[lit-ideas] Re: Purpose of the "Literature and Ideas" List with the Digest and Archive
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 09:35:23 -0700 (PDT)
--- Frances Kelly <frances.kelly@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Frances with thanks to listers...
>
> This online list called "Literature and Ideas" is
> seemingly free and
> open to the internet public at large who wish to
> enter its portal, and
> with little invite or limit. There is clearly
> however a stated
> guideline of rules for this list as issued by its
> owners and managers.
> The purpose of the list, in regard to those rules
> relevant or
> pertinent to my interests and as understood in rough
> summary by me, is
> that it should be used responsibly as a learned
> forum to discuss
> topical ideas in relation to "published" literary
> writings, where such
> literature is deemed to be in the form of both
> fictional and
> nonfictional works. The broad literary ideas under
> discussion could
> presumably be "within" the writings or "about" the
> writings, where
> such writings are held to variously be statements in
> texts or
> narratives in documents or discourses in
> manuscripts.
*I believe that you have not correctly understood the
list's character and purpose. As the others have
pointed out, Literature and Ideas is one of the
successors of an earlier Philosophy and Literature
list, which had a more specialized outlook but was in
practice also open to topics outside academic
philosophy and literary criticism. The Phil-Lit list
had a guideline banning political topics, though that
guideline had never been rigorously or consistently
enforced. The Lit-Ideas has abandoned that guideline
and is thus open to political topics as well as to
ideas from fields like psychology, sociology, history,
theology etc. which are not strictly speaking
philosophical or literary. The range of discussion is
thus very broad, and while it of course includes
literature this is hardly a list devoted to academic
literary criticism. Some of the members are academics
but my impression is that few specialize in literary
criticism. (There are more of those who specialize in
philosophy and other fields.) Close reading of
literary texts is seldom practicable, not everyone
having access to the same texts and more pertinently
not everyone being interested in the same texts. This
is not an attempt to discourage discussion of literary
topics or even literary criticism but rather to
clarify the context in which it would be taking place.
O.K.
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