Disciplining English: Alternative Histories, Critical Perspectives - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791453669 ISBN 13: 9780791453667

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2002

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791453669
• ISBN 13: 9780791453667
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 238
• Editor: Shumway David R., Dionne Craig