Issue four of n+1 arrived this morning. I am among those guilty for its door-stop size, since I contributed to the symposium, “American Writing Today” (not online).
7 thoughts on “N+1”
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Issue four of n+1 arrived this morning. I am among those guilty for its door-stop size, since I contributed to the symposium, “American Writing Today” (not online).
Comments are closed.
Can you elaborate on this?
What is n + 1?
What was your essay about?
n+1 is a new journal about culture and politics. They see themselves, rather self-consciously, as continuing the tradition of Partisan Review. Back in the day, PR used to do these occasional round-ups in which worthies weighed in on the "State of American Writing," and that's what I'm guilty of participating in. Wesley Yang wrote a profile of them for the New York Observer, and A. O. Scott wrote one for the New York Times Magazine.
As I decided whether I'm bold enough to drop you a line and tell you that I wrote critical review of your contribution to "American Writing Today," I looked through my logs and saw a link to this post. I searched the page for it, but couldn't (and can't) find it, so I can only imagine that the Internet itself wanted me to do so. Who am I to decline?
For the record, yes, I should've turned down the snark, but I was genuinely baffled by your contribution…and had been dissertating all day, and therefore prone to annoyance. (But I'm still somewhat baffled by your contribution.)
Thanks for the feedback, Scott. I left a comment at your post on the Valve's blog.
Although I'm largely in sympathy with you (as noted at the Valve), I wish you'd mentioned some of the academics who do have that fannish energy. They exist — why not grab the chance to give them a little shove into the n+1 spotlight? It's not like anyone else is gonna do it.
After thinking about the space you had to work with, I withdraw my kibitz. Any such effort would've likely come across as disruptive namedropping. "Some Reflections on the State of Things" is a frame friendlier to diagnoses than to celebrations.
Yeah, I did make a strategic decision not to name names, in praise or censure. But I can see your point. The other thing to admit, here: in my head, it wasn't an essay about academic criticism per se; it was an essay about criticism, and where it happens in our culture, and what's become of it. The essay didn't altogether come out that way, I realize.