Professing Literature: An Institutional History [Paperback]

Gerald Graff (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press (February 15, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226306046
• ISBN-13: 978-0226306049
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #605,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

GERALD GRAFF, a Professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and 2008 President of the Modern Language Association of America, has had a major impact on teachers through such books as Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education, and, most recently, Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind.

Customer Reviews

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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, concise, comprehensive, June 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Professing Literature: An Institutional History (Paperback)

This detailed history of the rise of English departments in the U. S. is lucid, cogently argued, and replete with quotes from primary sources. By detailing the arguments over how (and, in the very beginning, whether) English should be taught, from the pre-English department days of the early nineteenth century into the 1960s, Graff takes the reader decade by decade through the controversies of the period, showing how theory is often mitigated by practice and how we have uncritically adopted "the habit of thinking of institutions as if they were unmediated projections of the values, methods, and ideologies of major individuals and movements." Graff would argue that though ideological debates help shape the institution, the process of institutionalization also reshapes ideologies.

For the reader interested in current developments in literary theory, this should prove an invaluable sourcebook.

1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful for PhD Student, November 5, 2006

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D. Kirk "Dan" (Athens, GA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Professing Literature: An Institutional History (Paperback)

This book was a set text on a PhD course and it was interesting and useful, particularly for anyone who is looking to enter higher ed as a lectureer/professor.