By examining the ways in which the conservative vision of the world informs certain modes of literary study and has been treated in various works of literature throughout the ages, this book seeks to recover conservatism as a viable, rigorous, intellectually sound method of critical inquiry. While it stops short of promoting political conservatism as an antidote to the dominant progressive strain of today's university, it recognizes literature's transformative power as an artistic reflection of the universal human condition. In this way, it operates against the grain of today's prevailing approaches to literature, particularly the postmodernist wave that has employed literature as a recorder of injustice rather than as evidence of artistic achievement. Therefore, the agenda is restorative, if not revolutionary, returning literature to its place as the center of a true liberal arts curriculum, one that celebrates human freedom, the unimpeded pursuit of truth, and the preservation of civilized life. Perhaps this book's greatest service is that it seeks to define conservatism in highly distinct contexts. Its authors collectively reveal that the conservative ideal lacks formulaic expression, and is thus more richly complex than it is often credited for. Conservatism is not easily defined, and by presenting such divergent expressions of it, the essays here belie the reductive generalizations so common throughout the academy. Ultimately, the conservative ideal may have much more in common with the stated goals of higher learning than has previously been acknowledged. Thus, while this book in no way seeks to directly apply conservatism to curricular matters, it does revive a competing vision of how knowledge is transmitted through art and history, while also affirming the ways in which literature functions as a forum for ideas.

In Teaching America, more than 20 leading thinkers sound the alarm over a crisis in citizenship and lay out a powerful agenda for reform. The book s unprecedented roster of authors includes Justice Sandra Day O Connor, Senator Jon Kyl, Senator Bob Graham, Secretary Rod Paige, Alan Dershowitz, Juan Williams, Glenn Reynolds, Michael Kazin, Frederick Hess, Andrew Rotherham, Mike Feinberg, Seth Andrew, Mark Bauerlein and more. Their message: To remain America, our country has to give its kids a civic identity, an understanding of our constitutional system, and some appreciation of the amazing achievements of American self-government. But we are failing. Young Americans know little about the Bill of Rights, the democratic process, or the civil rights movement. Three of every four high school seniors aren t proficient in civics, nine of ten can t cut it in U.S. history, and the problem is only aggravated by universities' disregard for civic education. Such civic illiteracy weakens our common culture, disenfranchises would-be voters, and helps poison our politics."

The Founders of this nation believed that the government they were creating required a civically educated populace. Such an education aimed to cultivate enlightened, informed, and vigilant citizens who could perpetuate and improve the nation. Unfortunately, America's contemporary youth seem to lack adequate opportunities, if not also the ability or will, to critically examine the foundations of this nation. An even larger problem is an increasing ambivalence toward education in general. Stepping into this void is a diverse group of educators, intellectuals, and businesspeople, brought together in Civic Education and the Future of American Citizenship to grapple with the issue of civic illiteracy and its consequences. The essays, edited by Elizabeth Kaufer Busch and Jonathan W. White, force us to not only reexamine the goals of civic education in America but also those of liberal education more broadly.

The Founders of this nation believed that the government they were creating required a civically educated populace. Such an education aimed to cultivate enlightened, informed, and vigilant citizens who could perpetuate and improve the nation. Unfortunately, America's contemporary youth seem to lack adequate opportunities, if not also the ability or will, to critically examine the foundations of this nation. An even larger problem is an increasing ambivalence toward education in general. Stepping into this void is a diverse group of educators, intellectuals, and businesspeople, brought together in Civic Education and the Future of American Citizenship to grapple with the issue of civic illiteracy and its consequences. The essays, edited by Elizabeth Kaufer Busch and Jonathan W. White, force us to not only reexamine the goals of civic education in America but also those of liberal education more broadly.

In Teaching America, more than 20 leading thinkers sound the alarm over a crisis in citizenship--and lay out a powerful agenda for reform. The book's unprecedented roster of authors includes Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Senator Jon Kyl, Senator Bob Graham, Secretary Rod Paige, Alan Dershowitz, Juan Williams, Glenn Reynolds, Michael Kazin, Frederick Hess, Andrew Rotherham, Mike Feinberg, Seth Andrew, Mark Bauerlein and more. Their message: To remain America, our country has to give its kids a civic identity, an understanding of our constitutional system, and some appreciation of the amazing achievements of American self-government. But we are failing. Young Americans know little about the Bill of Rights, the democratic process, or the civil rights movement. Three of every four high school seniors aren't proficient in civics, nine of ten can't cut it in U.S. history, and the problem is only aggravated by universities' disregard for civic education. Such civic illiteracy weakens our common culture, disenfranchises would-be voters, and helps poison our politics.

From the author team of the discipline's most widely used literature anthology, this accessible and instructive guide introduces students to the language of literary study. Featuring an engaging and accessible writing style, this supplemental reference manual for the introductory student has over 400 entries and serves to demystify literature and the terms, techniques, and analysis tools that literary scholars use.

Literary Criticism An Autopsy Mark Bauerlein "It's later than you think Literary critics, practicing and prospective, had better take a close look at Mark Bauerlein's mordant and humorous 'autopsy.'"--Frederick Crews, editor, "Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend" "There isn't another book like this: a primer and a polemic on the jargon of literary study, impressive in its range of examples and uncompromising in its critique. Bauerlein describes the motives of several prospering forms of contemporary obscurantism, analyzes the conditions in which they arose, and maps the terrain in which they continue to flourish. His account is written with nerve, wit, and a tough-minded intelligence."--David Bromwich, Yale University "A thesis I both understand and endorse. . . . I agree with him when he writes that the critical terms currently fashionable have very little to do with literature."--Philip Thody, "Journal of European Studies" "This slim volume with its seemingly innocuous title takes the buzz words of contemporary critical theory to task for their pseudostatus as methodological tools...The items under the knife--cultural studies, discourse, gender theory, to pluck out a few--highlight how little real cutting edge there is in current literary criticism."--"Forum for Modern Language Studies" "A shrewd demonstration, amusing and saddening at once, of what has gone wrong with so much academic writing in the field that used to be literature. It is in its way a pointed and revealing piece of cultural criticism, but of the sort which that fashionable pursuit cannot--and for reasons Bauerlein's excellent little book implies--perform."--John Hollander, Yale University As the study of literature has extended to cultural contexts, critics have developed a language all their own. Yet, argues Mark Bauerlein, scholars of literature today are so unskilled in pertinent sociohistorical methods that they compensate by adopting cliches and catchphrases that serve as substitutes for information and logic. Thus by labeling a set of ideas an "ideology" they avoid specifying those ideas, or by saying that someone "essentializes" a concept they convey the air of decisive refutation. As long as a paper is generously sprinkled with the right words, clarification is deemed superfluous. Bauerlein contends that such usages only serve to signal political commitments, prove membership in subgroups, or appeal to editors and tenure committees, and that current textual practices are inadequate to the study of culture and politics they presume to undertake. His book discusses 23 commonly encountered terms--from "deconstruction" and "gender" to "problematize" and "rethink"--and offers a diagnosis of contemporary criticism through their analysis. He examines the motives behind their usage and the circumstances under which they arose and tells why they continue to flourish. A self-styled "handbook of counterdisciplinary usage," "Literary Criticism: An Autopsy" shows how the use of illogical, unsound, or inconsistent terms has brought about a breakdown in disciplinary focus. It is an insightful and entertaining work that challenges scholars to reconsider their choice of words--and to eliminate many from critical inquiry altogether. Mark Bauerlein is Professor of English at Emory University. He is editor of "The Turning World: American Literary Modernism and Continental Theory," by Joseph Riddel, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press, and author of "Whitman and the American Idiom." Critical Authors & Issues 1997 176 pages 5.5 x 8.5 ISBN 978-0-8122-1625-7 Paper $22.50s 15.00 World Rights Literature

William James claimed that his Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking would prove triumphant and epoch-making. Today, after more than 100 years, how is pragmatism to be understood? What has been its cultural and philosophical impact? Is it a crucial resource for current problems and for life and thought in the future? John J. Stuhr and the distinguished contributors to this multidisciplinary volume address these questions, situating them in personal, philosophical, political, American, and global contexts. Engaging James in original ways, these 11 essays probe and extend the significance of pragmatism as they focus on four major, overlapping themes: pragmatism and American culture; pragmatism as a method of thinking and settling disagreements; pragmatism as theory of truth; and pragmatism as a mood, attitude, or temperament.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Atlanta was regarded as the gateway to the new, enlightened and racially progressive South. White business owners employed black workers and made their fortunes, while black leaders led congregations, edited periodicals, and taught classes. But in 1906, in a bitter gubernatorial contest, Georgia politicians played the race card and white supremacists trumpeted a "Negro crime" scare. Seizing on rumors of black predation against white women, they launched a campaign based on fears of miscegenation and white subservience. Atlanta slipped into a climate of racial phobia and sexual hysteria that culminated in a bloody riot, which stymied race relations for fifty years. Drawing on new archival materials, Mark Bauerlein traces the origins, development and brutal climax of Atlanta's descent into hatred and violence in the fateful summer of 1906. "Negrophobia" is history at its best--a dramatic moment in time impeccably recreated in a suspenseful narrative, focusing on figures such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois; author Margaret Mitchell and future NAACP leader Walter White; and an assortment of black victims and white politicians who witnessed and participated in this American tragedy.

The essays in this collection all treat in some way the conservative's vision of society as it is variously manifested in literary art, its scholarship, and its transmission through classical modes of liberal learning. Responding in part to the postmodernist turn in literary study, Literature and the Conservative Ideal examines the ways in which conservatism has been depicted in literature, as well as how its tendencies might restore literature's potential as an artistic reflection of the universal human condition.