Disciplining English: Alternative Histories, Critical Perspectives - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791453669 ISBN 13: 9780791453667

Verlag: State University of New York Press, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

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.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: State University of New York Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0791453669
• ISBN 13: 9780791453667
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 238
• Herausgeber: Shumway David R., Dionne Craig
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar