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Read These Now Because Gay Penguins are Great Fathers
Shakesville — ... a Longtime Front in AIDS War, moves out. (Washington Post) Human Rights Group Condemns Computer Manufacturers. (Spiegel) Dwarf crocodiles split into three species. (AMNH) Jellyfish taking over world's oceans. (Discover) PHOTOS: Cyanide Millipede, Huge Spider Among New Species. Two new Robert Burns poems discovered alongside 'rude' letters. (Guardian) What Ails Literary Studies: The professionalization of the field is turning students off.

What ails literary studies?
Maggie's Farm — ... What ails literary studies? It's by a lit prof at Annapolis, Bruce Fleming. He begins: The major victory of professors of literature in the last half-century — the Great March from the New Criticism through structuralism, deconstruction, Foucauldianism, and multiculturalism — has been the invention and codification of a professionalized study of literature. We've made ourselves into a priestly caste: To understand literature, we tell students, you have to come to us. Yet professionalization is a pyrrhic victory: We've won the ...

Worthwhile Reading
Chicago Boyz — A few items for your Monday reading pleasure: In a commencement speech, the CEO of Questar Corporation takes on some popular myths about energy. A professor of English who teaches at the U.S. Naval Academy has thoughts about the teaching and mis-teaching of his subject: We professors just have to remember that the books are the point, not us. We need, in short, to get beyond literary studies. We’re not scientists, we’re coaches. We’re not transmitting information, at least not in the sense of teaching a discipline. But we do ...