“I don’t start with disorder; I start with the tradition. If you’re not trained in the tradition, then deconstruction means nothing.” On Derrida, Foucault, and the deconstructionist defense of the canon.
The Crisis of the Canon
(Female) Writers No One Reads
Brittany Oliver listed the “6 Most Influential Women Writers You’ve Never Heard Of” for PolicyMic, and she’s right. I’ve only heard of two of them.
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Recommended Reading from Roxane Gay
Book Riot has compiled a list of Roxane Gay’s recommended reads via Twitter. Some of her choices include Citizen by Claudia Rankine, God Help the Child by Toni Morrison, and City on Fire by our own Garth Risk Hallberg. See more books Gay recommends in our Year in Reading column.
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Fairytales Revived
Fans of Hans Christian Andersen, a new edition of The Little Mermaid was published on Tuesday. Artist Yayoi Kusama has illustrated the classic fairytale.
Ishiguro’s 10-year Break
“Someone asked me what I was doing in my 10‑year break,” says Kazuo Ishiguro with a boyish chuckle. “And I thought: yes, there has been a 10-year break since my last novel, but I personally haven’t been taking a 10‑year break!” The Telegraph talks with Ishiguro about his new novel and the first he’s published since Never Let Me Go, The Buried Giant.
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OWS and the Press
How do you spell t-r-a-c-t-i-o-n? Our recent stories about the spreading Occupy Wall Street protests seem to be part of a trend. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that the protests accounted for only 7% of coverage in all news media nationwide in the past week — but that’s a four-fold increase from the week before.