wailing and gnashing of teeth

[deborah]

There's a minor kerfuffle going on in both F&SF fandom and media fandom this week about some accusations that academia is the enemy of genre fiction and of fandom, and that SF should never be taught, and that "fans don't teach" (emphasis original). Now, this amused me no end for any number of reasons (not least the assumption that the bloggers' own experiences that literary analysis lessens reading enjoyment is universal; not to mention the assertion that scholarship is "a way to secure tenure" -- excuse me while I look at my own adjunct paycheck and then ROTFLMAO), so I read without comment, and then toddled off to teach my course in F&SF for Children.

And there I realised why, perhaps, fans shouldn't teach. Because the students almost universally disliked a book I think is one of the best books of its year, a book to which I'd have given the Printz. As instructor, I had to tamp down the part of me that was screaming "Fs all around! Why didn't you like this book! Aiyee!" and replace it with the calm, collected discussion leader trying to explore the text's use of language and character development. I think I succeeded, but oh, it hurt.

And the fan in me wants to chant: "Stupid stupidheads."

(They are great students, and smart, and we have great discussions. But I question their taste.)

Comments

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

I know another writer (of literary fiction & mysteries) who feels the same way as the OP you're talking about, and equally strongly, to the point where her language about academics is frankly insulting. I just don't understand how knowing someone out there *might* be analyzing your text (there's a LOLdemic in there somewhere) is so problematic.

Seems analogous to the perennial "OMG warn for icky stuff"/"click away, nobody's forcing you to read it!" fandom split in a way, doesn't it?

[deborah]

It really does, and I wish I understood it. The model of analysing that's killing and dissecting just makes me so sad. How does it kill a book to understand what it does? And how does my doing it kill the book for you?