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Q&A with Chibli Mallat, author of Democracy Redefined
Read more: Q&A with Chibli Mallat, author of Democracy RedefinedChibli Mallat introduces 'Democracy Redefined' and explores the Lebanese Constitution's history and its unique approach to democracy.

What Is the Point of Literary Criticism?
Anglophone literary criticism has over the last decade engaged in a searching analysis and critique of its own methods. Perhaps surprisingly, much of that debate has considered *how* one should engage in literary interpretation—whether one should read closely or from a distance, interpret in a paranoid or reparative way, emphasize the work’s surface or depth, engage in “critique” or some other mode of attachment—and rather less *why*. But we might benefit from asking that question more openly: what, after all, is the point of literary criticism? Why does this practice merit the sustained intellectual energy so many scholars have devoted to it?