English As a Discipline; Or, Is There a Plot in This Play?

by Raymond, James C.; Alabama Symposium on English and American Literature (19th : 1993 : University of Alabama)

• ISBN13: 9780817308209
• ISBN10: 0817308202
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Alabama Pr

Summary

"English"-- not the language, but the activity that takes place in English departments at American universities--has long ceased to be anything resembling a single discipline, if in fact it ever was. It is a collection of disparate activities with multiple objects of inquiry, vaguely articulated methodologies, and diverse notions of proof. With new essays by Gerald Graff, Paul Lauter, Louie Crew, George Garrett, Thomas Dabbs, Walter L. Reed, Phyllis Frus, Stanley Corkin, Tilly Warnock, and Stanley Fish, this volume does not attempt to define the discipline. Instead, as Graff observes in the opening chapter, it enacts it, sometimes with a passion verging on violence, each essayist defending interests that are threatened by the others. It is English as theater. The essays can be read in any order; the arguments among them will out. The conflicts rage on even after the curtain falls. But the issues are clarified: What's at stake, not just for English but for society at large, is the tenuous boundary between conversation and chaos.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction. The Play's the Thing: English as Theater	p. 1
Is There a Conversation in This Curriculum? or, Coherence without Disciplinarity	p. 11
Teach/Discipline	p. 29
Back to the Future	p. 44
Boiled Grass and the Broth of Shoes: Some Academic Anecdotes	p. 62
Shakespeare and the Department of English	p. 82
Canonization and Its Discontents: Lessons from the Bible	p. 99
The More Things Change: Canon Revision and the Case of Willa Cather	p. 119
Making Do, Making Believe, and Making Sense: Burkean Magic and the Essence of English Departments	p. 143
Them We Burn: Violence and Conviction in the English Department	p. 160
Afterthoughts	p. 175
Afterthoughts	p. 178
Afterthoughts	p. 181
Afterthoughts	p. 182
Afterthoughts	p. 187
Contributors	p. 189
Index	p. 191
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