Literary Criticism Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/literary-criticism/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:16:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Literary Criticism Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/literary-criticism/ 32 32 What Do the PDFs Say about This?: Brandon Taylor and Stephanie Insley Hershinow https://www.publicbooks.org/what-do-the-pdfs-say-about-this-brandon-taylor-and-stephanie-insley-hershinow/ Fri, 10 May 2024 15:00:46 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=56187 “What are the systems of power in this fictional context andthe story world I'm making? What are the stakes? What are the values?”

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]]> It’s Not Only Human Stories Worth Telling: Sigrid Nunez’s Animal Novels https://www.publicbooks.org/sigrid-nunez-on-vulnerability/ Tue, 07 May 2024 15:00:06 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=56091 Why are animals so central to Sigrid Nunez’s thinking about the status of fiction?

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]]> Interpret or Judge?: John Guillory on the Future of Literary Criticism https://www.publicbooks.org/interpret-or-judge-john-guillory-on-the-future-of-literary-criticism/ Thu, 02 May 2024 15:00:21 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=56049 “‘Professing criticism’ is a contradiction and maybe even an impossibility. I’d like to hope that it’s not, that it’s just an innovation, historically.”

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]]> A Translation the Size of the World https://www.publicbooks.org/a-translation-the-size-of-the-world/ Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=55869 “Translators and writers must fight through the “labyrinth of [the] imagination,” find their way through their private language toward a text’s new picture of reality.”

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]]> Phantoms of Patriarchy: On Ditlevsen & Bachmann https://www.publicbooks.org/phantoms-of-patriarchy-on-ditlevsen-bachmann/ Tue, 26 Mar 2024 15:00:44 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=55536 Revival fetishism perpetuates the gendered dynamics of authorship and reception that Tove Ditlevsen and Ingeborg Bachmann spent their lives writing about and against.

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]]> Life inside the Fiction Factory: Dan Sinykin on Conglomerate Publishing https://www.publicbooks.org/life-inside-the-fiction-factory-dan-sinykin-on-conglomerate-publishing/ Wed, 24 Jan 2024 16:00:54 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=54853 “An author’s photo is more appealing to the consumer than the publisher’s colophon.”

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]]> Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff https://www.publicbooks.org/overtaken-by-awe-sheila-heti-speaks-with-sunny-yudkoff/ Fri, 15 Dec 2023 16:00:04 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=54626 "When you call a book 'autofiction,' you released yourself from the responsibility of actually looking at what the book is doing."

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]]> Did the College Admissions Essay Remake Literature? https://www.publicbooks.org/did-the-college-admissions-essay-remake-literature/ Mon, 09 Oct 2023 15:00:52 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=53683 Is the college admissions essay (CAE) a useful tool for understanding ongoing transformations in literature, academia, and publishing?

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]]> “Gestures of Refusal”: A Conversation with Sarah Bernstein and Daisy Lafarge https://www.publicbooks.org/gestures-of-refusal-a-conversation-with-sarah-bernstein-and-daisy-lafarge/ Fri, 15 Sep 2023 15:00:38 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=53417 “Why do we want our characters to be innocent, as if we are innocent ourselves?”

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]]> The Text: Do Not Disturb https://www.publicbooks.org/the-text-do-not-disturb/ Thu, 28 Jul 2022 15:00:34 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49207 Does loving a work of literature mean seizing it? How should critics feel about their feelings toward a text?

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