Professing Literature: An Institutional History

Widely considered the standard history of the profession of literary studies, Professing Literature unearths the long-forgotten ideas and debates that created the literature department as we know it today. In a readable and often-amusing narrative, Gerald Graff shows that the heated conflicts of our recent culture wars echo--and often recycle--controversies over how literature should be taught that began more than a century ago.

Updated with a new preface by the author that addresses many of the provocative arguments raised by its initial publication, Professing Literature remains an essential history of literary pedagogy and a critical classic.

"Graff's history. . . is a pathbreaking investigation showing how our institutions shape literary thought and proposing how they might be changed."-- The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

Author: Gerald Graff
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 10/01/2007
Pages: 340
Weight: 1.04lbs
Size: 8.91h x 6.02w x 0.81d
ISBN: 9780226305592
20th Edition