To be a critic now, especially in academic life, is also to be a theorist - as any student in the humanities and social sciences will be only too painfully aware.
One no longer studies "literature", but literature plus the full range of critical theories used to conshud readings of narratives.
The same thing goes for art history, media studies, sociology - and so on through the humanities and social sciences.
How we arrive at value judgements, and, indeed, whether we can arrive at value judgements, are now at least as important considerations as what the actual value judgements themselves are.
