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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
the problem is that in any kind of literature "program" there will be
a) more bad teachers than good teachers
b) an aberrant emphasis on "critical theory" (or whatever fashionable name it goes by these days) over source materials.
c) more forced mandatory readings than voluntary readings. think compulsory sex with random persons. think having to listen to the complete creed discography, over and over, because it is of interest to some regional or historical culture or (worse even) some "critical" perspective.
i've had great teachers both at the BA and MA level and even on my PhD studies, but i ended up dropping out due to the market pressures from the MLA and the conference circuit which have nothing to do with "literature".
performance in that market (and its attending falsities) is the main determinant in an academic career of the literary variety. sort of like being a musician who only gets to be judged by their pitchfork score-- no, worse-- think NME or rolling stone.
in fact, most of the creatures who make a living in that market operate under the influence of the wanker frederic jameson when he claimed that "literature doesn't exist." the judges and arbiters of those markets demand that you write sociological papers & other wankery topics on wank.
so i quit the farce. after that, i stopped reading for 2 years and immersed myself in movies. quite therapeutic.
i'm enjoying books again, but my claim that formal courses of study at a university level are loaded with the potential to fuck you up still stand. sure, my statement made an absolute claim, but it was a quick one-liner, not a meditation on the subject. still, the kernel of my argument is valid to a great extent--from my perspective anyway. could i have a different one?
the problem with the formal study of literature as it is carried out today is that it requires that you practice a form of pseudo-sientific, pseudo-philosophical thinking that has very little or nothing to do with "art", and which has also very little to do with the random fortune or misfortune of running into individual "good" or "bad" teachers.
the fundamental problem of literary academia is the dysfunctional social system in which the study and teaching of literature occur. it is a profession that most blatantly rejects its own subject matter and immolates it in the satanic altar of career advancement, with the sacrificial dagger of whatever fashionable "theory" is in vogue at the moment.
sure, great critics always increase your love of art, but have you counted how many great critics are out there, publishing in the current journals? forewarned is forearmed...
and then there's the whole problem of compulsory readings, which i've listed but not discussed... i'll leave that one for another time.
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I can't disagree with a single thing in this post. Not a thing.
I teach at a university and while I hope that I'm one of the 'good' lecturers, the system in which I operate makes it very difficult for me to move beyond the banality of set 'readers' and theoretical orthodoxies.
My time is taken up on pointless bureaucracy and 'putting my ideas out there' via the conference circuit - which amounts to little more than an excuse to 'network'.
Good students struggle because their enthusiasm for the subject is hampered by an overly rigid course structure and a lack of willingness on the part of the department to wander outside of its ideological comfort-zone.
What is promoted instead is a kind of intellectual mediocrity, twinned with a desire to borrow ideas and frameworks from disciplines that rarely have much in common with what is meant to be studied. (I teach Art History, but to read my lectures you'd think I was dealing in some kind of bastardised hybrid of philosophy, sociology and cultural studies.)
The consequence of this is that students often leave an Art History degree well versed in the theories of Foucault, Deleuze and Lacan, but can't see anything in a Jackson Pollock besides some random splashes. They'll half digest some vogueish terms ('difference' is one that just won't go away) but are at a complete loss when actually confronted with a piece of art.
Someone might be very lucky and find themselves in a decent department, but they'll be just that: very lucky.
In the past two years I've known two lecturers that have suffered nervous breakdowns. Both of these were very good at what they did but found the sheer banalaity of the structure in which they were expected to operate ultimately impossible. Alcoholism amongst lecturers is also rife (I think we're just one notch below doctors in that respect).
So if i take issue with anything in your otherwise spot-on post, it's that there are some excellent lecturers out there. Unfortunately they work within a system that either forces them to conform or else destoys their spirit enough to make them leave, either through resignation or as the consequence of a breakdown.
Crap, isn't it.