When Literary Criticism Mattered single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2015... 2015 When Literary Criticism Mattered
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'To think about the study of literature as possessing “values” is, I think, already to skew things. In the Anglophone tradition, something has “value” if it can be measured in external units. Adam Smith famously argued that a value of a thing is measured either in terms of what might be substituted for it (its exchange value) or in terms of its quanti able utilities (its use value). In this framework, value is primarily an economic concept, but, at least from Jeremy Bentham on, it has also been a governmental one. Although earlier philosophers like John Locke or David Hume did not deploy the term, Bentham introduced it precisely to advise those he calls “legislators” on how to manage a population’s happiness. As such, it quickly came under attack: “ Worth was degraded into a lazy synonyme of value ; and value was exclusively attached to the interests of the senses” as Samuel Coleridge put it. (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Values of Literary Studies : Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas Ronan McDonald (editor), New York (City) : Cambridge University Press , 2015 9549854 2015 anthology criticism

    'What is valuable about literary studies? What is its point and purpose? In The Values of Literary Studies: Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas, leading scholars in the field illuminate both the purpose and priorities of literary criticism. At a time when the humanities are increasingly called upon to justify themselves, this book seeks to clarify their myriad values and ideologies. Engaging the idea of literary value while at the same time remaining attuned to aesthetic, ethical, political and psychological principles, this book serves to underscore the enduring significance of literary studies in an academic climate that is ostensibly concerned with expediency and quantification. As a sophisticated examination of literary theory and criticism, The Values of Literary Studies: Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas provides a comprehensive and hopeful view of where the discipline is now and what avenues it is likely to take from here.' (Publication summary)

    New York (City) : Cambridge University Press , 2015
    pg. 120-136

Works about this Work

Not by Bread Alone : Authority, Meaning-Making and Value in Australian Literary Studies Lyn McCredden , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 17 no. 1 2017;

'As scholars, critics, reviewers and students of Australian literature, what are our values and our impact? Does what we research and write make any difference, make anything happen, anywhere? That is what the funders of our discipline are asking, but also what we need to ask of ourselves. This is not going to be a self-aggrandizing article, nor a nihilistic, hands-thrownup kind of essay—Whence the Humanities? Whence Literary Studies? Whence literature?— although there may be something of that along the way. The most recent, 2018 round of Australian Research Council (ARC) grants is one arguably gloomy indicator that Literary Studies and its sister disciplines of Cultural Studies and Creative Writing are not doing well, and not being seen, in the national fields of research. Of course Literary Studies may have migrated into interdisciplinary locations, and is in now ‘in competition’ with other language disciplines, so is it becoming almost invisible on ARC platforms? This paper, generously given the mantle of the 2016 Dorothy Green Lecture in its first iteration, explores authority and the making of meaning in Literary Studies as interlocking questions. However, for many within the discipline and beyond, even the notion of meaning is under fire. This paper will defend the categories of value and of meaning-making in the Humanities, and ask where Literary Studies might be going.' (Introduction)

Not by Bread Alone : Authority, Meaning-Making and Value in Australian Literary Studies Lyn McCredden , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 17 no. 1 2017;

'As scholars, critics, reviewers and students of Australian literature, what are our values and our impact? Does what we research and write make any difference, make anything happen, anywhere? That is what the funders of our discipline are asking, but also what we need to ask of ourselves. This is not going to be a self-aggrandizing article, nor a nihilistic, hands-thrownup kind of essay—Whence the Humanities? Whence Literary Studies? Whence literature?— although there may be something of that along the way. The most recent, 2018 round of Australian Research Council (ARC) grants is one arguably gloomy indicator that Literary Studies and its sister disciplines of Cultural Studies and Creative Writing are not doing well, and not being seen, in the national fields of research. Of course Literary Studies may have migrated into interdisciplinary locations, and is in now ‘in competition’ with other language disciplines, so is it becoming almost invisible on ARC platforms? This paper, generously given the mantle of the 2016 Dorothy Green Lecture in its first iteration, explores authority and the making of meaning in Literary Studies as interlocking questions. However, for many within the discipline and beyond, even the notion of meaning is under fire. This paper will defend the categories of value and of meaning-making in the Humanities, and ask where Literary Studies might be going.' (Introduction)

Last amended 26 May 2016 08:40:40
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