Edmundson states that if he could make one wish for the members of his profession, college and university professors of literature, he would wish that for one year, two, three, or five, they would give up readings. By "a reading," he means the application of an analytical vocabulary to describe and (usually) to judge a work of literary art.…

Literary studies is in the doldrums. Wave after wave of revisionism has washed over literature departments in the last few decades, bringing a miscellany of new methods and critical tools, from cultural materialism to critical race theory, deconstruction to disability studies, the new historicism to the new formalism. Yet, even as people's ways of…

Literary criticism no longer aims to appreciate aesthetics, which is to study how humans respond to art. The problem plaguing the literary academy is that literature is reduced to an idea or a moral and theory has become institutionalized in literature departments and continues to be taught.

Syllabi from some 20 colleges and universities were reviewed with prominent English and literature departments and a discussion was held with a number of professors who teach literary theory. It is suggested that devolution and fragmentation of theory might be a survival strategy, an adaptation to the new realties of academic institutions.

Using "historicist" techniques, scholars have offered challenging alternatives to standard views on the Romantic era. Historicists advocate yoking theories such as deconstruction with analyses of political, social, and other factors that played a role in the creation of period literature. An exhibit touring the United States is…