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"The Confessions of the Critics" shatters a certain silence.
Autobiographical criticism has until now skated relatively free
from the challenges that usually assail a new literary critical
method. It has had this immunity from critique largely because
feminists and third-world liberation fighters--such as Alice
Walker, Adrienne Rich and Jane Gallop--ushered it to the North
American academic stage. Other women and men, including Rigoberta
Menchu, Nawal al-Sadawi, Mahasweta Devi and Malcolm X, wrote in the
tradition and genre of "testimonio." These and other unimpeachably
militant backgrounds gave confessional criticism a certain cache
among the largely liberal community of literary scholars. We have
hesitated to express misgivings about a form that seemed
intrinsically tied to the most vital, powerful strivings.
"Telling stories about one's own past is probably our culture's
richest way of characterizing the effects of social injustice and
developing what it takes to resist various kinds of victimage,"
writes contributor Charles Altieri. "Confessions of the Critics"
provides a revealing look into the thoughts and experiences of some
of the most influential and important critics of the 20th century.
The writers included avoid pretention and gross
self-misrepresentation, giving way to raw, sometimes embarrassing,
always wholly believable emotion. Describing cumulative literary
shocks and episodes of self-recognition, contributors offer
insights to their ruling passions and works. Powerful sensations,
emotions, recognitions and revelations make up the heart of
"Confessions of the Critics." It is a book that none will put aside
or easily forget.
Contributors: Charles Altieri, William Andrews, Michael F. Berube,
Timothy Brennan, Gillian Brown, Cathy Davidson, Elizabeth
Fox-Genovese, Diane Freedman, Marjorie Garber, Gerald Graff,
Stephen J. Greenblatt, Michael Hill, Marianne Hirsch, Alice Yeager
Kaplan, AmitavaKumar, Candace Lang, Louis Menand, Judith Lowder
Newton, Linda Orr, Vincent Pecora, David Simpson, Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, Madelon Sprengnether, Jane Tompkins, Marianna
Torgovnick, H. Aram Veeser, Jeffrey Williams, Elizabeth
Young-Bruehl.
This insightful critical biography shows us an Edward Said we did
not know. H. Aram Veeser brings forth not the Said of tabloid
culture, or Said the remote philosopher, but the actual man,
embedded in the politics of the Middle East but soaked in the
values of the West and struggling to advance the best European
ideas. Veeser shows the organic ties connecting his life, politics,
and criticism. Drawing on what he learned over 35 years as Said's
student and skeptical admirer, Veeser uses never-before-published
interviews, debate transcripts, and photographs to discover a Said
who had few inhibitions and loathed conventional routine. He stood
for originality, loved unique ideas, wore marvelous clothes, and
fought with molten fury. For twenty years he embraced and rejected,
at the same time, not only the West, but also literary theory and
the PLO. At last, his disgust with business-as-usual politics and
criticism marooned him on the sidelines of both. The candid tale of
Said's rise from elite academic precincts to the world stage
transforms not only our understanding of Said-the man and the
myth-but also our perception of how intellectuals can make their
way in the world.
Selling the Humanities explores the challenges facing literature,
philosophy, and theory at a time when the humanities appear to some
as burnt out. There is incredible pressure to demonstrate
the value of the humanities within institutions dedicated to
economic feasibility and job placement, not intellectual power and
social commitment. This situation is further intensified by
the demand that one must always be prepared to sell the humanities
to others in an effort to save them. But is it even possible
to commodify the humanities? And if so, might our efforts to
sell the humanities also have the potential to kill them in the
process?
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Blu-ray disc
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Discovery Miles 450
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