Politics and Value in English Studies: A Discipline in Crisis?

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Politics and Value in English Studies: A Discipline in Crisis?
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Josephine M. Guy
By (author) Ian Small
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:208
Dimensions(mm): Height 216,Width 140
Category/GenreLanguage - reference and general
Literary studies - general
ISBN/Barcode 9780521112130
ClassificationsDewey:420.71141
Audience
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations Worked examples or Exercises

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 11 June 2009
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

The current debate about the nature of English studies has questioned the status of English as a discipline. In this 1993 book, Josephine Guy and Ian Small set this so-called 'crisis in English' within the larger context of disciplinary knowledge. They examine the teaching of English and literary studies in the United States and Britain, and argue that the explicit attempt by some radical critics on both sides of the Atlantic to politicise the discipline has profound consequences for the nature of English studies. They describe the state of disciplinary knowledge, together with its social and philosophical preconditions; they analyse proposals for reform; and they discuss the ways in which these proposed reforms would affect the three main practices of the discipline - literary criticism, literary history and text-editing. In the process they demystify issues and arguments which have often in the past been obscured by jargon and polemic.

Reviews

"Josephine Guy and Ian Small are extremely skilled in the arts of analysis and argumentation. Their book is a densely argued inquiry into what happens when people within English studies come to the conclusion that all literature is political, and that all judgments about literature are political as well." John L. Kijinski, English Literature in Transition