I tend to judge a piece of criticism by how smart I find the argument. This, I know,, is not how everyone does it.

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• Michelle Dean:

  I like debate and argument, so I'm usually all right with disagreement, and I'm even all right if t

• Michelle Dean:

  Bad criticism recites rote arguments. The shame of rote arguments isn't just that they're cliches,

• Michelle Dean:

  I don't care about the bare fact that anyone liked or didn't like a book or movie; they can only in

• Michelle Dean:

  The forward march of American literature is usually chronicled by way of its male novelists. There

• Michelle Dean:

  When James Frey's 'A Million Little Pieces' turned out to be largely bunk, critics everywhere secre

• Michelle Dean:

  The first thing I remember feeling about the 2016 U.S. election was a kind of speechlessness.

• Michelle Dean:

  When a woman shouts, she isn't usually praised for it. She's condemned as aggressive and coarse.

• Michelle Dean:

  The diversity of perspective, the unwillingness to generalise - those are good traits in countries

• Michelle Dean:

  Perhaps crisis forces commonality of purpose on one another.

• Michelle Dean:

  For a long time, it seemed as if podcasting was a male realm, but no longer. Sure, there are lots o