“It's very hard to know who your readers are, but that's who I'm... if I have somebody in my head, that's probably who it is.” IfsKnowsHardReader Author:Louis Menand
“The job of the critic, as it might have been conceived in the 1950's or 1960's, was some kind of role of moral arbiter for people, not a huge number of people, but people who were, you know, fairly educated, well-placed people.” PeopleKnowsWellsKindHas BeensMightJobsNumbersMoralRolesHugeCriticsEducatedMight Have Been1960sArbiterHuge Numbers Author:Louis Menand
“One of the functions of literary criticism, or reviewing, generally - and I, most of my reviews actually are not about literature - but one of the functions of that is basically the sort of Consumer Reports function of letting readers know whether this is something they want to read.” KnowsWantLiteratureReaderCriticismFunctionConsumersReportsReviewsLiterary Criticism Author:Louis Menand
“Just in higher education alone, more people go to college now, by enormous amounts, than went to college in the '50's and '60's. So that represents a whole new literate public that's a consumer of literature, of news, of print, of, you know, opinion. And that's a bigger audience and much more diverse audience than it used to be.” PeopleKnowsWholeUsedLiteratureOpinionAudienceCollegeAmountHigherNewsBiggerEnormousUsed To BeConsumersPrintDiverseHigher Education Author:Louis Menand
“I think at a place like Harvard, our experience, I was involved with, at various stages, in trying to implement a new general education curriculum, our experience was that Harvard's all about specialization, that's not just true of the professori, it's also true of a lot of the undergraduates, too, and they come, they kind of know what they want to do, they select it because they have a strong aptitude for something in particular.” ThinkingKnowsWantTryingKindStrongStageParticularInvolvedVariousSelectHarvardCurriculumAptitudeSpecializationGeneral Education Author:Louis Menand
“Obviously input is helpful to faculty in trying to come up with a curriculum, but ultimately it's the faculty's job to know what students need to know. Make a decision about it and present it.” KnowsNeedsTryingJobsDecisionStudentsCome UpHelpfulFacultyCurriculumInput Author:Louis Menand
“Getting faculties to come to a consensus about something that they've never really thought about or had to worry about in their careers before can be a rather slow process and a long process, it certainly was the case at Harvard, and it's the case with most of the general education curricula that I know of, it takes four or five years just to get everybody on board with one idea.” KnowsYearsLongIdeasProcessCareersCasesWorryFiveFourBoardsFive YearsFacultyConsensusHarvardGeneral Education Author:Louis Menand
“If you write for the New Yorker, you always get people critiquing your grammar, you can count on it. So, because a lot of New Yorker readers are kind of, you know, amateur grammarians and so you do get a lot of that.” PeopleIfsKnowsWritingKindReaderGrammarNew Yorkers Author:Louis Menand
