Employment of English
What sorts of cultural criticism are teachers and scholars to produce, and how can that criticism be "employed" in the culture at large? In recent years, debates about the role and direction of English departments have mushroomed into a broader controversy over the public legitimacy of literary crit...
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| Κύριος συγγραφέας: | |
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| Μορφή: | Online |
| Γλώσσα: | Αγγλικά |
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New York University Press
2024
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| Θέματα: | |
| Διαθέσιμο Online: | ONIX_20240403_9780814723425_46 |
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| _version_ | 1869529247487361024 |
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| author | Bérubé, Michael |
| author_browse | Bérubé, Michael |
| author_facet | Bérubé, Michael |
| author_sort | Bérubé, Michael |
| collection | Directory of Open Access Books |
| description | What sorts of cultural criticism are teachers and scholars to produce, and how can that criticism be "employed" in the culture at large? In recent years, debates about the role and direction of English departments have mushroomed into a broader controversy over the public legitimacy of literary criticism. At first glance this might seem odd: few taxpayers and legislators care whether the nation's English professors are doing justice to the project of identifying the beautiful and the sublime. But in the context of the legitimation crisis in American higher education, the image of English departments has in fact played a major role in determining public attitudes toward colleges and college faculty. Similarly, the changing economic conditions of universities have prompted many English professors to rethink their relations to their "clients," asking how literary study can serve the American public. What sorts of cultural criticism are teachers and scholars to produce, and how can that criticism be "employed" in the culture at large? In The Employment of English, Michael Bérubé, one of our most eloquent and gifted critics, examines the cultural legitimacy of literary study. In witty, engaging prose, Bérubé asserts that we must situate these questions in a context in which nearly half of all college professors are part-time labor and in which English departments are torn between their traditional mission of defining movements of literary history and protocols of textual interpretation, and their newer tasks of interrogating wider systems of signification under rubrics like "gender," "hegemony," "rhetoric," "textuality" (including film and video), and "culture." Are these new roles a betrayal of the field's founding principles, in effect a short-sighted sell-out of the discipline? Do they represent little more that an attempt to shore up the status of--and student enrollments in--English? Or are they legitimate objects of literary study, in need of public support? Simultaneously investigating the economic and the intellectual ramifications of current debates, The Employment of English provides the clearest and most condensed account of this controversy to date. |
| format | Online |
| id | doab-20.500.12854ir-137288 |
| institution | Directory of Open Access Books |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publishDateRange | 2024 |
| publishDateSort | 2024 |
| publisher | New York University Press |
| publisherStr | New York University Press |
| record_format | ojs |
| spelling | doab-20.500.12854ir-1372882025-07-18T09:45:41Z Employment of English Bérubé, Michael Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time What sorts of cultural criticism are teachers and scholars to produce, and how can that criticism be "employed" in the culture at large? In recent years, debates about the role and direction of English departments have mushroomed into a broader controversy over the public legitimacy of literary criticism. At first glance this might seem odd: few taxpayers and legislators care whether the nation's English professors are doing justice to the project of identifying the beautiful and the sublime. But in the context of the legitimation crisis in American higher education, the image of English departments has in fact played a major role in determining public attitudes toward colleges and college faculty. Similarly, the changing economic conditions of universities have prompted many English professors to rethink their relations to their "clients," asking how literary study can serve the American public. What sorts of cultural criticism are teachers and scholars to produce, and how can that criticism be "employed" in the culture at large? In The Employment of English, Michael Bérubé, one of our most eloquent and gifted critics, examines the cultural legitimacy of literary study. In witty, engaging prose, Bérubé asserts that we must situate these questions in a context in which nearly half of all college professors are part-time labor and in which English departments are torn between their traditional mission of defining movements of literary history and protocols of textual interpretation, and their newer tasks of interrogating wider systems of signification under rubrics like "gender," "hegemony," "rhetoric," "textuality" (including film and video), and "culture." Are these new roles a betrayal of the field's founding principles, in effect a short-sighted sell-out of the discipline? Do they represent little more that an attempt to shore up the status of--and student enrollments in--English? Or are they legitimate objects of literary study, in need of public support? Simultaneously investigating the economic and the intellectual ramifications of current debates, The Employment of English provides the clearest and most condensed account of this controversy to date. 2024-05-13T11:13:06Z 2024-05-13T11:13:06Z 2024-04-03T10:09:15Z 1997 book ONIX_20240403_9780814723425_46 OCN: 45844042 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/89328 9780814723425 9780814713006 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/137288 eng Cultural Front open access image/jpeg image/png image/png image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/89328/1/9780814723425_WEB.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/89328/11/9780814723425_EPUB.epub https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/89328/11/9780814723425_EPUB.epub https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/89328/1/9780814723425_WEB.pdf New York University Press NYU Press 10.18574/nyu/9780814723425.001.0001 10.18574/nyu/9780814723425.001.0001 13ae9bf8-b4bf-47bb-be6d-71e5675ace48 9780814723425 9780814713006 NYU Press New York open access |
| spellingShingle | Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time Bérubé, Michael Employment of English |
| title | Employment of English |
| title_full | Employment of English |
| title_fullStr | Employment of English |
| title_full_unstemmed | Employment of English |
| title_short | Employment of English |
| title_sort | employment of english |
| topic | Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time |
| topic_facet | Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PG Astronomy, space and time |
| url | ONIX_20240403_9780814723425_46 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT berubemichael employmentofenglish |