Lit Crit

[Ebony]

No: HPFGUIDX 7515

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Catlady <catlady at w...> 
wrote:
> But I REALLY wish someone had answered my question about 
'What good is
> it?'

Hi Rita--as I said, I think the question is legitimate.  I am giving it 
some thought before I answer.  Those of us in the humanities 
are always called upon to justify our "right to exist", and while I 
have ready arguments for a lot of other things I've mentioned 
here (why teachers aren't all evil, why Christians aren't all 
intolerant, why the modern concept of race is based upon 
pseudoscience, and why Harry and Hermione belong 
together)--I'm still constructing my position about the value of my 
research field.   

A quick answer for you is that we are the defenders of the power 
of the pen.  Some feel that literature is merely another form of 
entertainment--the post-Gutenberg era's equivalent of "bread 
and circuses".  We in the humanites believe that we fulfill a 
function that the sciences do not--they study what we are, we 
study *who* we are.

I'll get back to this soon.  :)

--Ebony