The muslims, we could modern, but muslim, no, no, i will speak for you and liberate you. You will not liberate me and you do not get to define what a muslim is. You make of it what you want because for 1400 years men have been controlling it and have been telling what it is, you dont have enough scholarship. Someone told you you cant talk because youre lgbt. Theres always an excuse for us to exclude us. Thats exactly why i insist on remain to go identify as a muslim. It pisses them off. [laughter] on that note, i feel like what ive taken away from the panel if someone tries to represent you or speaks for you or define feminism. Our closing statement. Thank you for coming. [applause] the authors will now sign their books right at the table one. The barns and noble table. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] last Program Panel of cultural and political criticism. Hind hind hi, everybody, thank you for coming out, im jason, moderator for this panel. Before we begin u im supposed to tell you that you can buy books by all the authors in the program from barnes noble outside the building and immediately following authors will be signing adjacent booth signing table number one. And to make a quick introduction of writers, to my left, book computer critic for newsweek and the New York Times and most recently of the memoir, Margo Jefferson. [applause] and to the left of margo author of numerous books, fiction and nonfiction, wrestling with dh, zona, a book about a film of journey to a room and the collection otherwise known as the human condition geoff dyer. [applause] next to geoff, Senior Editor and author of first collection of criticism jessica hobeer. [applause] thanks, everybody. So to start things off margo, theres a wonderful quote in your memoir that i want to start things off with and clever of me to become a critic, we show off to a higher end for a greater good, our manners are declarations are welcome, and then you go onto say, except when theyre not. [laughter] review on amazon, what defines a critic today . And you can all answer this. Thank you, geoff. Thats thats theyre used to be all the, of course, if youre a critic, you have the certain kind of classical higher education. Its oldworld. I think people today would say, you know, i have a brain, i hope that would be the first thing they say and many driven by one particular like a certain period of cartoons or, you know, maybe making cultural phenomenon. I can put it i can put it in the world, i can put it on a blog, you know, i can put it on facebook and therefore, if i have opinions i am a critic. I dont mean to sign, if my line reading sounded snorky, i dont mean it too. Theres always been bad critics when resumes were lofty. You know, why not . Thats thats fine by me. It makes a little more room for us to push around and play with different tone structures, and maybe even push a little of the slight stiffness of the word critic, i mean, its a little stuffy. Geoff or jessica. Okay. No escaping now. Yeah, i guess, it was criticism a distinct civilized mind, but i think also its pretty common activity of the uncivilized mind as well. It seems to me whatever the subject matter is lets pick a subject thats close to my heart from somebody from england, beer, you know, you drink beer and very rapidly very quickly on the heels of the sensation you decide, oh, well, nice beer or nasty beer or ill have a different one but its very rare to just remain at that level of sensation. You also then almost instinctive i will say it was a shitty beer because this and this and this. Youve all done that thing when youre out on a date and go to a movie or something and you might say, that was rubbish but quickly some reasons of why it was good or bad movie. You know, the transition from that to articulating your opinions in print is well, theres a whole set of process to go through. But what i would also like to say, to add, thing about knowing an area about which you speak apply applies irrespective. He notices stuff about peoples tennis playing that i wouldnt have noticed. I wept to interview him once in england and he said he likes to talk about beer, he thinks budweiser is a great beer. [laughter] so its worth attending what he says about tennis. Its not worth paying any attention to what he thinks about beer, not because he hasnt drunken enough, he probably has, probably not in english terms, his taste is not discerning the way mine is. [laughter] jessica. I think that im excited by the way that criticism is being expanded by people who, you oh you know, previous generations, and you know, i dont mean necessarily the amazon reviewers, but you know, a lot of the young writers that i work with who came up through tumbler and came about from for perspective of being a fan, im very much one that believes that counts deeply, you know, what we might qualify as expertise. And, you know, the role of the critic, you know, as margo is saying, before it was cannon making or attending the cannon, perhaps, and with the, you know, sort of not entire cultural gate keeping but the shaping of the last decade or so within editorial everywhere, means that theres less of that gatekeeping, perhaps for amateurs, which i was one for quite some time to come into the folds of criticism and so i think theres less you can draw less a format outline one must have to be formerly a critic. And so i welcome that expansion of it, im delighted by that expansion of it regularly. Its kind of interesting to know, you know, however much of the kind of fan or willinnocent you start out as, the first move, when you say im a critic, i love this field is cannon making. You know, lets see, you know, jazz starting calling itself African AmericanClassical Music or american Classical Music and berkeley music and some years ago someone wanted to teach hiphop course and the response was appalled as 40s, 50s when somebody want today teach a jazz course. My generation was criticism. Not only was there the high literary move, you know, mitchell or the kind of global move, mack jagger. The cannon making and the status of the various kinds of rock music, so how we play with or, you know, negotiate those profound its still up for grabs, isnt it . Jessica you brought some interesting points. Something ive been thinking about discussion in the last few years, i wonder as editor how you see and fight to get new voices into the sphere of criticism. I think i mean,i dont want to say i was one of those people, but you know, when i first started writing professionally for nationally, 1819 years ago and at the time i didnt know anybody else who did what i did who was my age and gender, and so i at the time experienced that fairly acutely but that i think theres definitely much less of a fight now because no one wants to have the allwhite male editorial staff. I dont think theres a lot of people interested in maintaining and theres much more of an idea if they want to have wellrounded criticism, receive been bringing people from all experiences, backgrounds and who can bring in those lenses and those filters, you know, bring all of that to bare on their writing. And i see it and experience it as much less of a struggle particularly, you know, in the last handful of years. I think people are really excited by the broadening. All that all these young voices that people can bring to bare are really exciting. Margo or geoff, do you have anything on that . Not on that. No, okay. I was on a panel similar to this when an audience member asked one of the critics, im quoting, i wrote this down, why did you become a critic and the critic took a second, im not going to mings the critics name, paused and smiled and said, im not really sure. And i relay the story because i wonder if being a critic and identity is something that you learn over time. Geof, do you want to start well, i dont know what it means to be a critic, but maybe i dont want to be a politician whereby im not answering your question. I mean, the reason i dont think of myself just as a critic i think it goes back to this thing and i remember this so clearly that when i became a reader, which was rather late in life, very quickly, and that was great fun, i mean, you know, reading, whatever, really great fun of school and from sort of 16, 17 onwards, from o levels and a levels in england and to university, something disappointing was the speed doing english literature, became doing criticism. I became so correspondence of conscious of the gap which was fun and then in turn time we would read the criticism which was so boring so we would read [laughter] once you shouldnt speak disrespectfully of leaders. This thing which i had never come across before, i was so huge. Sort of addressing directly that the subject, title and i remember so clearly when we were doing the shakespeare paper and we were reading what are the motives, is he doing for the thing of the good of republic with assassinate cesar. All of the Academy Academic writing about it. Ill never forget this. Its a dramatic monologue as those spoken by brutus and it begans and goes onto sort of dramatize situation. He says Something Like im conscious of my situation but im about to select from several complex like a shy man confronted with the box of chocolates, the plainest after all. I love how that poem dramatized the experience of seeing or reading that play. And from that time on, i became aware that that huge gap in pleasure that existed between the work, fun, criticism, which tebded to be tended to be boring and fastforward a few years and this was formally expressed and it was so important to me. You know, wouldnt that be change . He said, no, its such an important, the syllabus of any art form adds up to sorry, tradition of any art forms acts up to syllabus of enacted criticism. In many ways, you know George Elliot is many some ways an essay of what jane austin couldnt do. Its immense but really its for work that come later in the tradition that we that we should turn to. And then in the case, this was so nakedly when i was writing about jazz, criticism written criticism about jazz is a variable quality, every time jazz musician picks up an instrument, creative thing and its also a kind of thing of common. You know, its sort of a train. Open letter to juke. I cant think who has done it now. We can think of plenty of tributes. Its been so important to me this idea of shrinking the gap between the fun stuff and the stuff written about it. Im in, very much, its something its so visible, you cited jazz. The living tradition vols involves not only appropriation, but you know, its enacted response, criticism. A friend was telling me the other day that she was sitting with a russian ball balerina naming russian ballet, and that came from that and that and that, and suddenly there was this wonderful vision of you know, bringing this ballets and disseminating them into and that in some way thats the pleasure principle. And i think probably, you know, i mean, when i started out as a critic and, you know, what you read was me being a little heavenly ironic about the impulse to be perfect in some way, translating itself into, oh, ill become a critic and important. Butbut when i started out i was really reading, yes, i read, you know, but really reading a lot of fiction and poetry. I needed to keep the muscles active and imaginative spirits going. Jessica, anything that you want to add . I mean, the thing that drew me to criticism is, you know, essentially [laughter] its waring the child out . Tough critic. In part i was so angry about when i was reading it because it was, you know, as reading people were holding them out like an arms length regarding status and saying, you know, this is amateur, well, thats the appeal and the things that that i loved that made the music vibrant were people who were looking to it in this very clinical way and it didnt represent, you know, the how passionate people feel about music and i felt like criticism should reflect that and to not reflect that, granted, i was not having deeply thoughts about criticism. I was in ninth grade. It was enough to say, no, i want to do do this. I wanted to represent however i can. Thats how i started writing. That criticism i have some respect for it, still, im always trying to close that gap in some ways of, you know, between the fan and the clinician basically. How would each of you, how would you say the role the critic has changed since you each started out. Jessica you kind of touched on this a bit. Geoff and margo if you want to start out. Curious on the thoughts. I could Say Something not good. I will. I guess i would in my whats happened to me. Its ashame he doesnt write many criticism anymore. Thats not true, ive just written different kinds of criticism. Ive written a lot about photography. I mean, for me the crucial the jazz in the jazz book beautiful as rather i was quite young when i wrote it. I was maybe, you know, 30s, and it sort of incredible line saying Something Like, i would have weirdly royal [laughter] sentence structure. Piece of imaginative criticism, that was my way of writing about music because i lacked Technical Knowledge of whats going on in music. I really liked all the stuff about the methodology, incredible lives people led, but g major to a c minor. I wanted to write that to find out, really just to find out why i loved this music so much. In recent years i have written so much about photography. Just my continuing selfeducation really, so i mean, for me whats happened is new categories but the impulse and the working meths have remained pretty much unchanged for me since i was shortly after after leaving university. I just add now, i mean, now i find it almost impossible to write about music. Its just so difficult. I dont know how anybody does it so what made it made it feel so difficult after you completed that book . Yeah ui really dont know. I just find that i could hardly do it. I could hardly do it. I think also jazz is a special case because the people are so incredible, specially somebody like me, you come from a literary training. Theres no doubt about it. Its a great, great writer. Compare his life to that of Charlie Parker or Charles Mingus and its really less interesting. [laughter] its a special case right there. That actually makes me think that youre saying how you sort of moved reviews to different avenues. I think thats a big shift. Big move. Yeah. So many of us started, us being critics with review and also particular with beat as they used to say. Yeah. Right . A book beat. You know, then i think many of us got impatient. The number of words you would write or a play. And then it seemed that the culture was inviting you different art forms, entertain ing, wouldnt think about one form about at least in the back of your mind, you know, thinking about others, having that material there. The moving onto a different going from reviews to books, that makes me think quotes that i found of yours that i really, loved, absolutely loved. It was obituary that should be briefed, its from 1995 New York Times review, yo wrote and with that in mind, in terms of how criticism is progressed, the social media specially twitter with 140character limit serve as a platform for criticism with papers and magazines cutting page counts, sort of, you know, undermine criticism. I know you mention jessica, a place where you found some of your writer, im wondering what your thoughts are on that, any of the three of you. I dont even the most tweet about i dont necessarily count that as view of criticism. But, you know, my my primary relationship to i dont want to say primary relationship. How i see social media impacting the work of particularly young writers that i work with is that the fear of twitters backlash the day after a negative review or even just a critical review is enough to, i think u definitely young writers that i work with will temper what theyre saying, sometimes that of fear. This is a side note, but i have worked with female writers in particular who have been docks over negative review. Where people who are internet trolls take your personal information, maybe where you live and put it maybe hack your phone. I worked with one young woman, people came after her because she wrote about race. Social media depending who you are and what youre writing about and how you feel about certain things that other people hold incredibly sacred like a song or an al album. Ive occasionally hired people to write things because they have like their promise shown in their twitter files, like if theyre really truly funny, this person can you write more. I feel fortunate that i grew up Free Internet because i think it groomed a different i was allowed to be fearless in a different way because people were pissed off by something that i wrote, they had to be motivated enough to fill up at least a postcard. Right. If not [laughter] youre like, both sides of the paper. Theyre pissed. You know. They had to buy a stamp to get to you. I distinctly, a piece that i wrote where the girls are, that really was kind of my first piece of longform criticism and i really distinctly remember that is being like the point where after that play everybody had email because that was the last use i got a lot of very specifically letters and and so i just had a different relationship with just feedback through social media and i wished that younger writers today had had that privilege in some ways to be at least there sort of be barrier or slowing of the feedback on what theyve written. And that is that didnt include threatening person. Jessica you mentioned and your reviews and geoff with the youve all blend, at times blend your own personal story with criticism, but im wondering, do you have a is there difference between writing about somebody else or what is the difference between writing and somebody elses work and writing about yourself . Im just kind of curious what your thoughts are. You know, i think its how ill talk about it in a small way first, if youre writing about somebody else and bringing yourself and its like proportion in a painting in photograph, what if youre the shadow or the light, where does it belong in the picture . You know, whats what are the shapes, whats the composition, why would i be there, what does it bring . Also in i when i first entered journalism, was this true in england you really couldnt use i in papers like the New York Times or newsweek, the i was absolutely forbidden. This was not ill put an asterisk there. Okay. But when i started to use the i, it felt like talking dirty or something. [laughter] you know, i did suddenly realized the fact is an i can be two things, it can be confessional or it can even be intense, it can be reserved, ironic, it can actually give more distance, more of a sen