On Harvard Prof Mounts a Defense of Teaching "The Wire"
Oh, people, I can make students read a dozen academic articles about "human rights violations" and the coup in Chile, but if I also make them read the novel The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (fiction! made up! but based on real things the author knows!), they weep and tell me that it makes the dry academic facts more real to them. Fiction and story-telling make emotional connections that are extremely powerful; "the truth" is also about empathy and connecting the dots, not just statistics. And if anyone things that "academic" studies aren't also artful constructions that construct the truth just as much as fiction, then they are kidding themselves.
Plato knew this; have you forgotten?
Don't forget that fiction has often played a role is raising consciousness around social change, even when it's not particularly artful fiction.
0
On Pro Paglia: Lady Gaga is a Smug Diva who Exploits her Monsters and Gays
Camille Paglia, fame-whore, casting stones again.