April 29.  Resonances: Contemporary Writers on the Classics

I had been looking forward to this panel not only because it included two of the contemporary American writers I most admire—Aleksandar Hemon and Yiyun Li—but also because I am always curious to see how writers talk about other writers.  Having had my share of academia, I am familiar with how academics talk about writers—they usually use them as a springboard for some theoretical frame, as if the writer were a Procrustes and the “theory” an iron bed  to which the size of the former must be adjusted by having his body stretched or shortened.  Unfortunately,...