This week on the bookish internet

There’s probably no good answer to the very important question Emma Goldberg asks here: Do works by men implicated in #MeToo belong in the classroom? (New York Times)
Lily Dunn confesses that it’s hard to teach the literary classics when it turns out that you, for justifiable reasons, don’t like them very much. (Book Riot)
- Pair with this piece by Livia Gershon, who briefly discusses the snobs who invented the idea of Great Books. (Daily JSTOR)
- Also, speaking of the Great Books, Harold Bloom’s Western Canon (and Harold Bloom in general) is problematic, too. (The Mary Sue)
A rogue patron in Idaho is hiding books they don’t like. (Idaho Press)
Chloe Vassot explains that many library books are slowly burning up from the inside. No, really. (LitHub)
This deconstructed Dracula is genius! Linking does not mean that I want you to contribute. I just think it’s a cool idea. (Boing Boing)
Are you looking for a scary book to read over Halloween? Here’s a list! (Buzzfeed)

2 thoughts on “This week on the bookish internet”

Regarding the first item. Do the works of men implicated in the ME TOO movement belong in the classroom?Firstly “implicated” does not automatically mean guilty. So it depends on whether you feel qualified to be judge, jury and executioner or not. My own thoughts are that the work should be examined on its own merit, not stand trial alongside its creator. Otherwise where do you draw the line. Many of these accusations are historical and extremely difficult to both prove or defend. If you start removing the works from schools and /or libraries there are also censorship and freedom of speech issues. Its a very big, messy can of worms.

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