Literature commerce, quantification, and instrumental rationality

(1) How can we justify art in a world dominated by commerce, quantification, and instrumental rationality?
(2)What model of the self is adequate to modern life
(3) What is the relation of an art-work to its creator? Should a poem express
its author’s feelings? If we allow a text to be non-expressive, and impersonal, does that mean that it is no longer individual?
(4) What makes a work of art valuable?
(5) What is the relation between art and criticism?
(6) What grand narratives best explain the recent course of human history?
Should recent history be seen in conservative terms, as a narrative of decline (inevitable or otherwise), or in liberal terms as a narrative of increasing freedom and intellectual progress? Should it be seen in Marxist terms, as a class conflict?
(7) What is the relation of art in the present moment to the art of the
past?
(8) What is the position of the writer in contemporary society?