"Who is speaking?" Recent Debates about Contemporary Literature

There's been a bit of a furor recently about just who, exactly, is deciding what a work of fiction needs to include in order to be dubbed an "American Masterpiece." First, there was the Huffington Post article that lambasted "The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers."

Interestingly, number 15 is not a writer at all but New York Times Literary critic Michiko Kukatani, who recently gave Johnathan Franzen's new book a rave review, prompted The Atlantic to publish this article, claiming, in so many words, that the NYT neglects female authors and privileges the white, upper-class male writer who lives in Brooklyn (and yes, he is sad).

(The Awl also weighs in, chronicling the response of a few female writers to promote female fiction).

I've taken a particular interest in this latest onslaught of debates on how who is speaking determines who we(the public) are reading because I've also spent the last few days working my way through Ania Loomba's Colonialism/Postcolonialism, and that will get anyone thinking about the politics and power underlying the literary industry in contemporary circles.

On the one hand, certainly not all 15 of the "overrated" authors are white males. Yet this seems to place the "non-white males" on the list in a double bind: they are dismissed both by the NYT and by those who seek to shatter the hold that the NYT and those like them have over what we deem masterpieces of contemporary fiction.

As a sad young literary woman myself, I must confess that I too feel the privileging of the sad young literary men, and not just those who are our contemporaries. This is why Mary Gaitskill is called a "shock" writer and Philip Roth or Charles Bukowski are not, for example.

This is what, I think, makes the Awl article's conclusion particularly sad: if it is, in fact, impossible for someone speaking from the dominant position to speak for someone in the oppressed or subaltern position, then what help is it if the "single story" about non-white, non-sad, non-literary men is immediately dismissed as one that doesn't speak to the collective American reality?

If language speaks us, then limiting our literary output will have an impact on our worldview, and the cycle which privileges certain subjects and perspectives as more "literary" than others will continue. This seems analogous to colonized subjects inability to locate a language or mode of expression in which to speak.

What does everyone else think about this?

Here is one reason it is great to be a creative writer or the kind of person who likes creative writers if you live in Denton

All through the spring and summer, while the UNT English Department reading series wound down, Tex Gallery picked up the slack.  Tex Gallery is an art space that is run by a couple of guys that decided their house would be more fun if people came over to check out readings, jazz and experimental music, and local artists.  They also thought it would be fun to start their own review.  So they made both of those things happen, and now every month or so they set up a showing and invite everybody they know, which includes a lot of the people in the creative writing department here at UNT.

I've read there a few times, as have several of our other graduate students, and every time I've been super jazzed afterward.  Imagine a large living room without any furniture that is packed with people.  It's about ninety degrees, and everybody is sweating and sitting on the floor.  I'm talking unbearably hot and uncomfortable.  But when you get up there to read, things get electric.  They came to see you read.  That's what they're doing there.  It's a pretty great feeling.

The readers are phenomenal, too.  Below are Colin Winnette and Michael Inscoe from last week's set list (full disclosure: my reading will probably be uploaded to the texgallery YouTube account later in the week.  I encourage you not to look at it).











So yeah, that's one reason it's great to live in Denton.  Not only that, there was also the informal summer reading series that our friend Adam put together (Adam, I would probably brag about you if you had a youtube account), and now that the semester's started back up we also have the monthly student reading series again.  In fact, we're having one this Saturday at 7:30 at the Jupiter house on University.  Readers include Chelsea Woodard, Nathan Logan, Tim Boswell, Jessica Hindman, Jaclyn Thies, and Zach VandeZande (that's me).  If you are within driving distance, there are worse things to do with your Saturday.