep into this summer.

We'll see, I'm not sure what I want to do with it. I don't want to go into academia, if I do I'll end up miserable.

[Anonymous No.6524666]

>>6524643
I won't go into the other variations of how you confused my point about jargon because it's just the same thing over and over.

But then after I tell you the ump-teenth time you then, somehow, respond to this in a self-congratulatory way.
>WHO KNEW

You seem confused and should really not knee-jerk these responses. You consistently kept thinking I was making hostile points about lit crit jargon when I never did. I was just opening up to hear about lit crit jargon, since you know, a lot of philosophy is about picking apart words, which is probably yet another reason why your explanations about lit crit have made we respond with "and?"

It is nothing new until you start giving me something to work with.

>>6524609
You need to clarify what you mean by sign. In linguistics, which is relevant to phenomenology in the way we are talking about (Ponty, the bodily versus the mental, Heidegger, Searle, etc), sign doesn't mean what you are saying.

[Anonymous No.6524668]

>>6524582
Stop making /lit/ look so insecure about their life choices

[Anonymous No.6524766]

>>6524643
>Right, and I am saying, that I never suggested that you said that
who said that he said he was talking about someone who never suggested what he was trying to explicate from this person whom himself doesn't know it? I feel like we're going in circles.

>>6524643
>Great, that would have been something to bring up when I mentioned Heidegger, especially Deleuze
It was a point I'd been making the entire time, but as I have said multiple times, critical discourse is like walking through a minefield. I apologies if I've been a little convoluted, but that's only because an argument of intersectionality necessitates detours. I don't want to refer back to Deleuze too often, but the rhizome is for my enquiry what logic is to the analytics.

>lit crit majors seem to misunderstand the canon of philosophy. Reason being, I think, they don't study philosophy and so don't understand the conversation
Precisely, and my disagreement stemmed for the most part from what appears to you as a 'misunderstanding', but appears to me as merely an alternative interpretation.

>That is an assumption. You two would need an actual conversation to figure that out.
True, and I'll concede that it came out a lot more unintentionally confrontational than I had intended. Really it was nothing more than an acknowledgement of difficulty on both sides, myself on the one hand, and the other poster on the other who even claimed had never done literary analysis before.

>You make vague comments, like "much of philosophy gears itself towards the experience of subject privilege".
Precisely! Attempts to simplify in literary academia just results in a messy vagueness which hinders more than it helps. In that instance I was talking about the master-slave dialectic, at least, approaching it in relation to derrida's centre outside of the cirlce, but in boiling it down to a sentence I'm left with something entirely unusable.

>Nonsense, it is a necessary limit with human communication and you know it.
It isn't nonsense if I believe any form of coercion, semantic or non-semantic, is the deceptive sophistry inherent in any semiotic system. That doesn't invalidate the fundamental argument I can ascertain for myself, because I can still assess through analysis whether or not it holds up. It's kinda like the spookbusting of lit crit for me.

>>6524666
>(Ponty, the bodily versus the mental, Heidegger, Searle, etc), sign doesn't mean what you are saying.
That's because I use 'sign' in regards to its post-structuralist conception stemming from Saussure into Derrida, Lacan and Deleuze, although the sign is (once again) a pretty inadequate term for contemporary intersectional enquiry. Interesting that you should cite Searle though:
>'In the early 1970s, Searle had a brief exchange with Jacques Derrida regarding speech-act theory. The exchange was characterized by a degree of mutual hostility between the philosophers, each of whom accused the other of having misunderstood his basic points'.

[Anonymous No.6524784]

>>6518162
>Any english/philosophy majors here?
Reporting in
>What are you doing right now?
Working at Fat Joe's Bar and Grill
>Was the major worth it?
Damn straight; I went straight in as a deputy manager and skipped the entire bottom rung of the corporate hierarchical ladder.

[Anonymous No.6524789]

>>6524594
>>6524537
Just stop. You're both autistic

>>6524537
>>6524600
Samefag

[Anonymous No.6524858]

>>6524766
>who said that he said he was talking about someone who never suggested what he was trying to explicate from this person whom himself doesn't know it? I feel like we're going in circles.
I understand perfectly what happened. You can literally just read the above posts. There is nothing confusing about it.

>but that's only because an argument of intersectionality necessitates detours.
How do you not find this disingenuous? Utterly disingenuous? To knowingly be having a conversation with someone who has said, clearly, "hey what is this about? Heard just a bit about this but not much", and to go about the conversation in some way that is NOT used in if not 99.999repeating% of other conversations (if not this, close enough to it), and not somehow mention this to the other in the conversation? To not immediately know to do this given it is your field. To only bring this up once damage control and apologies are brought up?

>Precisely, and my disagreement stemmed for the most part from what appears to you as a 'misunderstanding', but appears to me as merely an alternative interpretation.
Again, this is bankrupt.

You never brought this up.

You never defended this process.

You never explained this process. Utter fraud.

>Attempts to simplify in literary academia just results in a messy vagueness which hinders more than it helps.

"You" are not academia. "Your" vagueness is not everyone elses. This is shameless now. You cannot even take responsibility for yourself.

How can you possibly argue that you know all possible occurrences of simplification that go on within academia (you can't) and that what you have done is completely equivalent (it isn't)

> if I believe any form of coercion, semantic or non-semantic, is the deceptive sophistry inherent in any semiotic system.

Vapid and moot. You pretty up the limit in whatever jargon you want with out adding anything. You are being contrarian for mere appearances.

>That's because I use 'sign' in regards to its post-structuralist conception
Why is why I said
>You need to clarify what you mean by sign

Why is what any freshmen in any major will know how to do.

You are a fraud and you do not know it. I feel to horribly sorry for you. Do not reply to this, it is depressing.

>>6524789
The BTFO wasn't me.

[Anonymous No.6524871]

>>6524766
>who said that he said he was talking about someone who never suggested what he was trying to explicate from this person whom himself doesn't know it? I feel like we're going in circles.
I understand perfectly what happened. You can literally just read the above posts. There is nothing confusing about it.

>but that's only because an argument of intersectionality necessitates detours.
How do you not find this disingenuous? Utterly disingenuous? To knowingly be having a conversation with someone who has said, clearly, "hey what is this about? Heard just a bit about this but not much", and to go about the conversation in some way that is NOT used in if not 99.999repeating% of other conversations (if not this, close enough to it), and not somehow mention this to the other in the conversation? To not immediately know to do this given it is your field. To only bring this up once damage control and apologies are brought up?

>Precisely, and my disagreement stemmed for the most part from what appears to you as a 'misunderstanding', but appears to me as merely an alternative interpretation.
Again, this is bankrupt.

You never brought this up.

You never defended this process.

You never explained this process. Utter fraud.

>Attempts to simplify in literary academia just results in a messy vagueness which hinders more than it helps.

"You" are not academia. "Your" vagueness is not everyone elses. This is shameless now. You cannot even take responsibility for yourself.

How can you possibly argue that you know all possible occurrences of simplification that go on within academia (you can't) and that what you have done is completely equivalent (it isn't)

> if I believe any form of coercion, semantic or non-semantic, is the deceptive sophistry inherent in any semiotic system.

Vapid and moot. You pretty up the limit in whatever jargon you want with out adding anything. You are being contrarian for mere appearances.

>That's because I use 'sign' in regards to its post-structuralist conception
Which is why I said
>You need to clarify what you mean by sign

Which is what any freshmen in any major will know how to do.

You are a fraud and you do not know it. I feel to horribly sorry for you. Do not reply to this, it is depressing.

>>6524789
The BTFO wasn't me.

[Anonymous No.6524919]

>>6519787
>I'd also avoided post-modern fiction and never done any literary analysis so I found that stuff pretty useful because now I know that shit is fucking awful, that literary criticism is intellectual fraud and the reason literary fiction is allegedly dead is because the idiots who write it have no interest in telling stories or making the reader feel anything.
?

[Anonymous No.6525149]

>>6524871
>not somehow mention this to the other in the conversation? To not immediately know to do this given it is your field. To only bring this up once damage control and apologies are brought up?
I have no obligation to you to say in advance: 'I am a critical theorist, therefore I will be writing with extensive terminology in a noticeably modern mode'. That's what all literary theorists from post-structuralism onwards did; wrote around subjects, never faced the thing-in-itself because beyond its empiricism it was riddled with uncertainty. Besides, I was referring to my conversations with you, not that anon, my first post as I have already stated was non-accusatory and attempting (in my own moderately autistic way) to be conversational.
that's what all literary theorists from post-structuralism onwards did; wrote around subjects, never faced the thing-in-itself because beyond its empiricism it was riddled with the uncertainty of differance. Post-modern confusion is an academic response as well as a cultural and political one.

>Utter fraud.
See >>6519946
Apologies, I assumed you responded to this one, which is also probably why my argument has been a little disjointed

>How can you possibly argue that you know all possible occurrences of simplification that go on within academia (you can't) and that what you have done is completely equivalent (it isn't)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2j578jTBCY

I can't say my approach has been impeccable, but it's ludicrous if you don't think massively influential schools of thought have taught a similar skepticism in simplification. I even offered a parallel to Stirner which you've conveniently skipped over. You can call me a fraud but ultimately you're being just as evasive as I am.

>clarify what you mean by sign
the sign, in traditional structuralist terms, is the model of language in which a sign (word) is divided into signifier (sound image, 'cat') and signified (the concept experienced in the mind upon hearing 'cat'). However post-structuralism introduced an uncertainty to the static attainability of the signified, as in placing a sequence of signs along a temporal axis meaning is continually deferred away from being signified.

[Anonymous No.6525159]

>>6525149
The repeat was accidental, not a revolutionary post-modern attempt at discussion, don't worry :^)

[Anonymous No.6525168]

English degree.

Working grocery retail.

I'm okay being a member of the working poor for the rest of my life if it means I can appreciate literature on a deeper level than I did as a high schooler.

[Anonymous No.6525189]

>>6525168
hilarious

[Anonymous No.6525224]

>>6525168
I howled with laughter

[Anonymous No.6525277]

>>6525168
you needed a degree to appreciate 'literature' on a deeper level ?

[Anonymous No.6525302]

>>6525277
he has to justify going into massive debt for that degree somehow. lmao.

[Anonymous No.6525329]

>>6519144
>>6525168
le stoic philosophy/literature guy who reads for himself and doesn't afraid of anything

[Anonymous No.6525711]

>>6519144
David?

[Anonymous No.6525714]

>>6524484
It was basically along the lines of "you have completely impractical degrees, you're going to run your company into the ground lol"

I've been there three years and we're in a lot better shape than when I started... English degrees are good for communication, empathy, and creative / innovative thinking - which I would argue are all essential traits for effective modern day management