Difference between revisions of "2012 AM The Role of the Critic"

• Time: Tue, 8:00 - 10:00
• Venue: A14 1-103 (Hörsaal 3)
• Lecturer: Anna Auguscik
• Combination: as literary/cultural studies course in AM 2b, 5, 10, 11

• Course Description: In our age of Amazon consumer reviews and a free digital blogosphere, the role of the critic has come under criticism itself. Is there a plaidoyer to be made in favor of criticism? And what is it that a critic does? In this course, we will take a look at the role of the critic in literary discourse and its changed conceptions. By looking at a number of internal and external statements, historical and contemporary, we will try to understand which function a critical statement has both in reference to a book and the profession of the critic. We will especially look at criticism in reference to the two following books: Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), and DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little (2003). Please, make sure to purchase and read these novels in advance. Your reading of them is prerequisite to the course.

• Students should purchase and read in advance (both available at the CVO-bookshop):

• Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003)
• DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little (2003)

• Additional materials for preparation, as well as the detailed syllabus, will be made available here.

• Course Requirements

• for 3 KP: regular attendance and an oral contribution in the form of a presentation
• Requirements for 6 KP: as above, with a term paper of ca. 10 pp. based on the topic of the presentation.
• Requirements for 9 KP: as above, with a term paper of ca. 15-20 pp. based on the topic of the presentation.
• As part of the "Aktive Teilnahme" regulation:

Die aktive Teilnahme besteht aus folgenden Komponenten

• regelmäßige Anwesenheit: max. 3 Abwesenheiten und gegebenenfalls Nacharbeit
• Vor- und Nachbereitung des Seminarstoffs (z. B. Protokolle, Aufgaben, Vorbereitung/Lektüre von Texten)
• Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Fragestellung aus dem Problembereich des Seminars, z.B. durch:

• Übernahme von Impulsreferaten und
• (nur falls Seminararbeit angestrebt, verschriftlicht, ansonsten als Teil der Präsentation) Entwicklung einer Research Paper Outline im Laufe des Semesters (die Zeitangaben verstehen sich als Empfehlungen): Wahl eines Themenbereichs (3.-5.Woche), Eingrenzung (ca. 8.-10.Woche), Abstract mit Fragestellung inkl. Forschungsbibliographie (RPO) (ca. 12.Woche), Vorstellung der Fragestellung in der letzten Semestersitzung.

18.04.12: Introduction - The Critic as [...]

critic, n.1

    1. One who pronounces judgement on any thing or person; esp. one who passes severe or unfavourable judgement; a censurer, fault-
       finder, caviller.
    
    1598    Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost iii. i. 171,   I that haue been loues whip‥A Crietick, nay, a night-watch Constable.
    1598    J. Florio Worlde of Wordes,   Those notable Pirates in this our paper-sea, those sea-dogs, or lande-Critikes, monsters of men.
    1606    T. Dekker Newes from Hell To Rdr. sig. A4v,   Take heed of Criticks. they bite (like fish) at any thing, especially at bookes.
    1692    E. Walker tr. Epictetus Enchiridion xlix,   Nor play the Critick, nor be apt to jeer.
    1702    Eng. Theophrastus 5   How strangely some words lose their primitive sense! By a Critick, was originally understood a good 
            judge; with us nowadays it signifies no more than a Fault finder.
    1766    J. Fordyce Serm. Young Women (1777) I. iv. 192   We are never safe in the company of a critic.

    2. One skilful in judging of the qualities and merits of literary or artistic works; one who writes upon the qualities of such works; 
       a professional reviewer of books, pictures, plays, and the like; also one skilled in textual or biblical criticism.
    
    1605    Bacon Of Aduancem. Learning i. sig. K3v,   Certaine Critiques are vsed to say‥That if all Sciences were lost, 
            they might bee found in Virgill.
    1697    R. Bentley Diss. Epist. Phalaris Introd. 7   To pass a Censure on all kinds of Writings, to shew their Excellencies and 
            Defects, and especially to assign each‥to their proper Authors, was the chief Province‥of the Ancient Critics.
    1780    Johnson Lett. to Mrs. Thrale 27 July,   Mrs. Cholmondely‥told me I was the best critick in the world; and I told her, that 
            nobody in the world could judge like her of the merit of a critick.
    1825    Macaulay Milton in Edinb. Rev. Aug. 306   The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art better than the critic [sc. 
            Johnson].
    1870    B. Disraeli Lothair (new ed.) xxxv,   You know who the Critics are? The men who have failed in Literature and Art.

    3. Comb. (freq. in appositive use).
    
    1680    Earl of Rochester et al. Poems 16   A great Inhabiter of the Pit; Where Critick-like, he sits and squints.
    1754    W. Cowper in W. Hayley Life W.C. (1803) I. 16   This simile were apt enough, But I've another, critic-proof!
    1906    Westm. Gaz. 29 Sept. 14/2   There have been murmurs‥against the critic-dramatist.
    1938    H. Read Coll. Ess. Lit. Crit. i. i. 17   When such a critic-poet attempts to probe down into such a fundamental question as 
            the form and structure of poetry.
    1965    Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics 11 40   Critic-centred comments on the text.

(Second edition, 1989; online version December 2011. <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/44587>; accessed 23 February 2012. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1893.)

• The Role of the Critic Questionnaire

25.04.12: Contemporary Criticism: VGL I

Topics

• journalistic reviews
• review cycle: pre-publication and post-publication reviews
• UK vs. US publication and reviews

Reading

• The Guardian, "Lone star", Carrie O'Grady, Saturday January 18, 2003 (678 words)
• The Observer, "Growing up with Jesus", Jonathan Heawood, Sunday 19 January 2003 (702)
• The Guardian, "Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre: Condensed in the style of the original", Saturday 1 February 2003 (parody/review, 415 words)
• Michiko Kakutani, "Deep in the Heart of Texas (Via Australia)", The New York Times, November 05, 2003 (802 words)
• The New York Times, "Holden Caulfield on Ritalin", Sam Sifton , November 9, 2003 (1145 words)

Further Reading

• The Telegraph, "An heir for Holden Caulfield", By Jasper Rees, 10 Jan 2003 (1190 words, interview-review)
• The Observer, "You'll die laughing", Sean O'Hagan, Sunday 19 January 2003 (1204 words, interview-review)
• The Sydney Morning Herald, "Vernon God Little", Andrew Laing, March 15 2003 (500 words)
• The New Yorker, "Showtime: A Booker Prize winner reimagines America", by Joyce Carol Oates, October 27, 2003 (1253 words)
• The Christian Science Monitor, "Columbine dominates Europe's concept of US", Ron Charles, from the November 04, 2003 edition (852 words)
• Time, "Writer Wrong", By Lev Grossman Monday, Nov. 03, 2003 (352 words)
• The Independent, "Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre", Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor, Friday, 4 June 2004 (321 words, book group review)

02.05.12: Contemporary Criticism: VGL II

Topics

• essayistic reviews
• erudition
• book clubs

Reading

• James Wood, "The Lie-World", London Review of Books 25. 22 (20 November 2003): 25 (2130 words)
• Salon.com, "Furriners go nuts for gun-totin' Yanks!", Laura Miller, Nov 6, 2003 (1573 words)
• John Mullan, "Talk this way", The Guardian, Saturday 18 November 2006 (661 words)
• John Mullan, "National lampoon", The Guardian, Saturday 25 November 2006 (730 words)
• John Mullan, "Trial & error", The Guardian, Saturday 2 December 2006 (791 words)
• John Mullan, "Poetic justification", The Guardian, Saturday 9 December 2006 (784 words)

Further Reading

• Anthony Daniels. "Booker vs. Goncourt; or, When Silence Is a Duty." New Criterion 22.5 (Jan. 2004): 24-27. [1]
• Norment, Lee. "A boy in trouble." Texas Books in Review 24.2-3 (2004): 23. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Mar. 2012.
• Havely, Cicely Palser. "Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre: Vernon God Little was the winner of the 2003 Man Booker Prize. Although its author is not American, this intricate and disturbing novel can be compared with many American classics. Cicely Palser Havely suggests you read it while it is still fresh." The English Review Sept. 2004: 16+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Mar. 2012.

09.05.12: Contemporary Criticism: VGL III

Topics

• academic criticism

Reading

• Göran Nieragden. "Thank You, Holden Caulfield, and Goodbye: Fresh Ideas for Teaching Adolescent(s) Fiction-the What and the How." English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature 91.5 (Aug. 2010): 567-578.
• Himansu S. Mohapatra. "The Real within the Hyper-Real: Identity and Social Location in Vernon God Little." Ravenshaw Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies 1.1 (Winter 2011): 67-77. [2]

Further Reading

• Gillian Fenwick. "Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre." Booker Prize Novels: 1969-2005. Ed. Merritt Moseley. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2006. 342-347. Dictionary of Literary Biography 326.
• Maria De Pilar Blanco. "DBC Pierre's Blood Meridian: Cosmopolitan Returns and the Imagination of History." Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations 11.1 (Apr. 2007): p59-74.

16.05.12: Contemporary Criticism: CI I

Topics

Reading

• The Times, 23 Apr 2003, Douglas Kennedy, "The Spectrum Within". (review)
• The Telegraph, 20 May 2003, Carol Ann Duffy, "The Boy Who Could Not Tell a Lie". (697 words, review)
• The Guardian, 24 May 2003, Charlotte Moore, "Just the facts, ma'am". (571 words, review)
• The New York Times, 13 Jun 2003, Michiko Kakutani, "Math and Physics? A Cinch. People? Incomprehensible." (795 words, review)

Further Reading

• The Guardian, 20 Jul 2002, Nicholas Clee, "The Bookseller". (103 words, short on cross-over)
• Guardian co.uk, 1 Aug 2002, Staff and Agencies, "Brad Pitt seeks rights to British novel". (125 words, short on film)
• The Observer, 27 Apr 2003, Kate Kellaway, "Autistic Differences". (1960 words, interview-review)
• The Guardian, 10 May 2003, Nicholas Clee, "The Bookseller". (114 words, short)
• The Spectator, 17 May 2003, Nicholas Barrow, "It Ain't Necessarily So". (105 words, review)
• The New York Times Book Review, 15 Jun 2003, Jay McInerney, "The Remains of the Dog", 108:5. (1076 words, review)
• SFGate.com, 22 Jun 2003, Kate Washington, "Detached Detective: Autistic Teen Sets Out to Solve a Mystery, Finds Much More". (789 words, review)
• The Village Voice, 22 July 2003, Dennis Lim, "Auto Focus: Strange Ways, Here We Come". (1169 words, review)
• "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, The New Yorker", August 4, 2003 (157 words)
• The Washington Post, 10 Aug 2003, Nani Power, "Feeling His Way". (902 words, review)
• Maria G. Fung, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time." Mathematical Association of America, 12.12.2003
• Helmer Aslaksen, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time". American Mathematical Society 53.3 (Mar 2006): 343-345.

23.05.12: Contemporary Criticism: CI II

Topics

Reading

• Salon.com, 12 Jun 2003, Laura Miller, "'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Time' by Mark Haddon". (757 words)
• Eleanor Birne, "Doing Chatting", London Review of Books 25. 19 (9 October 2003): 14 (2199 words)*John Mullan, "Through Innocent Eyes", The Guardian, 24 Apr 2004 (685 words)
• John Mullan, "Expletives Not Deleted", The Guardian, 1 May 2004 (701 words)
• John Mullan, "Letters Patent", The Guardian, 8 May 2004 (703 words)
• John Mullan, "Funny Old World", The Guardian, 15 May 2004 (680 words)

Further Reading

30.05.12: Contemporary Criticism: CI III

Topics

Reading

• James Berger. Aleterity and Autism: Mark Haddon's Curious Incident in the Neurological Spectrum. Autism and Representation. Ed. Mark Osteen. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. 271-288.
• Gyasi Burks-Abbott. Mark Haddon's Popularity and the Curious Incidents in My Life as an Autistic. Autism and Representation. Ed. Mark Osteen. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. p289-296.
• Stefania Ciocia. Postmodern Investigations: The Case of Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Children's Literature in Education: An International Quarterly 40.4 (Dec. 2009): 320-332.Postmodern

Further Reading

• Vivienne Muller. "Constituting Christopher: Disability Theory and Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature 16.2 (Dec. 2006): 118-125.
• Clare Walsh and John McRae. "Schema Poetics and Crossover Fiction". Contemporary Stylistics. Ed. Marina Lambrou and Peter Stockwell. London, England: Continuum, 2007. 106-117.
• Caroline Marie and Christelle Reggiani. "Portrait of the Artist as a Mathematician." Journal of Romance Studies 7.3 (Winter 2007): p101-10.
• James Berger. "Aleterity and Autism: Mark Haddon's Curious Incident in the Neurological Spectrum." Autism and Representation. Ed. Mark Osteen. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. 271-288.
• Chris Richards. Forever Young: Essays on Young Adult Fictions. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2008. Intersections in Communications and Culture: Global Approaches and Transdisciplinary Perspectives 20. New York, NY.
• Gyasi Burks-Abbott. "Mark Haddon's Popularity and the Curious Incidents in My Life as an Autistic." Autism and Representation. Ed. Mark Osteen. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. p289-296.
• Alana M. Vincent. "Putting Away Childish Things: Incidents of Recovery in Tolkien and Haddon." Mythlore: A Journal of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature 26.3-4 [101-102] (Spring-Summer 2008): p101-116.
• Stephan Freißmann. "A Tale of Autistic Experience: Knowing, Living, Telling in Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 6.2 (June 2008): p395-417. Word Count: 151.
• Till Kinzel and Bianca Schwindt. "Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time als Lektüre in der Sekundarstufe I. Literaturdidaktik und Literaturvermittlung im Englischunterricht der Sekundarstufe I." Ed. Jan Hollm. Trier, Germany: Wissenschaftlicher, 2009. 157-168.
• Stefania Ciocia. "Postmodern Investigations: The Case of Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." Children's Literature in Education: An International Quarterly 40.4 (Dec. 2009): 320-332.
• Nicola Allen. "'The Perfect Hero for His Age': Christopher Boone and the Role of Logic in the Boy Detective Narrative." The Boy Detectives: Essays on the Hardy Boys and Others. Ed. Michael G. Cornelius. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. 167-179.
• Christiana Gregoriou. "The Poetics of Deviance and the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." The Millennial Detective: Essays on Trends in Crime Fiction, Film and Television, 1990-2010. Ed. Malcah Effron and Stephen Knight. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. 97-111.

   [Specify research interest until 01 June]

06.06.12: Traditions and Historical Perspectives I

Topics

Reading

• Arnold, Matthew. "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time". (1864)

Further Reading

13.06.12: Traditions and Historical Perspectives II

Topics

Reading

• Wilde, Oscar. The Critic as Artist. (1889)

Further Reading

20.06.12: Traditions and Historical Perspectives III

Topics

Reading

• Woolf, Virginia. Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (1924)

Further Reading

27.06.12: Literary Criticism in Media and Academia

Topics

• academic analysis, essayistic criticism and journalistic reviews (Bordwell)

Reading

• Van Rees, C.J. "How a literary work becomes a masterpiece: on the threefold selection practiced by literary criticism." Poetics 12 (1983): 397–417.

Further Reading

    [Hand in RPOs until 01 July]

04.07.12: Criticism & the Digital Age

Topics

Reading

• Verboord, Marc. "The Legitimacy of Book Critics in the Age of the Internet and Omnivorousness: Expert Critics, Internet Critics and Peer Critics in Flanders and the Netherlands". European Sociological Review 26.6 (2010): 623-637.
• David Bordwell, “Academics vs. Critics” (2011)

Further Reading

11.07.12: Podium Discussion: The Role of the Critic

    Podium discussion with a practicing German literary critic

18.07.12: Final Discussion: The Role of the Critic & Term Papers

Bibliography

Reading Material

• Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) incl. reviews/articles
• DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little (2003) incl. reviews/articles

and

Criticism of VGL and Criticism of CI: Talk:2012 AM The Role of the Critic

History & Traditions

Tools

• Handout: Traditions in our discourse about literature
• Handout: (Non-)literary texts
• Handout: Narratology

Further Reading (Chronological List)

• Huet: A Treatise of Romances and their Original (1672)
• John Dryden:"Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy" (1679)
• Nicholas Boileau: The Art of Poetry (1683)
• Alexander Pope: "An Essay on Criticism" (1711)
• Margaret Fuller, “A Short Essay on Critics” (1840)
• Charles Baudelaire, “What is the Good of Criticism?” (1846)
• Arnold, Matthew. "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time". (1864)
• Wilde, Oscar. The Critic as Artist. (1889)
• T. S. Eliot. The Function of Criticism (1923)
• Woolf, Virginia. Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (1924)
• I.A. Richards: Principles of Literary Criticism (1924)
• Rudolf Arnheim, “The Film Critic of Tomorrow” (1935)
• R. P. Blackmur, A Critic's Job of Work (1935)
• Joseph Goebbels, “Decree Concerning Art Criticism” (excerpt) (1936)
• John Crowe Ransom, "Criticism, Inc." (1937)
• Cox, R.G. The great reviews. Scrutiny 6 (1937) 2-20; 155-175.
• John Crowe Ransom, "Criticism as Pure Speculation," (1941)
• Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature [1946]. Introduction by Edward W. Said. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton University Press, 2003.
• La Drière, J. C. "Role of the Critic". Spirit: A Magazine of Poetry: 13. (1947), pp. 179-186.
• Randall Jarrell, “The Age of Criticism” (1952)
• Northrop Frye, Herman. Anatomy of Criticism. New Jersey: Princeton U. Press, 1957.
• Albert, Robert S. "The Rôle of the Critic in Mass Communications: I. A Theoretical Analysis". Journal of Social Psychology: 48. (1958), pp. 265-274.
• Cargill, Oscar. "The Role of the Critic". College English: 20.3 (1958 Dec.), pp. 105-10.
• Alfred Kazin, “The Function of Criticism Today” (1962)
• Narasimhaiah, C. D. "A Symposium on the Writer and the Public, III: The Role of the Critic". Literary Criterion: 5.4 (1963), pp. 50-54.
• Walter Sutton and Richard Foster. Modern Criticism in Theory and Practice. 1963.
• Houck, James A. "Hazlitt on the Obligations of the Critic.". Wordsworth Circle: 4. (1973), pp. 250-58.
• Rollin, Roger B. "Against Evaluation: The Role of the Critic of Popular Culture.". Journal of Popular Culture: 9. (1975), pp. 355-65.
• Barbara Smith: "Towards a Black Feminist Criticism" (1977)
• Topor, Wolor. "The Role of the African Literary Critic as an Instrument of Innovation". pp. 105-20. Le Critique africain et son peuple comme producteur de civilisation. Paris: Presence Africaine, 1977. 549 pp.
• Michael C. Leff. "Interpretation and the art of the rhetorical critic." Western Journal of Speech Communication 44.4 (1980): 337-349.
• Elaine Showalter: "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness" (1980)
• Hernadi. P. (ed.). What is criticism? Bloomington. IN: Indiana University Press, 1981.
• Said, Edward W. "Secular Criticism." The World, the Text, and the Critic. Harvard University Press, 1983. 1-30.
• Verdaasdonk, H. "Social and Economic Factors in the Attribution of Literary Quality." Poetics 12 (1983): 383-395.
• Van Rees, C.J. "How a literary work becomes a masterpiece: on the threefold selection practiced by literary criticism." Poetics 12 (1983): 397–417.
• Elsom, John. "The Social Role of the Theatre Critic." Contemporary Review 246.1432 (1985): 259-263.
• Rosengren, Karl Erik. "Literary Criticism: Future Invented." Poetics 16 (1987): 295-325.
• Van Rees, C.J. "How reviewers reach consensus on the value of literary works." Poetics, 16 (1987): 275–294.
• Glaberson, Eric. "The literary criticism of the New York intellectuals: a defense and appreciation." American Studies 29. 1 (Spring 1988): 71-85.
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (1989)
• Wayne Koestenbaum: Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism (1990)
• Kelkar, Ashok R. "Making and Writing Literary History: The Critic's Role." New Quest 80 (1990): 89-95.
• Wesley Shrum. "Critics and publics: cultural mediation in highbrow and popular performing arts". American Journal of Sociology 97. 2 (Sep 1991): 347-375
• Morris Dickstein, “Introduction: What Happened to Criticism,” from Double Agent: The Critic and Society (1992)
• Warnick, Barbara. "Leff in Context: What Is the Critic's Role?". The Quarterly Journal of Speech: 78.2 (1992 May), pp. 232-37.
• Billington, Michael. "The Role of the Theatre Critic in a Climate of Crisis." Critical Survey 5.1 (1993): 3-7.
• Levo, Yael Zarhy Levo. "The theatre critic as a cultural agent: Esslin, Marowitz and Tynan." Poetics 21 (1993): 525-543.
• Judith Williamson, Introduction to Deadline at Dawn (1993)
• Cameron, S. On the Role of Critics in the Culture Industry , Journal of Cultural Economics 19:4 (1995): 321-331.
• Tobias Döring, Uwe Schäfer, Mark Stein (eds.). Can “The Subaltern” Be Read? The Role of the Critic in Postcolonial Studies. ACOLIT Special Issue No. 2. Frankfurt a.M.: Institut für England- und Amerikastudien, 1996.
• Eigenbrod, Renate. "Can 'the Subaltern' Be Read? The Role of the Critic in Postcolonial Studies: An Epilogue to a Workshop." Acolit 2 (1996): 97-101.
• Smallwood, Philip. "The definition of criticism". New Literary History 27.3 (1996): 545–554.
• J. Hoberman, “The Film Critic of Tomorrow, Today” (1996)
• Janssen, Susanne. "Reviewing as a social practice: institutional constraints on critics’ attention for contemporary fiction." Poetics 24.5 (1997) 275–297.
• Eaglestone, Robert. Ethical Criticism: Reading After Levinas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997
• Wouter de Nooy. "'A literary playground': Literary criticism and balance theory". Poetics 26 (1999): 385-404.
• Greer, Graham. "The Role of the Professional Theatre Critic in a Post-Apartheid South Africa." South African Theatre Journal 15 (2001): 56-64.
• Suman Basuroy, Subimal Chatterjee and S. Abraham Ravid. "How Critical Are Critical Reviews? The Box Office Effects of Film Critics, Star Power, and Budgets." The Journal of Marketing 67:4 (Oct., 2003): 103-117.
• Wayne Booth. "To: All Who Care about the Future of Criticism. From: Anon. February 7, 2003". Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter 2004): 350-354.
• Glynn, Mary Ann and Michael. Lounsbury. "From the Critics' Corner: Logic Blending, Discursive Change and Authenticity in a Cultural Production System". Journal of Management Studies 42.5 (Jul 2005): 1031-1055.
• McDonald, Rónán. The Death of the Critic. London: Continuum Press, [2007] 2008.
• Day, Gary. Literary Criticism: A New History. Edinburgh University Press. 2008.
• McDonald, Rónán. "The Value of Arts and the Art of Evaluation: English Studies and Literary Criticism." The Public Value of the Humanities. Ed. Jonathan Bate. London: Bloomsbury, 2010.
• Nordin, Irene Gilsenan. "Poetry and Education: The Role of the Literary Critic in Academia." Creation, Publishing, and Criticism: The Advance of Women's Writing. Ed. Maria Xesús Nogueira, et al. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010. 75-82. Galician Studies 2.
• Verboord, Marc. "The Legitimacy of Book Critics in the Age of the Internet and Omnivorousness: Expert Critics, Internet Critics and Peer Critics in Flanders and the Netherlands". European Sociological Review 26.6 (2010): 623-637.
• David Bordwell, “Academics vs. Critics” (2011)
• Adrian Martin, “No Direction Home: Creative Criticism” (2011)

Quotes

• "The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free creative activity, is the true function of man; it is proved to be so by man’s finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it were not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true happiness of all men." (Matthew Arnold, The Function of Criticism at the Present Time, 1864)
• "Our fundamental want today in the United States, with closest, amplest reference to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class, and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, literatuses, far different, far higher in grade than any yet known, sacerdotal, modern, fit to cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality, taste, belief, breathing into it a new breath of life, giving it decision, affecting politics far more than the popular superficial suffrage, with results inside and underneath the elections of presidents or Congresses — radiating, begetting appropriate teachers, schools, manners, and, as its grandest result, accomplishing (what neither the schools nor the churches and their clergy have hitherto accomplish’d, and without which this nation will no more stand, permanently, soundly, than a house will stand without a substratum) a religious and moral character beneath the political and productive and intellectual bases of the States. For know you not, dear, earnest reader, that the people of our land may all read and write, and may all possess the right to vote — and yet the main things may be entirely lacking?" (Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1871)
• "To the critic the work of art is simply a suggestion for a new work of his own, that need not necessarily bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it criticizes. The one characteristic of a beautiful form is that one can put into it whatever one wishes, and see in it whatever one chooses to see; and the Beauty, that gives to creation its universal and aesthetic element, makes the critic a creator in his turn, and whispers of a thousand different things which were not present in the mind of him who carved the statue or painted the panel or graved the gem." (Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1890)
• "The most important qualification which I have been able to find, which accounts for the peculiar importance of the criticism of practitioners, is that a critic must have a very highly developed sense of fact. This is by no means a trifling or frequent gift. And it is not one which easily wins popular commendations. The sense of fact is very slow to develop, and its complete development means perhaps the very pinnacle of civilization." (T.S. Eliot, The Function of Criticism, 1923)
• "The job of criticism would seem to be, then, to recall liberalism to its first essential imagination of variousness and possibility, which implies the awareness of complexity and difficulty. To the carrying out of the job of criticizing the liberal imagination, literature has a unique relevance, not merely because so much of modern literature has explicitly directed itself upon politics, but more importantly because literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity and difficulty." (Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination, 1950)
• "Criticism demands of the critic a terrible nakedness: a real critic has no one but himself to depend on. He can never forget that all he has to go by, finally, is his own response, the self that makes and is made up of such responses — and yet he must regard that self as no more than the instrument through which the art is seen, so that the work of art will seem everything to him and his own self nothing." (RAndall Jarrell, The Age of Criticism, 1952)
• "Any critic who is any good is going to write out of a profound inner struggle between what has been and what must be, the values he is used to and those which presently exist, between the past and the present out of which the future must be born. This struggle with oneself as well as with the age, out of which something must be written and which therefore can be read — this is my test for a critic." (Alfred Kazin, The Function of Criticism Today,1960)
• "The role of the critic is therefore that of participation in the re-creation and expansion of the poet's text. Don Quijote is far more complex and a far richer work of art today than in the time of Cervantes." (Valdés 1986)
• "Criticism may have once been the meeting of two minds - the critic and the author - but now there are multiple authors and multiple critics." (Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY: New York University Press. p.128)
• "[...] writing a piece of criticism is just writing a beautiful thing as a partner to a beautiful thing. I'm not interested in tearing it apart - though I think those critics are essential, and it's important that people separate the good from the bad; I don't believe in relativist criticism. I want to write about greatness, not mediocreness. There's no point." (Zadie Smith, qt. in Guardian profile article, 2005)
• "The kind of reviewing I like, or the kind I aspire to, takes another moment. It's easy to feel contempt for writing, or to get one over on it. I guess I'm trying to read a book along its own grain, and not against its grain. I don't have enough energy to write about something I hate."; also: "I think a good book review is a place to meet a book on its own terms, not as an ideological vehicle or an academic plaything. Often people think of writing as primary and reading as the lesser art; in my life it's the other way around. When I write about books I’m trying to honor reading as a creative act: as far as I’m concerned the job is not simply to describe an end product but to delineate a process, an intimate experience with a book which the general reader understands just as well as the professional critic." (Zadie Smith, 2011; check Harper's Magazine for a transcript of this conversation: http://harpers.org/archive/2011/02/hbc-90007992)

Ideas

• Criticism and History: Criticism in Anglophone vs. in German traditions (literarary criticism in media and academia vs. Literaturkritik/Literaturwissenschaft)
• Criticism and Institutions: The Critic as Journalist vs. The Critic as Academic
• Criticism and Theory: European Criticism, British Criticism, North American Criticism (cf. Julian Wolfreys)
• Literary Communication and the Role of the Critic: Triangular Relations (Author - Critic - Reader)
• The Critic as Mediator? On Criticism and Ethics
• Writers as Critics and the Critic as Artist (cf. http://www.ameliaatlas.com/?p=284)
• Critics and their Criteria: Authenticity, Legitimacy, ...
• Orchestration
• Interview-Reviews, Author-Profiles and Other Forms of Reviews
• Publishing and the Review Cycle: Trade Media, Pre- and Post-Publication, Hardback and Paperback, Summer & Christmas Reading
• Literary Comparisons and Other Signs of Erudition
• Controversial Contemporary Critics: James Wood, Michiko Kakutani, ...
• Criticism and Gender
• Criticism and Literary Prizes
• Criticism and the Digital Age

• Criticism & the Digital Age I: Critics vs. Bloggers?
• Criticism & the Digial Age II: Amazon and the Amateur Critic

Links