Critical States

This seems like a good short week for a pithy topic, so I thought I'd try to come up with some interesting stuff related to the state of criticism today. By no means do I mean to be comprehensive, but I think the goal is to post links and thoughts in response to the question: Does criticism matter?

• Paul Goldberger lucidly answers the question.
• The Art Institute of Chicago held a symposium on the state of it last October.
• George Cotkin on the democratization of criticism.
• A podcast by Matt and Matt, acknowledging that even though they hadn't seen "Rent," they'd ranted about it, prompting this question: What is criticism?
• Comprehensive Wikipedia entries on Literary Criticism and on Film Criticism.

So, I hope that will kick-start me into the question, and be sure to stay tuned for more thoughts in the next couple of days.

And, if there are any curious by-passers out there, I'm still working on Art-Heavy Weekend, Part 3b, but have yet to post anything because I haven't really figured out how I'm thinking about Karl Haendel. But when I do, I'll be sure to drop a post...