ABSTRACT
Within the literary academy, the term "criticism" refers to what, by the 1960s, was certainly the most commonly practiced form of scholarship: textual interpretation. Outside of literary studies, "literary criticism" is more likely to mean some form of evaluation (the book review) and "criticism" unmodified has the primarily negative sense of fault-finding. When, within the academy, the term "criticism" takes on objective, neutral connotations, the word "critique" takes over the negative functions served by "criticism" outside academic discourse. Feminists writing about literature described our practice as "criticism" in order, I believe, to take advantage of the double sense of the word. It could imply, when necessary, that we were engaged in a negative evaluation, a "critique," of a cultural institution; it could also signify, when appropriate, that we were simply doing what students of literature did. This double sense worked well for a group located on the margins of an institution, expressing our position as at once critical of and obedient to the discipline.
