I wonder how much it has to do with the aspect of literary critique and interpretation in many Universities becoming more radical. Eg. Many Universities support a practice of literary interpretation that encourages pretty wild takes and explicitly discourages taking “what we think the author was trying to say” into account.
I had a friend drop out of Ph.D in Japanese Lit because he felt the only way to progress in his dept. was to purposefully try to come up with the most wild interpretation he could that leaned extremely left and he felt that was intellectually dishonest and disrespectful of the author.
This not only alienates people outside the literary bubble but makes it harder to communicate in good faith inside of it. This would have a chilling effect on subscriptions even inside the literary community.
I had a friend drop out of Ph.D in Japanese Lit because he felt the only way to progress in his dept. was to purposefully try to come up with the most wild interpretation he could that leaned extremely left and he felt that was intellectually dishonest and disrespectful of the author.
This not only alienates people outside the literary bubble but makes it harder to communicate in good faith inside of it. This would have a chilling effect on subscriptions even inside the literary community.