Critical detritus ..

.. Marjorie Garber's The Use and Abuse of Literature: Why does she ask all the wrong questions? - By William Deresiewicz - Slate Magazine. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)

Because literature, for Garber, is self-enclosed, so are literary studies. The point of asking questions, it seems, is just to ask questions. Call it crit for crit's sake. That is the reason that Garber can only repeat her central idea, never take the risk of explaining or exemplifying it. Why does literary reading have the "freestanding power to change the world"? Does it make us more alert, more skeptical, more humble, more open? She can't say, because any one of those would be a "use."