ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, an increasing number of academic critics have sought to reach a larger audience, beyond the confines of specialized disciplines and vocabularies. Without sacrificing complexity of thought, they have tried to write in a language accessible to more people. Part of that process has been abandoning what used to be the first rule of academic writing—Never say “I”—in favor of a more personal way of discussing literature and culture. Some literary scholars have abandoned (at least temporarily) criticism altogether, opting for straightforward autobiography—what I call writing without footnotes. For academics, this is equivalent to a tightrope walker working without a net. Such work claims attention not based on scholarly authority but on literary skill. 1