Professing Literature

by Graff, Gerald

• ISBN13: 9780226305592
• ISBN10: 0226305597
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-12-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Widely considered the standard history of the profession of literary studies,Professing Literatureunearths the long-forgotten ideas and debates that created the literature department as we know it today. In a readable and often-amusing narrative, Gerald Graff shows that the heated conflicts of our recent culture wars echoand often recyclecontroversies over how literature should be taught that began more than a century ago. Updated with a new preface by the author that addresses many of the provocative arguments raised by its initial publication,Professing Literatureremains an essential history of literary pedagogy and a critical classic. "Graff's history. . . is a pathbreaking investigation showing how our institutions shape literary thought and proposing how they might be changed."The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

Author Biography

Gerald Graff is professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been elected to serve as the President of the Modern Language Association in 2008.

Table of Contents

Preface Twenty Years Later	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xxiii
Introduction: The Humanist Myth	p. 1
Literature in the Old College: 1828-1876
The Classical College	p. 19
Oratorical Culture and the Teaching of English	p. 36
The Early Professional Era: 1875-1915
The Investigators (1): The New University	p. 55
The Investigators (2): The Origins of Literature Departments	p. 65
The Generalist Opposition	p. 81
Crisis at the Outset: 1890-1915	p. 98
Scholars versus Critics: 1915-1950
Scholars versus Critics: 1915-1930	p. 121
Groping for a Principle of Order: 1930-1950	p. 145
General Education and the Pedagogy of Criticism: 1930-1950	p. 162
Scholars versus Critics: 1940-1965
History versus Criticism: 1940-1960	p. 183
Modern Literature in the University: 1940-1960	p. 195
The Promise of American Literature Studies	p. 209
Rags to Riches to Routine	p. 226
Problems of Theory: 1965-
Tradition versus Theory	p. 247
Notes	p. 263
Index	p. 305
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