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In What Is Cultural Criticism?, Francis Mulhern and Stefan Collini
propose alternative understandings of what 'culture' means:
rear-guard projection of values excluded by capitalist modernity,
or a useful shorthand for a set of collectively practised prompts
to reflection? The debate opens with Mulhern's account in
Culture/Metaculture of what he terms metacultural discourse. This
has embraced two opposing critical traditions, the elite pessimism
of Kulturkritik and populist enthusiasms of Cultural Studies. Each
in its own way dissolves politics into culture, Mulhern argues.
Collini, on the other hand, protests that cultural criticism
provides resources for genuine critical engagement with
contemporary society. Tension between culture and politics there
may be, but it works productively in both directions. This widely
noticed encounter is that rare thing, a sustained debate in which,
as Collini remarks, the protagonists not only exchange shots but
also ideas. It concludes with Mulhern's engagement with Collini's
writing on the subordination of universities to metrics and
bureaucracy, and a companion rejoinder from Collini on Mulhern's
study on the 'condition of culture novel' and his essays on
questions of nationality and the politics of intellectuals.
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Selected Essays (Paperback)
George Orwell; Edited by Stefan Collini
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It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a
society as our own without wanting to change it. George Orwell was
one of the most celebrated essayists in the English language, and
there are quite a few of his essays which are probably better known
than any of his other writings apart from Animal Farm and Nineteen
Eighty-Four. Stefan Collini presents a collection of Orwell's
longer, major essays as well as a selection of shorter pieces,
arranged into three categories: Personal/Descriptive, Literary, and
Political.
In recent decades there has been an immense global surge in the
numbers both of universities and of students. In the UK alone there
are now over 140 institutions teaching more subjects than ever to
nearly 2.5 million students. New technology offers new ways of
learning and teaching. Globalisation forces institutions to
consider a new economic horizon. At the same time governments have
systematically imposed new procedures regulating funding,
governance, and assessment. Universities are being forced to behave
more like business enterprises in a commercial marketplace than
centres of learning. In Speaking of Universities, historian and
critic Stefan Collini analyses these changes and challenges the
assumptions of policy-makers and commentators. Does "marketisation"
threaten to destroy what we most value about education; does this
new era of "accountability" distort what it purports to measure;
and who does the modern university "belong to"? Responding to
recent policies and their underlying ideology, the book is a call
to "focus on what is actually happening and the cliches behind
which it hides; an incitement to think again, think more clearly,
and then to press for something better".
Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy (1869), is one of the most celebrated works of social criticism ever written. It has become a reference point for all subsequent discussion of the relations between politics and culture. This edition establishes the authoritative text of this much-revised work, and places it alongside Arnold's three most important essays on political subjects. The introduction sets these works in the context of nineteenth-century intellectual and political history. This edition also contains a chronology of Arnold's life, a bibliographical guide and full notes on the names and historical events mentioned in the texts.
Across the world, universities are more numerous than they have
ever been, yet at the same time there is unprecedented confusion
about their purpose and scepticism about their value. What Are
Universities For? offers a spirited and compelling argument for
completely rethinking the way we see our universities, and why we
need them. Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that
universities need to show that they help to make money in order to
justify getting more money. Instead, he argues that we must reflect
on the different types of institution and the distinctive roles
they play. In particular we must recognize that attempting to
extend human understanding, which is at the heart of disciplined
intellectual enquiry, can never be wholly harnessed to immediate
social purposes - particularly in the case of the humanities, which
both attract and puzzle many people and are therefore the most
difficult subjects to justify. At a time when the future of higher
education lies in the balance, What Are Universities For? offers
all of us a better, deeper and more enlightened understanding of
why universities matter, to everyone.
This is the first scholarly edition of one of the classics of
literary criticism. William Empson was among the two or three most
important and influential literary critics and theorists of the
twentieth century. He has long been celebrated as one of the most
fertile (as well as one of the funniest) explorers of how meaning
works in language, especially in poetry. The Structure of Complex
Words (1951) was much his longest book and was intended as a major
theoretical statement of his contribution to the subject. Since its
publication, it has been constantly referred to, but usually from a
respectful distance, since it can seem a forbidding and difficult
work. This edition provides an extensive introduction together with
full critical and explanatory notes. The editors trace the book's
genesis and development in detail, beginning with Empson's
collaboration with I. A. Richards in the early and mid-1930s, and
concluding with the extensive writing and re-writing that Empson
undertook while in Peking in 1947-50. This edition also reprints a
selection of materials (including articles and letters) that
illuminate Empson's thinking and contributed to the eventual book.
The edition makes Empson's great work more intelligible to a range
of readers and will immediately become the standard version of this
celebrated text.
Matthew Arnold (1822-88), the leading man-of-letters of the
Victorian age, has been the decisive influence on modern thinking
about literature and criticism and his work has become an
inescapable cultural reference point today.
In this stylish and entertaining book Stefan Collini examines the
whole range of Arnold's literary, social, and religious criticism
as well as his poetry, placing them in the context of the major
intellectual controversies of the nineteenth century. By attending
to the distinctive power of Arnold's writing to charm, tease,
persuade, and irritate, the book provides a brilliant
characterization of the tone and temper of his mind.
This edition includes a substantial Afterword which reflects on
Arnold's continuing polemical significance and his role in
contemporary cultural debate.
Economy, Polity, and Society and its companion volume History,
Religion, and Culture bring together major new essays on British
intellectual history by many of the leading scholars of the period,
continuing a mode of enquiry for which Donald Winch and John Burrow
have been widely celebrated. This volume addresses aspects of the
eighteenth-century attempt, particularly in the work of Adam Smith,
to come to grips with the nature of 'commercial society' and its
distinctive notions of the self, of political liberty, and of
economic progress. It then explores the adaptations of and
responses to the Enlightenment legacy in the work of such early
nineteenth-century figures as Jeremy Bentham, Tom Paine and Maria
Edgeworth. Finally, in discussions which range up to the middle of
the twentieth century, the volume examines particularly telling
examples of the conflict between economic thinking and moral
values.
Modern British intellectual history has been a particularly
flourishing field of enquiry in recent years, and these two tightly
integrated volumes contain major new essays by almost all of its
leading proponents. The contributors examine the history of British
ideas over the past two centuries from a number of perspectives
that together constitute a major new overview of the subject.
History, Religion, and Culture begins with eighteenth-century
historiography, especially Gibbon??'s Decline and Fall. It takes up
different aspects of the place of religion in nineteenth-century
cultural and political life, such as attitudes towards the native
religions of India, the Victorian perception of Oliver Cromwell,
and the religious sensibility of John Ruskin. Finally, in
discussions which range up to the middle of the twentieth century,
the volume explores relations between scientific ideas about change
or development and assumptions about the nature and growth of the
national community.
In this collection of engaging and readable essays, Stefan Collini
shows how much can be gained from bringing a rigorous historical
perspective to some of the most contentious issues in contemporary
culture. Whether he is asking what it means to inhabit and possess
a `national past', or reflecting on the role of the historian as
social critic, whether he is scrutinizing the claims of Cultural
Studies or challenging the assumptions about academic research
whether he is pondering the future of literary biography or
reassessing some of the leading minds in modern British culture,
Collini writes with a rare blend of sympathy, sharpness, and wit.
Explicitly addressed to the `non-specialist', these essays attempt
to make some of the fruits of detailed scholarly research in
various fields available to a wider audience. The book will
interest (and delight) readers interested in history, literature,
and contemporary cultural debate.
Umberto Eco, international bestselling novelist and literary
theorist, here brings together these two roles in a provocative
discussion of the vexed question of literary interpretation. The
limits of interpretation - what a text can actually be said to mean
- are of double interest to a semiotician whose own novels'
intriguing complexity has provoked his readers into intense
speculation as to their meaning. Eco's discussion ranges from Dante
to The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum to Chomsky and
Derrida, and bears all the hallmarks of his personal style. Three
of the world's leading figures in philosophy, literary theory and
criticism take up the challenge of entering into debate with Eco on
the question of interpretation. Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler and
Christine Brooke-Rose each add a distinctive perspective on this
contentious topic, contributing to an exchange of ideas between
some of the foremost theorists in the field. The work is intended
for students and scholars of literary theory and philosophy
(especially semiotics).
In this unusual and important work, three well-known historians of
ideas examine the diverse forms taken in nineteenth-century Britain
by the aspiration to develop what was then known as a 'science of
politics'. This aspiration encompassed a more extensive and
ambitious range of concerns than is implied by the modern term
'political science': in fact, as this book demonstrates, it
remained the overarching category under which many
nineteenth-century thinkers grouped their attempts to achieve
systematic understanding of man's common life. As a result of both
the over-concentration on closed abstract systems of thought and
the intrusion of concerns which pervade much writing in the history
of political theory and of the social sciences, these attempts have
since been neglected or misrepresented. By deliberately avoiding
such approaches, this book restores the subject to its centrality
in the intellectual life and political culture of
nineteenth-century Britain.
In this wide-ranging book, Stefan Collini deals with the
relationship between Liberalism and sociology in late nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century Britain. He discusses in particular the
crucial contributions of L. T. Hobhouse, the leading Liberal
political theorist of the period who is also generally regarded as
the 'Founding Father' of British sociology. Based upon extensive
original research, the book draws together themes from three fields
which are normally pursued in historiographical isolation. It
examines the moral and intellectual inspiration of the New
Liberalism which came to dominate Edwardian politics; explores the
nature of the systematic political philosophy in this period; and
shows how the contemporary understanding of sociology was bound up
with attempts to provide a theoretical and historical grounding for
the belief in Progress, especially in opposition to Social
Darwinist and other biological social theories. Throughout, the
intellectual context necessary to a properly historical
understanding of these ideas is reconstructed in detail and
particular attention if paid to the structure of the moral and
political discourse of the time.
In this series of penetrating and attractively readable essays,
Stefan Collini explores aspects of the literary and intellectual
culture of Britain from the early twentieth century to the present.
Collini focuses on critics and historians who wrote for a
non-specialist readership, and on the periodicals and other genres
through which they attempted to reach that readership.
Among the critics discussed are Cyril Connolly, V.S. Pritchett,
Aldous Huxley, Rebecca West, Edmund Wilson, and George Orwell,
while the historians include A.L. Rowse, Arthur Bryant, E.H. Carr,
and E.P. Thompson. There are also essays on wider themes such as
the fate of 'general' periodicals, the history of reading, the role
of criticism, changing conceptions of 'culture', the limitations of
biography, and the functions of universities. Explicitly addressed
to 'the non-specialist reader', these essays make some of the
fruits of detailed scholarly research in various fields available
to a wider audience in a succinct and elegant manner.
Stefan Collini has been acclaimed as one of the most brilliant
essayists of our time, and this collection shows him at his subtle,
perceptive, and trenchant best. The book will appeal to (and
delight) readers interested in literature, history, and
contemporary cultural debate.
The notion that our society, its education system and its
intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures
- the arts or humanities on one hand and the sciences on the other
- has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959
that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is
still raging in the media today. This fiftieth anniversary printing
of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A Second Look (in
which Snow responded to the controversy four years later) features
an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context
of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance
of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists,
the future for education and research, and the problem of
fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some
of the subjects discussed.
A richly textured work of history and a powerful contribution to
contemporary cultural debate, Absent Minds provides the first
full-length account of "he question of intellectuals" n
twentieth-century Britain--have such figures ever existed, have
they always been more prominent or influential elsewhere, and are
they on the point of becoming extinct today?
Recovering neglected or misunderstood traditions of reflection and
debate from the late nineteenth century through to the present,
Stefan Collini challenges the familiar cliche that there are no
"real" intellectuals in Britain. The book offers a persuasive
analysis of the concept of 'the intellectual' and an extensive
comparative account of how this question has been seen in the USA,
France, and elsewhere in Europe. There are detailed discussions of
influential or revealing figures such as Julien Benda, T. S. Eliot,
George Orwell, and Edward Said, as well as trenchant critiques of
current assumptions about the impact of specialization and
celebrity. Throughout, attention is paid to the multiple senses of
the term "intellectuals" and to the great diversity of relevant
genres and media through which they have communicated their ideas,
from pamphlets and periodical essays to public lectures and radio
talks.
Elegantly written and rigorously argued, Absent Minds is a major,
long-awaited work by a leading intellectual historian and cultural
commentator, ranging across the conventional divides between
academic disciplines and combining insightful portraits of
individuals with sharp-edged cultural analysis.
A richly textured work of history and a powerful contribution to
contemporary cultural debate, Absent Minds provides the first
full-length account of 'the question of intellectuals' in
twentieth-century Britain - have such figures ever existed, have
they always been more prominent or influential elsewhere, and are
they on the point of becoming extinct today? Recovering neglected
or misunderstood traditions of reflection and debate from the late
nineteenth century through to the present, Stefan Collini
challenges the familiar cliche that there are no 'real'
intellectuals in Britain. The book offers a persuasive analysis of
the concept of 'the intellectual' and an extensive comparative
account of how this question has been seen in the USA, France, and
elsewhere in Europe. There are detailed discussions of influential
or revealing figures such as Julien Benda, T. S. Eliot, George
Orwell, and Edward Said, as well as trenchant critiques of current
assumptions about the impact of specialization and celebrity.
Throughout, attention is paid to the multiple senses of the term
'intellectuals' and to the great diversity of relevant genres and
media through which they have communicated their ideas, from
pamphlets and periodical essays to public lectures and radio talks.
Elegantly written and rigorously argued, Absent Minds is a major,
long-awaited work by a leading intellectual historian and cultural
commentator, ranging across the conventional divides between
academic disciplines and combining insightful portraits of
individuals with sharp-edged cultural analysis.
Economy, Polity and Society and its companion volume History, Religion and Culture aim to bring together new essays by many of the leading intellectual historians of the period. The essays in Economy, Polity and Society begin by addressing aspects of the eighteenth-century attempt, particularly in the work of Adam Smith, to come to grips with the nature of "commercial society" and its distinctive notions of the self, of political liberty, and of economic progress. They then explore the adaptations of and responses to the Enlightenment legacy in the work of such early nineteenth-century figures as Jeremy Bentham, Tom Paine, Maria Edgeworth and Richard Whately. Finally, in discussions that range up to the middle of the twentieth century, they explore particularly telling examples of the conflict between economic thinking and moral values.
Modern British intellectual history has been a particularly flourishing field of enquiry in recent years, and these two tightly integrated volumes contain major new essays by almost all of its leading proponents. The contributors examine the history of British ideas over the past two centuries from a number of perspectives that together constitute a major new overview of the subject. History, Religion, and Culture begins with eighteenth-century historiography, especially Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. It takes up different aspects of the place of religion in nineteenth-century cultural and political life, such as attitudes towards the native religions of India, the Victorian perception of Oliver Cromwell, and the religious sensibility of John Ruskin. Finally, in discussions which range up to the middle of the twentieth century, the volume explores relations between scientific ideas about change or development and assumptions about the nature and growth of the national community.
This imaginative and unusual book analyses the moral sensibilities and assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain, focusing on the role as public moralists of intellectuals from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J. M. Keynes and F. R. Leavis.
John Stuart Mill is one of the few indisputably classic authors in the history of political thought. On Liberty, first published in 1851, has become celebrated as the most powerful defense of the freedom of the individual and it is now widely regarded as the most important theoretical foundation for Liberalism as a political creed. Similarly, his The Subjection of Women, a powerful indictment of the political, social, and economic position of women, has become one of the cardinal documents of modern feminism. This edition brings together these two classic texts, plus Mill's posthumous Chapters on Socialism, his somewhat neglected examination of the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of Socialism. The Editor's substantial Introduction places these three works in the context both of Mill's life and of nineteenth-century intellectual and political history, and assesses their continuing relevance.
Umberto Eco, autor de novelas de exito e importante teorico
literario, funde en este libro esos dos papeles en un provocador
debate en torno al controvertido tema de la interpretacion
literaria. Los limites de la interpretacion lo que se puede afirmar
que significa realmente un texto es una cuestion que interesa
doblemente a un semiotico, autor de novelas cuya sorprendente
complejidad ha sumido a los lectores en una gran especulacion
acerca de su significado. La iluminadora y a menudo ocurrente
reflexion de Eco va de Dante a El nombre de la rosa, de El pendulo
de Foucault a Chomsky y Derrida, y lleva todos los sellos de su
inimitable estilo personal. Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler y
Christine Brooke-Rose ofrecen sendas perspectivas sobre el polemico
tema y dan lugar a un intercambio de ideas unico entre algunos de
los mas destacados y estimulantes teoricos de la disciplina.
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