[j33zusjuice]

OK, that last sentence would be incredible. I think this is tongue in cheek, but I was an English lit major so I feel the need to defend my honor. XD

I don’t think you’d do well in 400-level classes this way. English Lit isn’t as much of a joke as STEM students make it out to be[1]: it gets a lot harder than the bullshit 101/201 courses everyone is required to take. You’re supposed to try to be original in your analysis, and it has to be rigorously proven within the text itself.

Probably as a grad student you’d start arguing against other critics points, but not undergrad. I think that would hold for almost all schools because no one at that level in that field wants to hear from someone who doesn’t know how to analyze a text in the first place. It’d be like a high school student trying to tell you about software (or systems, network, data, etc.) engineering.

For similar reasons, AI summarizations for past contributions wouldn't work, either. If you’re arguing someone else’s analysis is wrong, you’re going to need to read and understand the whole thing. And if you’re just copying from AI, you’ll have a hard time defending your position.

Although, man, if you can understand the subtext of a book from listening to an audiobook *while gaming*, AND you have time to watch all the online lectures about a book!? I need to talk to you about time management, my friend!

1 - I have been involved in so many forums and subreddits where people try to analyze books, comics, TV, or movies. Based on what I have seen come out of people there —- most of you MFers couldn’t pass 300-level classes.

People can’t analyze literature for shit, and I think it’s because everyone gets such a negative perception of literary analysis because high school and required college classes are junk. It’s actually really hard to read five novels in month, keep track of all the characters and plots and themes and so on, and understand all of them well enough to write a coherent argument. I saw so many kids in my major crying about their GPA getting tanked because they weren’t ready for rigorous analysis. FWIW, I was 25 as a Junior (third year of uni, in the US), and had spent the last few years reading exercise physiology papers while bored at work. Seeing real science changed my life, and I wanted to apply their level of rigor to my own analysis of any kind. It’s why I’m good at my job now, tbh.

[Tycho]

You probably wouldn’t be arguing that previous critics are wrong but surely to get top marks you’d be expected to know what relevant literary criticism has already been published and then build on that in some fashion. No doubt just reading that stuff would sharpen your own insights. AI should make it much easier to find the most relevant criticism and put it in context.

AI should also be able to help you gather evidence from the reference texts, because it can exercise reasonable judgement without any constraint on patience or access or time. Consider the recent social media sensation about the lady who got a PhD for analysing how smell factors into the fates of literary characters. AI can quickly find thousands of examples, and then filter them as desired.

You could even have the AI write essays for you - “analyse this novel through the lens of ____ theory” - where no literary criticism already exists to review. You could have it generate any number of such essays, applying theories/frameworks you might not even know, but want to understand better.

I think it’s possible to “read” an audiobook while doing something monotonous like walking, driving, or, yes, gaming. The lectures you probably have to treat like podcasts and just play them in the background and pick up some ideas.

[piltdownman]

//For similar reasons, AI summarizations for past contributions wouldn't work, either. If you’re arguing someone else’s analysis is wrong, you’re going to need to read and understand the whole thing. And if you’re just copying from AI, you’ll have a hard time defending your position.

QFT. It's like the Sparknotes scenario I outlined in my post above - what you get from this level of engagement isn't insight, least of all a debatable position, it's just a loosely cohesive bunch of table-quiz facts.

//People can’t analyze literature for shit, and I think it’s because everyone gets such a negative perception of literary analysis because high school and required college classes are junk.

Because most of what is being examined is passive/active voicings, brain-dead symbolism, and ham-fisted and dated metaphors as literary vehicles.

Even at University level there should be an emphasis on a 101 level course hammering home the importance of Critical Theory in Literary Criticism as a framework and approach for disseminating texts. Without a basic understanding of the cultural, historical, and ideological dimensions under which a text was conceived and published, you haven't a hope of climbing the foothills of Beckett, Camus, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Eliot, Joyce, Kafka, Shaw...