Though I do agree that starting with the greeks is good advice. Everything else seems to only be relevant to americans and american students or those who wish to study american culture (such as english).
There's barely any discussion about anything else but great american masterpieces, and a few others that also considered masterpieces largely by americans and studied in the american environment.
And verily I say onto you, while there's little discussion outside american-relevant literature, there's no thread in the whole board that tries to discuss anything else but subjects that are of american interest.
Let's speak frank here, should foreigners (I don't mean le canada foreigners, but like, eastern european, african, asian foreigners) even bother with this board if they aren't interested in american subjects of interest? I am well read and even so I feel out of place here. There are so many authors that nobody on this site ever heard about, and I just find myself absently browsing the /sffg/ thread and barely anything else.
le blog over.
I wouldn't say it is strictly American, but lit is Western centric. Face it, the best literature created has came from the west. It's not just English though, there is plenty of discussion on Russian, German, French and even Greek literature. But its an English speaking board so i don't know what you'd expect.
>>7980445
The United States is intellectually, economically, politically, and culturally the most powerful and important country on the planet right now. If /lit/ wasn't constantly discussing American culture then it would be outright ignorant of us. Whether you're a privileged civus Americanus or an imperialized country, it is every intellectual's duty to study the United States and form a personal framework around this nation, be it positive or negative.
>>7980564
This, Neil Degrasse Tyson and Sam Harris are the greatest minds to have ever lived
>>7980578
Laugh then
Charles Darwin invented physics
Neil Degrasse Tyson perfected it
Stephen Hawking is the 2nd greatest American physicist as well
>>7980445
As I've pointed out elsewhere, /lit/ is strongly biased in favour of:
- modern over old
- prose over drama and poetry
- American over non-American.
It has a few areas of interest outside of these, like the Greeks or 19th c. Russian lit, but generally speaking, your observations are correct, that this is a board dominated by Americans, and that the board's tastes are thereafter. Further, these people are often young and therefore poorly read, so when discover /lit/ and /lit/ starts telling them what to read, they read within its literary purview, and thus become part of and reaffirm its already Americentric culture. A glance at the /lit/ starter kit should confirm this. Or alternatively, that /lit/ top 100 image, where I think Paradise Lost made 98th place or so? I would wager that a very small percentage of this board has read it, though there are few here who have not read their share of Hemingway or Faulkner or whatever.
It's still a good board, though. Even for those outside of the culture it predominantly caters to. It's probably better than any other literature forum on the internet, because it doesn't deter people from being masculine and aggressive, and having strong opinions and defending them. I would keep browsing, though taking /lit/ with a pinch of salt, and being guided more by your own knowledge and tastes than by /lit/'s stupid charts and guides.
>>7980586
wut
