It’s not as simple as this makes it out to be, but there is a lot of useful insight here into the burgeoning divisions between what Chad Harbach calls our MFA and NYC literary worlds. In particular, I think he’s got a lot of helpful things to offer about how the MFA program world, and the writers who populate it, is slowly becoming more aware of its identity as an entrenched, institutional network with an ever more solid position in our larger university culture. Despite the fact that most MFA staff and students seem to resist that idea, and in fact seem heavily invested in believing that their work (if not their professional practice) is essentially anti-institutional in character.
