These provocative essays explore the unwritten, often unacknowledged codes, conventions, and ideologies overseeing the evolution and current practice of English as a "discipline." The first section of the book offers historical perspectives: how "composition" became distinguished from "literature," how key intellectuals shaped the discipline, and how various specialties--Renaissance literature, American literature, "theory"--became subfields. The second section focuses on how certain aesthetic categories of art and ...
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These provocative essays explore the unwritten, often unacknowledged codes, conventions, and ideologies overseeing the evolution and current practice of English as a "discipline." The first section of the book offers historical perspectives: how "composition" became distinguished from "literature," how key intellectuals shaped the discipline, and how various specialties--Renaissance literature, American literature, "theory"--became subfields. The second section focuses on how certain aesthetic categories of art and universal experience persist today in the actual teaching and writing of "English." While it is fashionable to say that we are living in the age of poststructuralism, or that literary theory has delivered us from idealized conceptions of authorship and inherent meaning, these essays examine how these conceptions nevertheless remain and are transmitted: in different types of classroom settings, in textbooks, and in the self-fashioning of academic careers. At a time when the role and function of English departments have become matters of both academic and public debate, this book will be a welcome resource for students, professionals, and anyone interested in the Culture Wars of the past two decades.
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Add this copy of Disciplining English: Alternative Histories, Critical to cart. $24.85, like new condition, Sold by Glover's Bookery, ABAA rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Lexington, KY, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by State University of New York Press.
Add this copy of Disciplining English: Alternative Histories, Critical to cart. $41.12, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2002 by State Univ of New York Pr.