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Disciplining English : alternative histories, critical perspectives / edited by David R. Shumway and Craig Dionne.
- Format:
- Book
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- English philology--Study and teaching.
- English philology.
- English philology--Study and teaching--History.
- English literature--History and criticism--Theory, etc.
- English literature.
- American literature--History and criticism--Theory, etc.
- American literature.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (240 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, c2002.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- Offers historical and present-day perspectives on what English departments do, and how and why they do it. These provocative essays explore the unwritten, often unacknowledged codes, conventions, and ideologies overseeing the evolution and current practice of English as a "discipline." The first section of the book offers historical perspectives: how "composition" became distinguished from "literature," how key intellectuals shaped the discipline, and how various specialties--Renaissance literature, American literature, "theory"--became subfields. The second section focuses on how certain aesthetic categories of art and universal experience persist today in the actual teaching and writing of "English." While it is fashionable to say that we are living in the age of poststructuralism, or that literary theory has delivered us from idealized conceptions of authorship and inherent meaning, these essays examine how these conceptions nevertheless remain and are transmitted: in different types of classroom settings, in textbooks, and in the self-fashioning of academic careers. At a time when the role and function of English departments have become matters of both academic and public debate, this book will be a welcome resource for students, professionals, and anyone interested in the Culture Wars of the past two decades. David R. Shumway is Professor of English and Director of the Center for Cultural Analysis at Carnegie Mellon University. His books include Creating American Civilization: A Genealogy of American Literature as an Academic Discipline . Craig Dionne is Associate Professor of English at Eastern Michigan University.
- Contents:
- ""Disciplining English: Alternative Histories, Critical Perspectives""; ""Contents""; ""Introduction""; ""PART I: EPISODES IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH""; ""1. Child's Ballads: Narrating Histories of Composition and Literary Studies""; ""2. Institutionalizing English: Rhetoric on the Boundaries""; ""3. A Short History of a Border War: Social Science,School Reform, and the Study of Literature""; ""4. Period Making and the Discipline: A Genealogy of the Idea of the Renaissance in ELH""; ""5. Emerson and the Shape of American Literature""; ""6. The Post theory Generation""
- ""PART II: THE CURRENT ARRANGEMENTS""""7. Composing Literary Studies in Graduate Courses""; ""8. Inventing Gender: Creative Writing and Critical Agency""; ""9. Profiting Pedants: Symbolic Capital, Text Editing, and Cultural Reproduction""; ""10. A New Kind of Work: Publishing, Theory, and Cultural Studies""; ""11. What Hath English Wrought: The Corporate University's Fast Food Discipline""; ""Afterword""; ""Contributors""; ""Index"";
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 0-7914-8864-0
- OCLC:
- 811403763
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