SPI Session #2: On Leaving

October 14, 2021 5:00 pm — October 14, 2021 6:30 pm

Where do critics come from, and where do they go? In many cases, careers in literary criticism begin in the university, and end up in diverse publications on either side of the public/academic divide. Join Andrea Long Chu (Females), K. Austin Collins (Rolling Stone), Lauren Michele Jackson (White Negroes, The New Yorker), and Christine Smallwood (The Life of the Mind) for a discussion of writing in and out of the academy, moderated by LARB Senior Editor Sarah Chihaya. What kinds of forms, arguments, and styles are made possible by breaking free from the spoken and unspoken rules of scholarly criticism? Conversely, upon leaving strictly academic writing, what might one miss?

Andrea Long Chu is a writer and critic who lives in Brooklyn. Her book Females was published by Verso Books in 2019.

Sarah Chihaya is an assistant professor of English at Princeton University and Senior Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is one of four authors of The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism (2020).

K. Austin Collins is a film critic for Rolling Stone. He was formerly the film critic for Vanity Fair and the Ringer. His writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Reverse Shot, and the Brooklyn Rail.

Lauren Michele Jackson is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and a contributing writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of the essay collection White Negroes and is currently working on a second book, forthcoming with Amistad Press.

Christine Smallwood is the author of a novel, The Life of the Mind. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine and a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University.

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This event is part of LARB’s Semipublic Intellectual Sessions, a tenth anniversary celebration and fundraiser. Donate what you can to register for this event or make a contribution of $75+ to receive a full series pass, which includes automatic registration to all five events, a copy of the Semipublic Intellectual issue of the LARB Quarterly Journal, and a limited edition Semipublic Intellectual tote.

Download a full program guide here.