Our TeacherInterviews!

ENGLISH LIT: bie Sanders

Albie'stakeoninteresting english questions

Lucy: "Should literature be moralizing?"

Albie: "Interesting question. I think sometimes texts try too hard to convey a political message suffer a bit as a result. From a critical perspective, the texts which have the most political or social weight have often not been about a political issue. Shakespeare's a good example of that as Hamlet is ostensibly a play about the monarchy of Denmark. Within that however, we can think about Jacobean views on gender hierarchy for example even though that isn't specifically what the play is about. I think literature is always moralizing or has a moral point, but the morality within it is often less obvious than you might expect."

Alma: "Is elitism necessary within literature?"

Albie: "Some people argue that the literary canon shouldn't exist at all, and that we should be much more varied in the kinds of texts we study. I would say that in a general sense the canon is exclusionary, the definition of it is that we live in a racist and capitalist culture and literature is published in this culture. Therefore, widely the canon excludes outsider, marginalised communities such as multi-ethnic, working-class, trans literature and that elitism is negative. On the other hand, if you had no sense of literary worth and you studied Cheryl Cole's autobiography in the same way you studied

Keats Which some people would advocate! I think there are qualities that make a work of literature good. The ambiguity, the complexity of meaning. I think a certain level of selectivity when we're studying literary texts is necessary.

Lucy: "Is there such a thing as reading too much into things?"

Albie: "The number one question you get, pre-sixth form is did the author really mean this? That idea doesn't really matter Every time we read a text, we're kind of remaking it There are innumerable interpretations of a text. Some interpretations are better than others, but the whole point of literary studies is to read too much into things. If we value literature as an important social and cultural production, then the undercurrent of literary texts is crucial for understanding the role it plays in the culture."

- Interviews conducted by Lucy andAlma (SOTM creators!)

Teachers Interviewed (Issue 1):

Robert Pennington

NabihahAhmed

Steven Fothergill

Stephen O'Byrne

Albie Sanders