Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Slow Down!

Lindsay Waters wants to start a revolution in reading that focuses on slow reading and rereading of texts instead of primary education that rushes through to some idea of competency or literary studies that reduce texts to their social context. He thinks we need to slow down, which is probably good advice in all areas of culture.

Waters:
"All that pseudoradicalism achieved full flower in the New Historicism, with its reduction of the text to historical backdrop, the default position for anyone who has wanted to leave the passion of the 1960s behind and replace it with revolution in the head.

There is something similar between a reading method that focuses primarily on the bottom-line meaning of a story in a novel and the economic emphasis on the bottom line that makes automobile manufacturers speed up assembly lines."

A certain discomfort with leisurely pleasure?

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