Some of these questions are very interesting and deep, and every so often, one of them gets an answer which is very interesting and deep. Some of it even reaches what I'd like to see Literature move towards: insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation. As one example I'll point you towards About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity)About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity), which explains how the images from the opening scenes of a not-very-good sci-fi action anime are actually references to paintings by Gustave Klimt, and unravels the symbolism which weaves the content of these paintings into the story.
Some of these questions are very interesting and deep, and every so often, one of them gets an answer which is very interesting and deep. Some of it even reaches what I'd like to see Literature move towards: insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation. As one example I'll point you towards About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity), which explains how the images from the opening scenes of a not-very-good sci-fi action anime are actually references to paintings by Gustave Klimt, and unravels the symbolism which weaves the content of these paintings into the story.
Some of these questions are very interesting and deep, and every so often, one of them gets an answer which is very interesting and deep. Some of it even reaches what I'd like to see Literature move towards: insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation. As one example I'll point you towards About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity), which explains how the images from the opening scenes of a not-very-good sci-fi action anime are actually references to paintings by Gustave Klimt, and unravels the symbolism which weaves the content of these paintings into the story.
Some of these questions are very interesting and deep, and every so often, one of them gets an answer which is very interesting and deep. Some of it even reaches what I'd like to see Literature move towards: insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation.insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation. As one example I'll point you towards About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity), which explains how the images from the opening scenes of a not-very-good sci-fi action anime are actually references to paintings by Gustave Klimt, and unravels the symbolism which weaves the content of these paintings into the story.
Unfortunately, because Anime and Manga has so few people capable of writing such content, and so many shows dividing those people's attention, it's not common to see this sort of thing. I want to stress that questions at that level are also in short supply;questions at that level are also in short supply; most of the questions we get are the usual "Why did So-and-so do this?", "What's this Japanese pun mean?", etc. Not bad questions, but not deep or insightful. It's usually hard to write a deep answer to a shallow question.
Both of these represent potential futures for Literature: we could become like Sci-Fi and Fantasy and concentrate all of our attention on just a few big works, or we could become like Anime and Manga and have a large populist class talking about a few big works while a small elite lingers in the background, shooting questions about whatever their current interest is off into the night and hoping to hit someone with the knowledge to answer them. Both of these futures are undesirable to me. Both of these futures are undesirable to me.
I would like Literature to be more like Anime and Manga than Sci-Fi and Fantasy in this sense: given the vast scope of literature in the world (even if you restrict the scope to written narrative works without significant visual or aural content), I hope we won't end up a site that focuses around just Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Orwell.I hope we won't end up a site that focuses around just Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Orwell. Those are all good stories, but they're just a tiny fraction of what the world of literature has to offer. This is going pretty well so far. I've seen questions on Borges, Whitman, Eliot, Faulkner, and Plath, and my question on William Blake got a pretty good answer faster than I was expecting.
But even more so, I would like Literature to surpass both SF&F and A&M in that whatever work we're talking about, we focus more on sophisticated inquiry and less on surface-level plot or trivia questions.we focus more on sophisticated inquiry and less on surface-level plot or trivia questions. It's not that those are bad or wrong questions, but they're not questions that get me fired up to go read something. Knowing that (made-up example) Baron Finklestein didn't just send a telegram because, as one of his servants mentioned in Chapter 3, the year was 1816 and the telegraph was not invented until 1844, I don't feel any urge to go read this story and I am not edified. But finding out that a story makes brilliant use of symbolism or employs an interesting plot structure leaves an impression in my mind, and might induce me to go read it if I haven't, or deepen my appreciation for it if I have. I think our current crowd of users has people who are capable of reaching this level, but we've seen it less because the site is still finding its feet.I think our current crowd of users has people who are capable of reaching this level, but we've seen it less because the site is still finding its feet. If we need a bit of snobbery to accomplish this, at least it's snobbery well applied instead of for its own sake.
On the other hand, I don't think we need to strive for the PhD crowd as our sole audience.I don't think we need to strive for the PhD crowd as our sole audience. My motive for saying so is entirely selfish: I'm not a PhD, and in fact am not very smart at all. I put "Beginner or Learner" on my commitment message. I was an English major my first year at university, and two semesters of English literature plus some rainy afternoons in the back of the library is my only training in literary criticism. I'm way too dumb to answer questions on this site even as it exists now. But every so often, I plunge in and read some Blake, or some Wordsworth, or some Shakespeare, or some Marquez, or some Wodehouse, and I have aspirations to someday read something by Thomas Pynchon and something by Vladimir Nabokov. When I do, and I have questions that I'm too dumb to answer, that go beyond surface plot details. I'm hoping this will be a place I can ask them, but if every such question is greeted by a sound of crickets, I'm going to stop bringing them, just like I stopped bringing anything beyond "explain this pun" to Anime and Manga.
As a postscript, I'll comment on the scope issues. My main desire is that Literature become a place where questions about symbolism, language use, cultural and historical context, story structure, etc. get good answers, no matter what work they're asking about.My main desire is that Literature become a place where questions about symbolism, language use, cultural and historical context, story structure, etc. get good answers, no matter what work they're asking about. If we have to eschew peripheral things like songs and graphic novels to get there, then so be it.
However, if we can reasonably include those peripheral things, I think we should,if we can reasonably include those peripheral things, I think we should, because there are indeed academics who study them in English and literature departments. A professor from the English department at the university I attended is a world-recognized expert on The Simpsons and runs an upper-division class on graphic novels covering work such as Maus, Persepolis, Watchmen, and Y: The Last Man. (I had the opportunity to take it even though it was way, way outside my major, and I squandered it.) The site can be large enough to include these works, but there is a danger that they'll take over and that the discourse on them won't reach an adequate level.
Some of these questions are very interesting and deep, and every so often, one of them gets an answer which is very interesting and deep. Some of it even reaches what I'd like to see Literature move towards: insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation. As one example I'll point you towards About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity), which explains how the images from the opening scenes of a not-very-good sci-fi action anime are actually references to paintings by Gustave Klimt, and unravels the symbolism which weaves the content of these paintings into the story.
Unfortunately, because Anime and Manga has so few people capable of writing such content, and so many shows dividing those people's attention, it's not common to see this sort of thing. I want to stress that questions at that level are also in short supply; most of the questions we get are the usual "Why did So-and-so do this?", "What's this Japanese pun mean?", etc. Not bad questions, but not deep or insightful. It's usually hard to write a deep answer to a shallow question.
Both of these represent potential futures for Literature: we could become like Sci-Fi and Fantasy and concentrate all of our attention on just a few big works, or we could become like Anime and Manga and have a large populist class talking about a few big works while a small elite lingers in the background, shooting questions about whatever their current interest is off into the night and hoping to hit someone with the knowledge to answer them. Both of these futures are undesirable to me.
I would like Literature to be more like Anime and Manga than Sci-Fi and Fantasy in this sense: given the vast scope of literature in the world (even if you restrict the scope to written narrative works without significant visual or aural content), I hope we won't end up a site that focuses around just Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Orwell. Those are all good stories, but they're just a tiny fraction of what the world of literature has to offer. This is going pretty well so far. I've seen questions on Borges, Whitman, Eliot, Faulkner, and Plath, and my question on William Blake got a pretty good answer faster than I was expecting.
But even more so, I would like Literature to surpass both SF&F and A&M in that whatever work we're talking about, we focus more on sophisticated inquiry and less on surface-level plot or trivia questions. It's not that those are bad or wrong questions, but they're not questions that get me fired up to go read something. Knowing that (made-up example) Baron Finklestein didn't just send a telegram because, as one of his servants mentioned in Chapter 3, the year was 1816 and the telegraph was not invented until 1844, I don't feel any urge to go read this story and I am not edified. But finding out that a story makes brilliant use of symbolism or employs an interesting plot structure leaves an impression in my mind, and might induce me to go read it if I haven't, or deepen my appreciation for it if I have. I think our current crowd of users has people who are capable of reaching this level, but we've seen it less because the site is still finding its feet. If we need a bit of snobbery to accomplish this, at least it's snobbery well applied instead of for its own sake.
On the other hand, I don't think we need to strive for the PhD crowd as our sole audience. My motive for saying so is entirely selfish: I'm not a PhD, and in fact am not very smart at all. I put "Beginner or Learner" on my commitment message. I was an English major my first year at university, and two semesters of English literature plus some rainy afternoons in the back of the library is my only training in literary criticism. I'm way too dumb to answer questions on this site even as it exists now. But every so often, I plunge in and read some Blake, or some Wordsworth, or some Shakespeare, or some Marquez, or some Wodehouse, and I have aspirations to someday read something by Thomas Pynchon and something by Vladimir Nabokov, and I have questions that I'm too dumb to answer, that go beyond surface plot details. I'm hoping this will be a place I can ask them, but if every such question is greeted by a sound of crickets, I'm going to stop bringing them, just like I stopped bringing anything beyond "explain this pun" to Anime and Manga.
As a postscript, I'll comment on the scope issues. My main desire is that Literature become a place where questions about symbolism, language use, cultural and historical context, story structure, etc. get good answers, no matter what work they're asking about. If we have to eschew peripheral things like songs and graphic novels to get there, then so be it.
However, if we can reasonably include those peripheral things, I think we should, because there are indeed academics who study them in English and literature departments. A professor from the English department at the university I attended is a world-recognized expert on The Simpsons and runs an upper-division class on graphic novels covering work such as Maus, Persepolis, Watchmen, and Y: The Last Man. (I had the opportunity to take it even though it was way, way outside my major, and I squandered it.) The site can be large enough to include these works, but there is a danger that they'll take over and that the discourse on them won't reach an adequate level.
Some of these questions are very interesting and deep, and every so often, one of them gets an answer which is very interesting and deep. Some of it even reaches what I'd like to see Literature move towards: insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation. As one example I'll point you towards About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity), which explains how the images from the opening scenes of a not-very-good sci-fi action anime are actually references to paintings by Gustave Klimt, and unravels the symbolism which weaves the content of these paintings into the story.
Unfortunately, because Anime and Manga has so few people capable of writing such content, and so many shows dividing those people's attention, it's not common to see this sort of thing. I want to stress that questions at that level are also in short supply; most of the questions we get are the usual "Why did So-and-so do this?", "What's this Japanese pun mean?", etc. Not bad questions, but not deep or insightful. It's usually hard to write a deep answer to a shallow question.
Both of these represent potential futures for Literature: we could become like Sci-Fi and Fantasy and concentrate all of our attention on just a few big works, or we could become like Anime and Manga and have a large populist class talking about a few big works while a small elite lingers in the background, shooting questions about whatever their current interest is off into the night and hoping to hit someone with the knowledge to answer them. Both of these futures are undesirable to me.
I would like Literature to be more like Anime and Manga than Sci-Fi and Fantasy in this sense: given the vast scope of literature in the world (even if you restrict the scope to written narrative works without significant visual or aural content), I hope we won't end up a site that focuses around just Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Orwell. Those are all good stories, but they're just a tiny fraction of what the world of literature has to offer. This is going pretty well so far. I've seen questions on Borges, Whitman, Eliot, Faulkner, and Plath, and my question on William Blake got a pretty good answer faster than I was expecting.
But even more so, I would like Literature to surpass both SF&F and A&M in that whatever work we're talking about, we focus more on sophisticated inquiry and less on surface-level plot or trivia questions. It's not that those are bad or wrong questions, but they're not questions that get me fired up to go read something. Knowing that (made-up example) Baron Finklestein didn't just send a telegram because, as one of his servants mentioned in Chapter 3, the year was 1816 and the telegraph was not invented until 1844, I don't feel any urge to go read this story and I am not edified. But finding out that a story makes brilliant use of symbolism or employs an interesting plot structure leaves an impression in my mind, and might induce me to go read it if I haven't, or deepen my appreciation for it if I have. I think our current crowd of users has people who are capable of reaching this level, but we've seen it less because the site is still finding its feet. If we need a bit of snobbery to accomplish this, at least it's snobbery well applied instead of for its own sake.
On the other hand, I don't think we need to strive for the PhD crowd as our sole audience. My motive for saying so is entirely selfish: I'm not a PhD, and in fact am not very smart at all. I put "Beginner or Learner" on my commitment message. I was an English major my first year at university, and two semesters of English literature plus some rainy afternoons in the back of the library is my only training in literary criticism. I'm way too dumb to answer questions on this site even as it exists now. But every so often, I plunge in and read some Blake, or some Wordsworth, or some Shakespeare, or some Marquez, or some Wodehouse, and I have aspirations to someday read something by Thomas Pynchon and something by Vladimir Nabokov. When I do, I have questions that I'm too dumb to answer, that go beyond surface plot details. I'm hoping this will be a place I can ask them, but if every such question is greeted by a sound of crickets, I'm going to stop bringing them, just like I stopped bringing anything beyond "explain this pun" to Anime and Manga.
As a postscript, I'll comment on the scope issues. My main desire is that Literature become a place where questions about symbolism, language use, cultural and historical context, story structure, etc. get good answers, no matter what work they're asking about. If we have to eschew peripheral things like songs and graphic novels to get there, then so be it.
However, if we can reasonably include those peripheral things, I think we should, because there are indeed academics who study them in English and literature departments. A professor from the English department at the university I attended is a world-recognized expert on The Simpsons and runs an upper-division class on graphic novels covering work such as Maus, Persepolis, Watchmen, and Y: The Last Man. (I had the opportunity to take it even though it was way, way outside my major, and I squandered it.) The site can be large enough to include these works, but there is a danger that they'll take over and that the discourse on them won't reach an adequate level.
While I don't think this site needs to aim to become the Math Overflow or CS Theory of literature, it's good to have this discussion because I've seen what can happen to an analogous site when there's not enough expert knowledge to go around.
I use "expert knowledge" instead of "experts" deliberately. Someone can have expert knowledge without actually being an acknowledged expert. I agree with the sentiment expressed in other answers here: I don't care if the person who answers my question is a world-famous professor of literature or a janitor who reads a lot while waiting for the floors to dry, as long as the answer is composed at an expert level.
The majority of my network-wide SE reputation comes from my account on Anime and Manga, so Anime and Manga is my home site insofar as I have one. I also spend a fair amount of time lurking on Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and frankly much of the content I see there is higher quality than what we have on Anime and Manga.
I finally realized that Sci-Fi and Fantasy has better content than Anime and Manga because they have a few big, complex universes—Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, and DC and Marvel Comics—that everyone concentrates all the attention on. Anime and Manga has a gap between the works that hardcore fans like and more populist, accessible stuff, so it's developed these weird little sub-communities around a few series, with a long tail of questions about more obscure shows that never get answered or get lazy one-line wiki copy-and-paste answers.
Some of these questions are very interesting and deep, and every so often, one of them gets an answer which is very interesting and deep. Some of it even reaches what I'd like to see Literature move towards: insightful commentary on symbolism, intertextuality, historical and cultural context, story structure, and character motivation. As one example I'll point you towards About the artworks used in the Elfen Lied opening scenes (contains nudity), which explains how the images from the opening scenes of a not-very-good sci-fi action anime are actually references to paintings by Gustave Klimt, and unravels the symbolism which weaves the content of these paintings into the story.
Unfortunately, because Anime and Manga has so few people capable of writing such content, and so many shows dividing those people's attention, it's not common to see this sort of thing. I want to stress that questions at that level are also in short supply; most of the questions we get are the usual "Why did So-and-so do this?", "What's this Japanese pun mean?", etc. Not bad questions, but not deep or insightful. It's usually hard to write a deep answer to a shallow question.
Both of these represent potential futures for Literature: we could become like Sci-Fi and Fantasy and concentrate all of our attention on just a few big works, or we could become like Anime and Manga and have a large populist class talking about a few big works while a small elite lingers in the background, shooting questions about whatever their current interest is off into the night and hoping to hit someone with the knowledge to answer them. Both of these futures are undesirable to me.
I would like Literature to be more like Anime and Manga than Sci-Fi and Fantasy in this sense: given the vast scope of literature in the world (even if you restrict the scope to written narrative works without significant visual or aural content), I hope we won't end up a site that focuses around just Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Orwell. Those are all good stories, but they're just a tiny fraction of what the world of literature has to offer. This is going pretty well so far. I've seen questions on Borges, Whitman, Eliot, Faulkner, and Plath, and my question on William Blake got a pretty good answer faster than I was expecting.
But even more so, I would like Literature to surpass both SF&F and A&M in that whatever work we're talking about, we focus more on sophisticated inquiry and less on surface-level plot or trivia questions. It's not that those are bad or wrong questions, but they're not questions that get me fired up to go read something. Knowing that (made-up example) Baron Finklestein didn't just send a telegram because, as one of his servants mentioned in Chapter 3, the year was 1816 and the telegraph was not invented until 1844, I don't feel any urge to go read this story and I am not edified. But finding out that a story makes brilliant use of symbolism or employs an interesting plot structure leaves an impression in my mind, and might induce me to go read it if I haven't, or deepen my appreciation for it if I have. I think our current crowd of users has people who are capable of reaching this level, but we've seen it less because the site is still finding its feet. If we need a bit of snobbery to accomplish this, at least it's snobbery well applied instead of for its own sake.
On the other hand, I don't think we need to strive for the PhD crowd as our sole audience. My motive for saying so is entirely selfish: I'm not a PhD, and in fact am not very smart at all. I put "Beginner or Learner" on my commitment message. I was an English major my first year at university, and two semesters of English literature plus some rainy afternoons in the back of the library is my only training in literary criticism. I'm way too dumb to answer questions on this site even as it exists now. But every so often, I plunge in and read some Blake, or some Wordsworth, or some Shakespeare, or some Marquez, or some Wodehouse, and I have aspirations to someday read something by Thomas Pynchon and something by Vladimir Nabokov, and I have questions that I'm too dumb to answer, that go beyond surface plot details. I'm hoping this will be a place I can ask them, but if every such question is greeted by a sound of crickets, I'm going to stop bringing them, just like I stopped bringing anything beyond "explain this pun" to Anime and Manga.
As a postscript, I'll comment on the scope issues. My main desire is that Literature become a place where questions about symbolism, language use, cultural and historical context, story structure, etc. get good answers, no matter what work they're asking about. If we have to eschew peripheral things like songs and graphic novels to get there, then so be it.
However, if we can reasonably include those peripheral things, I think we should, because there are indeed academics who study them in English and literature departments. A professor from the English department at the university I attended is a world-recognized expert on The Simpsons and runs an upper-division class on graphic novels covering work such as Maus, Persepolis, Watchmen, and Y: The Last Man. (I had the opportunity to take it even though it was way, way outside my major, and I squandered it.) The site can be large enough to include these works, but there is a danger that they'll take over and that the discourse on them won't reach an adequate level.