Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (Critical Authors & Issues) [Hardcover]

Mark Bauerlein (Author)

Book Description

Series: Critical Authors & Issues | Publication Date: August 1997

As the study of literature has extended to cultural contexts, critics have developed a language all their own. Yet, argues Mark Bauerlein, scholars of literature today are so unskilled in pertinent sociohistorical methods that they compensate by adopting cliches and catchphrases that serve as substitutes for information and logic. Thus by labeling a set of ideas an "ideology" they avoid specifying those ideas, or by saying that someone "essentializes" a concept they convey the air of decisive refutation. As long as a paper is generously sprinkled with the right words, clarification is deemed superfluous.

Bauerlein contends that such usages only serve to signal political commitments, prove membership in subgroups, or appeal to editors and tenure committees, and that current textual practices are inadequate to the study of culture and politics they presume to undertake. His book discusses 23 commonly encountered terms—from "deconstruction" and "gender" to "problematize" and "rethink"—and offers a diagnosis of contemporary criticism through their analysis. He examines the motives behind their usage and the circumstances under which they arose and tells why they continue to flourish.

A self-styled "handbook of counterdisciplinary usage," Literary Criticism: An Autopsy shows how the use of illogical, unsound, or inconsistent terms has brought about a breakdown in disciplinary focus. It is an insightful and entertaining work that challenges scholars to reconsider their choice of words—and to eliminate many from critical inquiry altogether.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It's later than you think! Literary critics, practicing and prospective, had better take a close look at Mark Bauerlein's mordant and humorous 'autopsy.'"—Frederick Crews, editor, Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend

"There isn't another book like this: a primer and a polemic on the jargon of literary study, impressive in its range of examples and uncompromising in its critique. Bauerlein describes the motives of several prospering forms of contemporary obscurantism, analyzes the conditions in which they arose, and maps the terrain in which they continue to flourish. His account is written with nerve, wit, and a tough-minded intelligence."—David Bromwich, Yale University

"A thesis I both understand and endorse. . . . I agree with him when he writes that the critical terms currently fashionable have very little to do with literature."—Philip Thody, Journal of European Studies

"This slim volume with its seemingly innocuous title takes the buzz words of contemporary critical theory to task for their pseudostatus as methodological tools…The items under the knife—cultural studies, discourse, gender theory, to pluck out a few—highlight how little real cutting edge there is in current literary criticism."—Forum for Modern Language Studies

"A shrewd demonstration, amusing and saddening at once, of what has gone wrong with so much academic writing in the field that used to be literature. It is in its way a pointed and revealing piece of cultural criticism, but of the sort which that fashionable pursuit cannot—and for reasons Bauerlein's excellent little book implies—perform."—John Hollander, Yale University

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Mark Bauerlein is Professor of English at Emory University. He is editor of The Turning World: American Literary Modernism and Continental Theory, by Joseph Riddel, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press, and author of Whitman and the American Idiom. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 156 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812234111
• ISBN-13: 978-0812234114
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,309,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and has worked as a director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw studies about culture and American life, including the much discussed Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Weekly Standard, Reason magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among many other publications and scholarly periodicals. A frequent lecturer, he has been called one of the Independent Women's Forum's "favorite intellectuals," and has been praised by columnist George Will as "dazzling."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clever, Acute and Important, July 11, 2011

By 

Richard B. Schwartz (Columbia, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (Critical Authors and Issues) (Paperback)

This is an interesting way to conduct an autopsy. Rather than look directly for the cause of death, Professor Bauerlein looks at the language used by the perpetrators. Essentially, he takes approximately two dozen terms currently (1997) used commonly in literary studies, explains them and attempts to ascertain what they are really about, terms such as 'rethink', 'problematize' and 'radical'. The conclusion is that the words are essentially shortcuts. They enable young and undereducated scholars to advance themselves professionally by using intellectual shorthand to sound learned and worthy of admission to the exalted reaches of the professoriate. Basically, the methods to which the terms relate and the procedures in which they flourish are methods which are short on logic and historical evidence. Those methods simultaneously depreciate the importance of logic and historical evidence to validate the procedures which they have put in their place.

In an epilogue the author surveys literary studies from the late 1950's to the late 1990's. In the 1950's literary study involved broad coverage and deep specialization, the latter informed by the knowledge of a vast array of material. Twenty years later it consisted of the appropriation and application of the thought of one of the French Nietzscheans; now (i.e. twenty years later--1997) it consists of the study of power relationships, principally based on race, class and gender. The devolution process has essentially made literary study far easier, far more political, and far more predictable. At the same time, its vocabulary has been utilized to make it appear to be more learned, more difficult and more revolutionary.

Though this brief description may make the book sound like a screed, it is not. The examination of the terms is very learned and it is done through the use of carefully-applied logic and a vast array of examples. The author has not simply picked an example here and an example there and built a large argument on a thin superstructure. He has done his homework, even though the task has forced him to read a great deal of material which he finds wanting.

If you are used to reading Professor Bauerlein's writings on education, which are replete with statistical data, hard facts and survey results, this book offers the opportunity to observe him working with far more abstract material.

This is an important book with an important set of implied theses. While literary study represents a relatively small portion of the contemporary curriculum, it was once at the center of the liberal arts curriculum. Hence, its nature and ways are of disproportionately great importance for American (and British) higher education.