Cultural Criticism

The inhabitants of /lit/ see themselves as the victim of anti-canon efforts, as the academy has sought to “decolonise” and expand the curriculum over the past decade. And /lit/’s reaction is hardly unreasonable: there’s a difference between great books (well-written, perhaps undiscovered) and Great Books, which stay in the accepted canon because... See more

“As humans we are involved in a dance with things that cannot be stopped, since we are only human through things,” says Hodder. We will continue to perform lifestyles made possible by the Internet whether individual social media platforms survive or not, and even, especially, if we log off for good. Social media altered the world in the same way... See more

It’s hard to talk about “masterpieces” because the concept trades on a theory of aesthetics that is controversial when spelled out (aesthetic value realism; maybe even a kind of Platonism about beauty) and difficult to defend, but which we all nevertheless subscribe to intuitively.

The simulacrum is never what hides the truth-it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true.

It’s intended as a nuanced, edgy twist on “the discourse”, and a reference to intersectional theory to highlight and preclude the most privileged women’s likelihood to ignore the varying needs of those yet less fortunate. However, especially given its popularity with the pregnancy-causing half of the population, it reads more as an ignorant and... See more

But this isn’t about phone numbers or navigation. It’s about how technology clearly changes our minds. And there is a risk that today’s siphoning of young brains into phones and laptops isn’t just happening with maps and digits, but with critical thinking and complex language.

these figures remain a sham. To get to 6.7 million, Netflix first tallies the film’s “viewing hours,” the total amount of time that users have spent streaming the movie. Here, Netflix makes no distinction between users who watch Sweet Girl all the way through, those who watch less than two minutes, and those who watch just a few seconds thanks to... See more

The writing is getting better. The ideas are getting worse. There’s a new genre of essay that other academics reading this will instantly recognize, a clumsy collaboration between students and Silicon Valley. I call it glittering sludge .

One thing I’ve also noticed is the gradual loss of the understanding of “imagination” as a category; it can sound a little Reading Rainbow to talk about, but wouldn’t you know imagination is actually an essential part of the human condition. In so far as the words “spirit” or “spirituality” mean anything beyond woo-woo or cliché they must include... See more