Just read an August _Atlantic_ review of a book called _The Death
of Literature_--the particulars I forget--which claims we're not
teaching lit anymore in favor of political agendas, the usual
whiteoppressionimperialisticracegenderclass diversion from the
texts themselves.  While other fads come and go, the book's author
maintains, this school won't as the acedemy now discourges diverse
opinions that don't toe the party line.

I thought of this reading recent posts here--remembering a joke
article I wrote as a grad student--"Why Wait for the Text?:
Secondary Sources as the New Belles Lettres."  I envisioned a world
in which scholars never have time to read actual fiction or verse,
but rather are totally involved in reading each other, writing
about each other,  secondary sources of secondary sources re-re-
evaluating secondary sources.  The value of these career-shaping
projects--in lieu of pay--will be determined by whether or not the
source cited YOU.  I foresaw a day in which tenure committees will
be less interested in the stuff we write as the lists of whom and
which sources cite us.  I see as a precedent modern reporting: when
the press has milked a news story dry, they turn to coverage of the
coverage of the story--the press covering the press.

Is this a/the State of Mark Twain Studies?

the curious
wes britton