Literary culture in a world transformed : a future for the humanities / William R. Paulson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paulson, William R., 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and society.

Criticism.

Humanities.

Physical Description:

xii, 204 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2001.

Summary:

The field of literary studies is in danger of being left behind in the twenty-first century, some say. Print culture risks becoming a thing of the past in the multimedia age; meanwhile, human life and society are undergoing rapid changes as a result of new technologies, the intensification of global capitalism, and the effects of human actions on the environment.

In this transformed world, William Paulson argues for a radical renewal of literary studies. Modern literary culture has defined itself, in opposition to science, politics, and commerce, as a protected sphere of democratic and free inquiry, but today that autonomy may lead to isolation from the real dynamics of cultural and global change. Paulson clearly and convincingly demonstrates the need for literary studies to embrace both the unfashionable literary past and the technologically saturated future, and to train not a countersociety of cultural critics but citizens of the world who can communicate the irreducible strangeness and multiplicity of literature to a society on hyperdrive. His series of concrete proposals, ranging from a closer connection between literature and everyday language to the restructuring of undergraduate and graduate education, will immeasurably enrich current discussions of the role of the humanities in the life of the world.

Contents:

Introduction: Literary Culture and the Life of the World 1

1 Becoming Modern: The Autonomy of Literary Culture 26

2 From mai '68 to the fin-de-millenaire 53

3 Becoming Nonmodern: Learning from Science Studies 78

4 Equipment for Living: Strategy, Feedback, Networks of Discourse 105

5 Keeping Up with the Past 128

6 Reinventing "Language and Literature" 149.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0801487307

0801439140

OCLC:

47867870