February 17, 2006

The 'Odd, Isolated World' of Literary Studies

To the Editor:

For Lindsay Waters, the "very idea" of literary aesthetics is "the rebellious, destabilizing, liberating aspects of art" ("Literary Aesthetics: the Very Idea," The Chronicle Review, December 16). Statements like this make it clear to us outsiders that aesthetics, as defined by the academy, is allied to a particular set of political commitments.

The possibility that some aesthetically worthy works of art may be characterized by self-constraining, stabilizing, and

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