首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Our present generation of cultural critics, arriving after the assault of postmodernism and the increasingly widespread commerci
Our present generation of cultural critics, arriving after the assault of postmodernism and the increasingly widespread commerci
admin
2013-01-25
97
问题
Our present generation of cultural critics, arriving after the assault of postmodernism and the increasingly widespread commercialization of culture, has been cast adrift, without any firm basis for judgments. Publications and institutions to support serious criticism, in this view, either no longer exist or are few in number.
Critics today, it is also claimed, are too cozy behind the ivied walls of academe, content to employ a prose style that is decipherable only to a handful of the cognoscenti. The deadly dive of Uniersity critics into the shallow depths of popular culture, moreover, reveals the unwillingness of these critics to uphold standards. Even if the reasons offered are contradictory, these Jeremiahs huddle around their sad conclusion that serious cultural criticism has fallen into a morass of petty bickering and bloated reputations.
Such narratives of declension, a staple of American intellectual life since the time of the Puritans, are misplaced, self-serving, and historically inaccurate, so difficult to prove. Has the level of criticism declined in the last 50 years? Of coarse the logic of such an opinion depends on the figures that are being contrasted with one another. Any number of cultural critics thriving today could be invoked to demonstrate that cultural criticism is alive and well.
But many new and thriving venues for criticism and debate exist today, and they are not limited solely t6 the discussion of literary works. Actually, they became so entrusted with their own certitude and political judgments that they beacme largely irrelevant. Today the complaint is that literary culture lacks civility. We live in an age of commercialism and spectacle. Writers seek the limelight, and one way to bask in it is to publish reviews that scorch the landscape, with Dale Peck as the famous, but not a typical case in point. Heidi Julavits, in an essay in The Believer, lamented the downfall of serious fiction and reviewing. She surveyed a literary culture that had embraced "snark", her term for hostile, self-serving reviews.
The snark review, according to Julavits, eschews a serious engagement with literature in favor of a sound-bite approach, an attempt to turn the review into a form of entertainment akin to film reviews or restaurant critiques. A critic found cultural criticism to be in "critical condition". For him, the postmodern turn to theory, in its questioning of objectivity, cut the critical, independent ground out from under reviewers. The rise of chain bookstores and blockbuster best sellers demeaned literary culture, making it prey to the commercial values of the market and entertainment.
The criticism does not seem discontinuous. Nor should we forget that civility rarely reigned in the circles of New York intellectuals. The art critic Clement Greenberg physically pummeled the theatre critic Lionel Abel after Abel rejected the view that Jean Wahl, the French philosopher, was anti-Semitic. Though Robert Peck has the reputation of a literary hatchet man, so far as I know his blows thus far have all been confined to the printed page.
Cultural criticism has certainly changed over the years. The old day’s of the critic who wielded unchallenged authority have happily passed. Ours is a more pluralistic age, one not beholden to a narrow literary culture. The democratization of criticism— as in the Amazon system of readers’ evaluating books—is a messy affair, as democracy must be. But the solution to the problems of criticism in the present is best not discovered in the musty basements of nostalgia and sentiment for the cultual criticism of a half-century gone. Rather the solution is to recognize, as John Dewey did almost a century ago, that the problems of democracy demand more democracy, less nostalgia for a golden age that never was, and a spirit of openness to what is new and invigorating in our culture.
What is the possible connection between cultural critics and publications and institutions?
选项
A、Cultural critics attack postmodernism and commercialization cherished by publications and institutions.
B、Postmodernism and commercialization are attacked by the serious publications and institutions.
C、Cultural criticism is short of judgments and will not exist without the support of publications and institutions.
D、Publications and institutions show almost no interest in serious cultural criticism.
答案
D
解析
文章第1段指出我们现今的文化批评家“has been cast adrift, without any firm basis for judgments”,同时Publications and institutions to support serious criticism... are few in number,即,同时也只有为数很少的support serious criticism的publications and institutions。故选项D正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/TH1O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Hutuextremistsingovernmentorganizedthekillingandusedstateradiostationstourgeordinarypeopletocrushthecockroach
Travellingandmeetingnewpeople_____themindofyoungpeople.
Manypeopleseemtothinkthatsciencefictionistypifiedbythecoversofsomeoftheoldpulpmagazines:theBug-EyedMonster
Manypeopleseemtothinkthatsciencefictionistypifiedbythecoversofsomeoftheoldpulpmagazines:theBug-EyedMonster
Terrorismhasbecomesowidespreadthatitisnowimpossibletodismissitastheactionofafewcrazypeople.Infact,terroris
Frenchareelegantpeople.Theyareartistsineverydaylife,havingaverygoodtasteineverything.Theydon’tlikeAmericant
Weagreethatacentralpurposeofdramahasalwaysbeentoprovideameansforasocietyto______uponitselfanditsbeliefs.
Ourpresentgenerationofculturalcritics,arrivingaftertheassaultofpostmodernismandtheincreasinglywidespreadcommerci
ThemilitaryaspectoftheUnitedStatesCivilWarhasalwaysattractedthemostattentionfromscholars.Theroarofgunfire,
Artisbothcreationandrecreation.66MuchasIappreciateallformsofimmortalcreativework,Ithinkthespiritoftrueart
随机试题
A.碳源B.氮源C.两者均有D.两者均无合成菌体的糖类、脂类成分所必需()
A、乳汁管B、油室C、油管D、油细胞E、树脂道木香的显微特征可见
初始地籍调查时,调查人员应将每一宗地勾绘到工作用图上,并对街道或地籍街坊按()顺序统一预编宗地号。
房地产经纪机构服务收费包括()。
砂浆应随拌随用,水泥砂浆和水泥混合砂浆必须分别在拌成后多长时间内使用完毕?[2001年第38题]
课堂当中,教师请同学们采用分组的方式,运用捻指、拍手、拍腿、跺脚的方式分别代表女高音、男高音、女低音、男低音四个声部来进行节奏创编并展示。该教师运用了国外著名音乐教育体系中的哪种音乐教学法?()
根据左图规律,右图“?”处应为()。
现有宇宙理论认为,宇宙形成于距今约120亿至150亿年前的一次“大爆炸”。宇宙“大爆炸”后的极短瞬间会形成超高温和超高能量密度,这使得一种称为“夸克一胶子等离子体”的物质能够在约10微秒的极短时间内充斥宇宙,然后再凝聚结合形成原子核等物质。但迄今科学家还难
计算定积分
Doctorsbaffledbyanunexplainedrashonpeople’searsorcheeksshouldbeonalertforaskinallergycausedtoomuch【M1】_____
最新回复
(
0
)