Email me at jmayhew at ku dot edu
"The very existence of poetry should make us laugh. What is it all about? What is it for?"
--Kenneth Koch
“El subtítulo ‘Modelo para armar’ podría llevar a creer que las
diferentes partes del relato, separadas por blancos, se proponen como piezas permutables.”
9 abr 2011
Guilt
I remember being surprised that my colleagues in Latin American literature felt guilty or conflicted about teaching literature. I have never, ever felt guilt about teaching literature.
It's the John Beverley tradition. I have the opposite problem: I teach a lot of what would be considered "popular culture" (from soap operas to movies to detective fiction), so I get attacked by some people for "demeaning" the status of literature. On the other side, others say that what I teach has too much "Anglo" influence, so I don't respect the "real" Latin American identity (whatever that means).
5 comentarios:
Why would people feel guilty about it??
Politics. People are suffering, so devoting energy to literature seems less urgent. (i guess.) Or: literature is elitist.
Do people in the natural sciences ever feel guilty about teaching their subjects while people are suffering?
Another difference between the "two cultures." :-)
It's the John Beverley tradition. I have the opposite problem: I teach a lot of what would be considered "popular culture" (from soap operas to movies to detective fiction), so I get attacked by some people for "demeaning" the status of literature. On the other side, others say that what I teach has too much "Anglo" influence, so I don't respect the "real" Latin American identity (whatever that means).
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