English as a discipline, or, Is there a plot in this play? /
General Material Designation
[Book]
First Statement of Responsibility
edited by James C. Raymond.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Tuscaloosa :
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
University of Alabama Press,
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
c1996.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
viii, 193 p. ;
Dimensions
23 cm.
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
"The Nineteenth Annual Alabama Symposium on English and American Literature"--P. 1.
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
Introduction : The play's the thing : English as theater / James C. Raymond -- Is there a conversation in this curriculum? or, Coherence without disciplinarity / Gerald Graff -- Teach/discipline / Paul Lauter -- Back to the future / Louie Crew -- Boiled grass and the broth of shoes : some academic anecdotes / George Garrett -- Shakespeare and the department of English / Thomas Dabbs -- Canonization and its discontents : lessons from the Bible / Walter L. Reed -- The more things change : canon revision and the case of Willa Cather / Phyllis Prus and Stanley Corkin -- Making do, making believe, and making sense : Burkean magic and the essence of English departments / Tilly Warnock -- Them we burn : violence and conviction in the English department / Stanley Fish -- Afterthoughts / Staney Corkin, Phyllis Frus, George Garrett, Paul Lauter, Warlter L. Reed.
0
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
"English"--Not the language, but the activity that takes place in English departments at American universities - has long ceased to be anything resembling a single discipline, if in fact it ever was. It is a collection of disparate activities with multiple objects of inquiry, vaguely articulated methodologies, and diverse notions of proof.
Text of Note
With new essays by Gerald Graff, Paul Lauter, Louie Crew, George Garrett, Thomas Dabbs, Walter L. Reed, Phyllis Frus, Stanley Corkin, Tilly Warnock, and Stanley Fish, this volume does not attempt to define the discipline. Instead, as Graff observes in the opening chapter, it enacts it, sometimes with a passion verging on violence, each essayist defending interests that are threatened by the others. It is English as theater. The essays can be read in any order; the arguments among them will out. The conflicts rage on even after the curtain falls. But the issues are clarified: What's at stake, not just for English but for society at large, is the tenuous boundary between conversation and chaos.
PARALLEL TITLE PROPER
Parallel Title
English as a discipline
Parallel Title
Is there a plot in this play?
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
American literature-- Study and teaching (Higher)-- United States, Congresses.
Canon (Literature), Congresses.
English literature-- Study and teaching (Higher)-- United States, Congresses.
(SUBJECT CATEGORY (Provisional
s1an
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CLASSIFICATION
Class number
PR51
.
U5
Book number
E54
1996
PERSONAL NAME - ALTERNATIVE RESPONSIBILITY
Raymond, James C.,1940-
CORPORATE BODY NAME - ALTERNATIVE RESPONSIBILITY
Alabama Symposium on English and American Literature(19th :1993 :, University of Alabama)