Forum / New Yorker article - "Show or Tell"

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  George LaCas

  Jul 01, 06:56am

  Someone might have already posted this link. I clicked through from the Fictionaut Blog - had already read the article, but it gives a great overview of the role of the universities in teaching writing.

  http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/06/08/090608crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=1

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  James Lloyd Davis

  Jul 01, 04:20pm

  Thank you, George, for putting this up. I had not seen this, though I've heard aspects of the article's debated points in other venues.

  Living in the south, I became early jaded in my tastes for entertainment through introduction and weekly exposure to female roller derby competitions. Although that wonderfully chaotic and brutally violent diversion has all but disappeared from the American landscape, I hear it's making a comeback.

  In the meantime, I've discovered an alternative, a spectator sport that showcases similar violent behavior and pulse-quickening thrills, one that may ultimately eclipse those I remember from roller derby nights in the Tidewater.

  Today, I take every opportunity to sit back and watch battling academics fighting over relevance in the American literary and publishing scene. Academics are tough, a mean crowd at best, but when confronted with ideas like those expressed in that article ... look out, Virginia!

• 
  George LaCas

  Jul 01, 09:38pm

  Yes, James, it is an interesting topic, that's for sure. As an undergraduate I found even what I could see of battling academic viewpoints to be both amusing and off-putting.

  The question of whether writing can be taught, and/or should it be, is also interesting. Lots of students sign up for such classes (as did I, way back when, and even then the demand was so fierce I usually had to take a Lit class instead), and there's a lot of money involved.

  But, in my view, it depends on who's teaching the class, as much as student aptitude. I'm not in the academic world these days (although one day I might be), but I see the teaching of writing in the universities, overall, as a crucible through which the cream might rise to the top, to mix my metaphors. No argument from me: lots of top writers have emerged from the system.

  And then there's Cormac McCarthy's pithy observation: "Teaching writing is a hustle."

  How tempting it is to get back in school and watch the roller derby again.

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