Can I write a blog post about a conference I didn’t attend? Watch me.
The first Book Blogger Conference, a one day gig, happened a few weeks ago in New York, just after BookExpoAmerica. I want to start by saying how impressive it is to me that some book bloggers would get together and do what they did.
On the agenda, there were two speakers, in addition to a number of panels. One of those was Ron Hogan, who spoke on Ethics and Professionalism in Blogging. I was really interested in his talk, so I watched the video. I offer a summary and commentary below. Let me say for the record that I love the fact that this talk was invited, that the organizers made room on a crowded schedule for ethics, and that Hogan had a number of things to say that are interesting, important, and worth hearing. I offer disagreements and critical remarks below, because that’s how I engage with things that interest me. That’s what philosophers do. It’s not an indication of lack of respect or appreciation: quite the opposite. If the talk sucked, I wouldn’t bother with this post. I have better things to do, and so do you.
Moving on … according to his bio, Hogan
helped create the literary Internet by launching Beatrice.com in 1995. In 2010, after writing about the business side of publishing as a senior editor for GalleyCat for several years, he briefly served as the director of e-marketing strategy for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
I confess that I had never heard of Hogan prior to checking out the BBC agenda. In case any of you are in a similar boat, this piece is a nice introduction to his interests, skills, and achievements.
Anyway, here is a summary of the talk, with commentary. I did my best to be accurate, but I may have gotten something wrong. If I need to be corrected, feel free to do so.
Hogan starts out by distinguishing what professional literary critics do from what the book bloggers in the audience do:
Of course you don’t live up to the standards it sets for itself because you are doing something completely different and there are so many other ways to talk about a book than an analytical review. And many of you are doing that. You show enthusiasm. You do interviews. You contextualize things through biographical reflection. You do personal reflection, getting very specific about what a book means to you, rather than an attempt an objective analysis of it.
[It's probably true that a lot of bloggers don't strive for objectivity, but I think they achieve it, or come as close to it as any pro. Otherwise, how do we explain the common practice of declining to review certain books, i.e. books written by friends or crit partners, or books for which a reviewer has served a beta reader? How do we explain disclaimers within reviews to the effect that "this is not a type of book I normally read", etc.? To my mind, all of those are objectivity-enhancing practices.
It's true, absolutely, that book bloggers are more likely to talk about personal experiences with a book -- the way it felt to read it, especially. But to my mind, this doesn't detract from the potential of objectivity. It's also something pros do, albeit in a less explicit way. When Larry Doyle reviews Elliot Alagash: A Novel by Simon Rich in the NYTRB, calls it "funny" and recounts the "nasty pleasures" it provides, does anyone think he is measuring the novel against an objective (i.e. has-nothing-to-do-with-Larry-Doyle's-subjective-preferences) standard of "humor" and "pleasure"? Or, to take another random example, when the LRB's Nicholas Spice says of Phillip Roth's Everyman, that it is "disagreeable", or that its formal intricacy is "the most interesting thing about it", I have to ask "disagreeable and interesting to whom"?
Doyle and Spice compare the subjects of their reviews with other books in the author's oeuvre, and with similar books published before or since. So maybe it's their knowledge of their subject that sets them apart? Um, no. In my websurfing, good genre fiction bloggers do the exact same thing ("This Nora Roberts is a bit steamier than her usual"; "I think we have seen this hero before in an earlier Julia Quinn novel; "With this book, J. R. Ward has moved from romance into urban fantasy" etc.). There are differences, but I think they are mainly stylistic, and of degree rather than kind. I also think they have more to do with the self-image and goals of the reviewer than content of the reviews.
Hogan began his talk by saying that the "war between the bloggers and professional reviewers is over, and that the bloggers won." But I wonder how it's a "win" if they are not even playing the same game?]
Hogan then defines what “professional” means for this group:
“Professional” for most of you is not about drawing a paycheck or commission or freelance sort of thing. That’s not what professionalism is to you. It is about living up to a certain standard of excellence or a certain standard of performance.
[I appreciate, from personal experience, how hard it is to talk to a diverse group of people. There is no way anyone could address all of the different interests of the audience in one talk. But I just want to point out -- and I am not saying that Hogan, of all people, doesn't know this -- that many book bloggers are, or hope to be, professionals in the sense of earning money and making a living: some are aspiring authors, editors, publishers, or marketers, and some are aspiring to -- and do -- earn a living directly from their blogs. So, I think it's worth noting that many of these "amateur" bloggers have complex and intricate relations with commercial interests -- which serve their own economic interests -- from taking ARCs to serving as stops on publicity tours to joining with bookstores to ad revenue, Amazon vine, you name it. Finally, even those who book blog "for fun" are often contributing in some way to their family's finances, even if it's just saving money on purchased books. No, not a profession, but not somehow outside our economic system either. If you can hear the grinding of a feminist axe, you have good ears. I'm a little sensitive about this because economic history is littered with descriptions of the public sphere that describe anything women do as non-public, non-commercial, non-political, etc.]
Hogan then adapts Seth Godin’s techniques for making yourself indispensable to your employer. Godin, also a new name to me, and again from his bio, is the “author of the most popular marketing blog in the world”, and “of the bestselling marketing books of the last decade”.
[I confess I was skeptical right away. How do we get from professionalism to marketing? Hogan has just told us that book bloggers aren't interested in professionalism in the usual (paycheck earning) sense, but rather in the sense of a standard of excellence. So it feels like a bit of a nonsequitur to hand the talk over to a guy known for helping people sell things, especially themselves.]
Hogan relies mainly on Godin’s book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (Review here). He says,
I am going to jump off from the specific qualities that he talks about and tinker a bit with the qualities that he raises … and we’ll talk about them in our kind of environment.
So, here are the 7 qualities for making yourself indispensable to your employer or — in the case at hand — your blogging audience:
1. Providing a unique interface between members of the organization — what is it that binds you and your readers? What is the passion that you share? The book and authors that you love, and the ways that you love them. Each of you must identify that quality for yourself, for your blog, and for your audience in your own unique way.
2. Delivering a unique creativity — what makes your blog stand out?
3. Managing a situation or organization of deep complexity — there are so many books published, no one can cover it all. “What are you zoomed in on and bringing to people’s attention?”
4. Leading customers — “Where are you pointing your readers? … You have a mission or point, whatever that is. What is it? What will result from the conversation you are starting?”
5. Inspiring staff — you are inspiring readers simply by being out there. What are you inspiring them to do? It is an ongoing movement. Where is it headed?
6. Possessing Deep Domain Knowledge — Do you know the territory? — You are an expert of some kind, even if it is only in the field of “books I love.”
7. Possessing a unique talent — What perspective do you bring? What do you have to say about those books that will draw people back to your site day after day?
So those are sort of the professional standards, and professionalism meaning standard of performance, the kinds of things that you might want to try to live up to as you are sitting there at the keyboard. Not necessarily in a very conscious way, but simply as things that would inform your actions on a very organic level.
[Contrary to my initial skepticism, I liked the adaptation Godin's qualities to blogging, and Hogan's questions were thought provoking for me, especially #5. On the other hand, I'm not seeing the connection between these 7 qualities and "professionalism". Godin's idea was to provide ways for employees to make themselves indispensable so they don't lose their jobs. When I think of a "standard of excellence" for book bloggers, I think of different things. Qualities like honesty, diplomacy, sanguinity, and reliability, for example, and specific comprehension, communication, writing, and technological skills. But maybe that's just me.]
Hogan moves from here to the next segment of his talk:
So the ethical part of the conversation is that just as you shouldn’t accept somebody else’s standard of professionalism willy nilly, you shouldn’t necessarily allow book critics or professional journalists to impose their standard of ethics on you because their standard of ethics is not necessarily applicable to what you do. It’s applicable to what they do, and it’s created specifically to respond to their circumstances … but it’s not your set of circumstances and, you know, frankly, why would you need to declare a code of ethics?
Hogan says that bloggers don’t need a code of ethics because either you are trustworthy or you aren’t and no code of ethics will change that reality. You shouldn’t have to say that you are trustworthy — you should just be trustworthy. Citing Godin, Hogan notes that codes of ethics evolved when commerce developed to the point that business associates did not necessarily know each other, and they needed a standardized sign of trustworthiness. Hogan says that we don’t need a code of ethics to trust bloggers we love because we have let them into our hearts already.
[I agree with Hogan here, in principle (heh) as I will explain below, but I have no idea what he meant when he said that last line. I think there are lots of good reasons to develop a code of ethics that go unexplored here. It's more about the effect of the process on the self-understanding of the people to whom the code applies, than about getting readers/customers/clients to trust you. The bigger problem, to my mind, with developing a code of ethics for book bloggers is that it is such a diverse group, with different aims and audiences, that it would be hard to come up with anything not unhelpfully general and superficial.]
Hogan then moves on to define what “ethics” means to him:
Ethics to me are not about the principles that you lay out but about the questions that you are asking from the starting point.
[I like this very much.]
Noting that principles have exceptions, Hogan suggests moral particularism, where it’s
not about the codified principles but rules of thumb by talking about the situation and seeing where people are coming from from a variety of different perspectives and sort of laying out some guidelines but not hard and fast ‘you must do this or you are an unethical person’ sort of rules.’
[Here Hogan is wading into philosophical ethics, with not very satisfying results, to me at least. It's a long way from "principles have exceptions" to "moral particularism" (most principlists recognize the need for context sensitivity and for exceptions), and a long way from "moral particularism" to "we don't need principles" (most particularists think we do), but the bigger problem is that I don't think this detour did any work for him in the talk. That is, the debate between particularism and its opponents is really a metaethical debate about the structure of moral judgment, and isn't really helpful in discerning which moral judgments are right or which ones have a better claim on us. My own rule of thumb is to avoid direct discussion of arguments in ethical theory whenever possible when giving ethics talks, unless there is absolutely no other way to make my point.]
Hogan proceeds to demonstrate this ethical approach by discussing two issues:
1. Do you talk about how you got your books, i.e., the FTC thing.
We get a summary of the issue. Hogan says that disclosure is not something we have to do, but we can choose to do it for any number of personal reasons. Not doing it is a personal choice. So again “it’s not a hard and fast rule one way or the other. It’s this is right for me, this is right for you.”
[I detected no ethics in this discussion whatsoever. In fact, the implicit claim is more or less that disclosure is a matter of personal preference, not a matter of ethics. By definition, an ethical matter is one for which you have to provide public reasons of some form more compelling than "this is what I want to do". It is fine with me if someone doesn't think disclosure is an ethical issue -- that's a legitimate position to take. But let's be clear on what we are doing.]
2. Do you ask people to write for your blog for free? Hogan makes a reference to the keynote speaker, who said she didn’t like blog tours. His next example is the Huffington Post, which doesn’t pay its writers, yet makes loads of money off of their content. Hogan notes that this presents a potentially exploitative situation. But
I don’t have an answer for you that would fit every set of circumstances. And I don’t think anybody does. It’s an ethical decision that each of us has to make of our own accord. … You have to look within your heart and ask yourself, ‘is this what I want to accomplish in terms of all those kinds of qualities I talked about before of your professionalism?’ The choices that you make ethically, are they steering you toward the standards that you set for yourself as a blogger and as a writer and as a communicator. And are you doing that in a way that is helpful to everybody rather than harmful to anybody?
[While I see the HuffPo point, I actually had a hard time understanding what the ethical issue is here with book bloggers. Anyway, we get a glimmer of a substantive ethical approach in the last line, a sort of consequentialism (i.e. take the action has the best consequences for everybody affected, however "best (goodest)" is defined. Here, best seems to mean "helpfulness".) But just a glimmer. You know what would have been great here? To move beyond "context counts" to talking about one specific case and working through it. I can understand choosing not to tell other people what they should and should not do, but then how about talking about, as he said earlier, the ethical realm in which he is truly expert -- Beatrice.com? I would have loved to hear what his standards are for his blog/s, and how his standards dictate a certain response to the disclosure issue, and how that has worked out for him and for those affected by it. Because I can think of a lot of ways to meet the "professional" standards of 1-7 that are pretty darn unethical. So being more specific here could have shown how 1-7 can work as ethical standards, or at least how those professional standards might intersect with ethical concerns to generate a satisfying resolution in a particular case.]
I gather that Hogan, like any good speaker, left a lot of time for Q&A, and I would have loved to hear if some of his points were fleshed out during the less formal part of the presentation. As this talk shows, professionalism, marketing, ethics, community, and reviewing intersect in complex and new ways for book bloggers, and I’m glad knowledgeable people in the book blogosphere are taking the time and creating the space to reflect on these issues.
Related posts:
- HaMPO: Help A Moral Philosopher Out: Live Blogging An Academic Conference, Ethics of Welcome to my new feature, HaMPO, in which someone who has a PhD and 10 years professional experience in her...
- Alert: Immediate Change in This Blog’s Focus and Pace I’ve just looked at my calendar and had a small heart attack. My blog, and your blogs, and Twitter, have...
- My Ethics and Fiction Class (and how romance reading has changed it) Ok, kids. Which one of these things is not like the other? REQUIRED TEXTS: Stephen K. George, Editor, Ethics, Literature,...
- Sexual Ethics in Romance I’m over at Romancing the Blog today, attempting to commit virtual suicide by tackling the above topic in 500 words...
- Blogging: Public or Private? By Tumperkin I’ve been pondering the extent to which blogging is a public or private concern. The answer might seem...
- Fuzzy Thoughts on Promotion and Book Blogging I’ll start with three quotations: 1. In an interesting post called “The Reviewer/Promoter Hat“, Mrs. Giggles wrote, I found myself...
#1 by katiebabs on June 19, 2010 - 1:35 pm
who decides what a blogger’s code of ethics is? Since blogging has so many unwritten rules, there is no set ways of doing things.
#2 by Laura Vivanco on June 19, 2010 - 4:40 pm
“Hogan starts out by distinguishing what professional literary critics do from what the book bloggers in the audience do”
I can’t see the video, so I can’t check this myself. Did Hogan say (and mean) “professional literary critics” rather than “professional reviewers”? “Professional literary critics” tend to be academics; most professional reviewers write reviews, not literary criticism (although it’s possible for reviews to include some literary criticism).
#3 by Sunita on June 19, 2010 - 9:30 pm
@Laura Vivanco: He seemed to be conflating critics writing for newspapers and magazines with academics whose speciality is literary criticism.
I found the whole presentation rather underwhelming. Like you Jessica, I couldn’t see much in the talk that was seriously engaging ethics. His discussion of trust I found to be almost entirely content-free and surprisingly ungrounded in the work that is out there on trust relationships. After all, it’s not as if no one has thought about trust in the virtual sphere.
And the idea that professionalism is something you determine for yourself is just bizarre; after all the entire history of professionalization is about collectively establishing barriers to entry. His comments reminded me of the worst interpretations of the 10k hour rule, i.e., that doing something for 10k hours makes you an “expert”, completely ignoring the importance of deliberate practice in those hours.
#4 by Sunita on June 19, 2010 - 9:34 pm
On professionalization, I should add that Hogan did use the definition of “professional” that focuses on type of behavior rather than an earned credential that has a substantive meaning. But he was also explicitly rejecting the idea that professionals are paid and those who are not paid are amateurs. I agree that the latter definition is too confining, but the behavioral one (which in his interpretation does not need external validation) is really unhelpful in drawing distinctions, since we don’t all agree on what constitutes professional behavior in blogging and reviewing.
#5 by Jessica on June 20, 2010 - 9:38 am
@Laura Vivanco: I am sorry the video is not working for you. I believe this link gets you an audio version.
@Sunita: Thanks for answering Laura’s question.
Agreed with all of your comments. The word “professional” is so fraught in this community. It’s fascinating to me at least.
@katiebabs: Well, the idea of a code of ethics is to articulate that. But But I agree with you that book bloggers are a diverse group. That’s why I *did* appreciate Hogan’s points about the differences between pros and amateurs, although I took issue with some of them.
#6 by Kim in Hawaii on June 20, 2010 - 1:35 pm
Mahalo, Jessica, for the summary! I am going to save my pennies in the coming months so I can attend these wonderful functions in NYC next year (BEA, BBC, and the RWA National Convention).
In response to Katiebab’s comment that there are no written rules, I note that we all still have common sense. Let’s appreciate this technological opportunity to build bridges, not dams, in celebrating books!
Three random thoughts about this subject:
(1) On Memorial Day, the Honolulu Star Bulletin (now the Star Advertiser) featured a editoral cartoon, “The Pen is Mighty Thankful to the Sword”, recognizing the military’s sacrifice for freedom of speech. As a military veteran and spouse, I ask bloggers to appreciate this our freedom of speech by respecting others’ freedoms and feelings, too.
(2) Barbara Vey’s blog featured Cub Report Andrew Shaffer from the BBC:
http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/beyondherbook/?p=1382
He quoted Maureen Johnson on several subjects, including “On authors who slam other authors’ books:
‘Saying something bad about another author’s book is like peeing in the swimming pool.’”
I believe her statement is funny and relevant!
(3) The Honolulu Star Advertiser published a recently column in the lifestyle section about romance books:
http://www.staradve rtiser.com/ features/ 20100618_ 5_Things_ We_Love.html
I noted the rules for commenting:
COMMENTING ETIQUETTE: To encourage open exchange of ideas in the starbulletin.com community, we ask that you post with aloha, follow our guidelines and respect your fellow posters. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read.
I think the last line says it all – just be courteous to each other, even if bloggers are agreeing to disagree.
#7 by Ron Hogan on June 20, 2010 - 9:18 pm
Thanks for this great response, Jessica. I’ve thought a bit about what you said.
Per the comments above, in the context of the presentation, I use “literary critics” to refer primarily to those writing about books for non-academic publications, an equivalent term being “professional book critics” or “professional book reviewers,” as that is the class of people writing about literature who have acted most put upon by bloggers gaining an audience by writing about (somewhat different) books in (somewhat) different ways.
#8 by Laura Vivanco on June 21, 2010 - 4:15 am
Ron, I’m going to have to disagree that the terms “professional book critics” and “professional book reviewers” are “equivalent” to “literary critics.” For many of us the term “literary critics” makes us think of a very different group of people who write about books. I don’t say this because I think literary criticism is better or more important than reviews. I’m saying it because they mean very different things to me and, I assume, to a fair number of other people. This being the case, it seems to me that if you’re looking at the distinction between (a) reviewers who are employed by a newspaper or magazine and (b) reviewers who are bloggers and exploring what professionalism and objectivity mean in those contexts, it’s really not particularly helpful to introduce a term like “professional literary critics” to the mix.
As my colleague Sarah Frantz has noted, reviewing is “a completely different skill from literary criticism.” First of all, literary critics tend to work on the assumption that their readers have already read the book under discussion. They therefore don’t worry about providing “spoilers” and don’t tend to include short summaries of the major plot developments and characters. Furthermore, literary criticism, while it probably doesn’t always end up being completely objective, involves much more objective criteria: “it’s not about personal taste, but about what I can say about the book’s _______ (construction, organization, historical context, images of gender/class/race, etc.).” Reviewers, on the other hand, frequently do mention their enjoyment (or lack of enjoyment) of the text under review.
As far as the issue of professionalism is concerned, people who are what I’d think of as “professional literary critics” tend to have a professional qualification, i.e. a PhD. Professional book reviewers, on the other hand, do not need a professional qualification of this sort, nor are their reviews subject to peer review prior to publication.
#9 by Laura Vivanco on June 21, 2010 - 4:21 am
Jessica seems to have taken out the edit function, or I’d have gone back and clarified that last comment a little.
“Peer review” in an academic context can be a rather lengthy process, and generally involves a piece being submitted for comments to at least two other academics. They may then make suggestions, as will the editor of the book/article.
I suspect the process involved in checking a book review prior to publication is somewhat different, although I’m sure newspaper and magazine editors do scrutinise book reviews.
Apologies if I seem to be labouring my points here and/or stating the obvious.
#10 by Maili on June 21, 2010 - 6:30 am
I agree with Laura Vivanco here, even though I have much simplistic definitions:
- Literary critic offers an in-depth assessment of contents with an intention to persuade readers to agree with their view of what it represents.
- Book/Literary reviewer offers an assessment of a performance with an intention to persuade readers to agree with their view of what it offers.
Basically, what differs a reviewer and a critic are the objectives of their reviews and types of their audiences. In my view, reviewers are part of the book marketing machine (because they tend to review new or current releases). Literary critics tend to focus on building or solidifying their academic specialities. Literary critics have little impact on current book sales and also have little or no influence on the mainstream audience, which is not the case for book reviewers in general.
I don’t think it’s uncommon for a person to have both roles, though.
@Laura
Editorial assistants, on the other hand, sometimes provide editorial feedback to reviewers, particularly the new ones. (Note to potential mag/newspaper reviewers: this is why you should always be nice to editorial assistants.)
Of course, it depends on titles and/or editors, though. Sight & Sound, for instance, takes their reviews seriously. They will reject a staff review if it’s not up to their standards. On the other hand, mags like Empire and Total Film are more interested in ensuring the quality of editorial articles than staff reviews (and news, damn their souls because some news items were published unverified. *still burning*).
Either way, I do think the review process of a literary critic’s work is stricter (and a lot slower) than it is for a general reviewer’s work. Actually, I think the review process – via their peers – is done before it’s published while the review process – via readers – is done after it’s published.
Having said all that, I think while editors are gatekeepers of reviewers’ professional conduct (in reviews), it’s readers who are ultimately the gatekeepers of these reviews. It’s them who determine whether reviews are appropriate or not, and it’s also them who determine whether a magazine’s current stable of reviewers (and editorial writers) is good enough for them to keep buying copies of the magazine via retail shelf or subscription.
This kind of mentality steeps into the review blogging scene, but it’s evolved enough to differ mag/newspaper reviews from blog reviews (and review bloggers).
Online readers tend to be drawn to bloggers’ code of ethics (and handling of readers’ responses) more than reviews in general. By this I mean, we all have our principles and boundaries but in blogging, our review blogs defined by our ability to ensure consistency of enforcing these principles and boundaries.
Example: If a review blogger is known to provide snarky reviews, regular readers will learn what principles and boundaries are and respond accordingly. Said review blogger will snark about books, but draw a line at taking pot shots at authors. This is her idea of professional conduct and blog visitors react accordingly by either visiting her blog regularly or stay away. Traffic statistics are basically a circulation audit.
In short, while it’s my view that there is a code of ethics*** that all bloggers – reviewers, political commenters, personal bloggers, all sorts – are expected to follow, it’s a different story when come to having a code of ethics for each own blog. This code can be applied to commenting for visiting readers as well. This is why the editorial and commenting of reviews blogs can be so different from each other.
So, I do think there are two sets of codes for the review blogging scene as a whole. One for bloggers’ conduct as a whole and one for a blogger to adapt and use on own blog. Not all review bloggers feel they have to have their own codes of ethics, though, as it’s not necessary. It’s fine as long as they respect the overall code.
Review bloggers’ value lies with two major elements: consistency (of their customised code of ethics and the quality of their writing), and constant editorial input. It’s these elements that help readers to determine bloggers’ trustworthiness and/or credibility.
In my view, professionalism requires review bloggers to protect their credibility (including their blogs’ branding) and/or readers’ trust at all costs. Professionalism does not mean all review bloggers should or have to be held to a single person’s idea of professionalism.
Eep. I’m going to shut up. Sorry for being so long-winded. I’m operating on lack of sleep and a bad set of house move blues. Excuse the disorganised structure in my response, too.
***Examples: Don’t publish the contents of a private email without permission. Don’t pimp your blog through your comment (in the comments section) at someone else’s blog if it’s not related to a topic at hand. Don’t publish anyone’s personal/professional contact details without permission online. And so on.
#11 by Ron Hogan on June 21, 2010 - 12:16 pm
While I recognize that there may be some useful distinction to be made between the academic literary critic (“here’s this thing we all know about, and now I’m going to tell you Why It Matters/What It Means”) and the, for lack of a better term, professional book reviewer (“here’s this thing you might have heard about, and now I’m going to tell you Why It Matters/What It Means/Whether It’s Any Good”), I would also suggest that the fact the National Book Critics Circle doesn’t call themselves the National Book Reviewers Circle is, in this context, significant.
#12 by Maili on June 21, 2010 - 12:39 pm
@Ron
FWIW, I separated ‘critic’ and ‘reviewer’ for me to keep track of who I was referring to!
#13 by Laura Vivanco on June 21, 2010 - 2:08 pm
I’d express it more as “I’ve been taking yet another look at this thing we’ve all been studying and now I’m going to tell you about my slightly different interpretation of it, which builds on the work previously done by other colleagues. I think my interpretation is valid, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough if there are some glaring errors in what I’ve written.” When a new field opens up, or a new text is discovered or published (depending on whether the literary critic is studying older or more modern texts), then the situation is a bit different, but there will still be that sense that the current article/book is building on previous academic work and adding to the total volume of academic knowledge.
Yes, it suggests to me that they were perhaps thinking of themselves as a national book equivalent of the New York Film Critics Circle, founded in 1935 and of the National Society of Film Critics, which is “a professional organization formed in 1966 to promote the art and science of reviewing motion pictures for general interest publications.” The National Book Critics Circle was founded in 1974, as was The American Theatre Critics Association.
A “book critic” is different from a “literary critic.” A literary critic’s work is often very narrowly focused (e.g. on a particular aspect of a single text) or very widely focused (e.g. on common themes/issues shared by a group of texts, or on literary theory), whereas a “book critic” writes reviews which offer an assessment of the whole of a book.
#14 by Ron Hogan on June 21, 2010 - 6:49 pm
@Laura Vivanco:
To quote Jessica on the difference between (what you would call) a book critic and a book blogger, “There are differences, but I think they are mainly stylistic, and of degree rather than kind. I also think they have more to do with the self-image and goals of the reviewer than content of the reviews.”
A “professional organization formed… to promote the art and science of reviewing” clearly holds a high opinion of itself and its work; in that context, and given the NBCC’s arguments as to the cultural importance of its members’ work, I don’t think the descriptor “literary” is inappropriate, even if it creates some confusion among academics.