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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Interviewed on BBC Radio 3 as special guest recently, the Irish novelist Colm Toibin said that as a golden rule in his work teaching literature as Professor of Humanities at Columbia University, he FORBIDS any mention of literary theory, and even bans the use of terms such as ‘discourse’ and ‘textuality’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Instead, participants in his seminars and tutorials are forced to discuss only the specific details, the characters, events, and prose style of the text under consideration. That, he argued (echoing Vladimir Nabokov’s similar approach) is the only serious way to appreciate and understand a work of literature.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Think on !<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Dr Roy Johnson<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><a href="http://www.mantex.co.uk">www.mantex.co.uk</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Dr Roy Johnson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>MANTEX Information Design<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>http://www.mantex.co.uk<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Phone: 0161 432 5811<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Email: roy@mantex.co.uk<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Blog: http://mantex.blogspot.com<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>