Meetings of the Mind [Kindle Edition]

David Damrosch (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

There is a lot of chortling in this book . . . Having chortled, Damrosch's colleagues in the profession may perceive a serious issue in his book. Theory has had a bad effect. The higher the level of discourse, the fewer who can understand it. (John Sutherland Times Literary Supplement )

Review

In this sparkling comedy of ideas, David Damrosch perfectly captures the seriocomic essence of intellectual conference culture today. Part David Lodge and Jorge Luis Borges, part Oscar Wilde's 'Decay of Lying,' part Damrosch's own lively and ingenious speculations about the state of postmodern academe, Meetings of the Mind presents a search for true community beyond the self-absorption and pseudo-communication of academic life. (Gerald Graff )

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 2721 KB
• Print Length: 232 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (July 17, 2000)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001V5JAM2
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #709,450 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

David Damrosch was born in Maine and raised there and in New York. He studied at Yale, where he pursued interests in a wide range of ancient and modern languages and literatures. He then taught for three decades at Columbia before moving in 2009 to Harvard, where he chairs the Department of Comparative Literature. A past president of the American Comparative Literature Association, he has written widely on comparative and world literature, and his work has been translated into an eclectic variety of languages, including Chinese, Estonian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A delight, December 5, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Meetings of the Mind (Hardcover)

A delightful satire of pomo presented as series of four academics who meet regularly at conferences to catch up on theory, life and the interweaving of both. What emerges is not only a semispoof on current academic pretentions but also four real characters (who are real "characters") doing life and time...

Many "in" jokes also spice up the work, as well as real litcrit figures. The only complaint I had was the at times draggy mono/dialogues when the theorizing got no longer satiric but just plain boring (of course that is only one textual reading....maybe the boring was part of the satire?) Anyway, worth a read for le jouissance!

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If what's "just plain boring" is "the satire" here, October 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Meetings of the Mind (Hardcover)

then David Damrosch is Jonathan Swift. What the former apparently palms off on academic conferences, or thinks is the coin of that realm, is a mere adolescent perkiness that has little to do with Mind. Cancel all meetings.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars If what's "just plain boring" is "the satire" here, October 17, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Meetings of the Mind (Hardcover)

then David Damrosch is Jonathan Swift. What the former apparently palms off on academic conferences, or thinks is the coin of that realm, is a mere adolescent perkiness that has little to do with Mind. Cancel all meetings.