Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education [Paperback]

Roger Kimball (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1566637961 | ISBN-13: 978-1566637961 | Publication Date: September 18, 2008 | Edition: 3rd Edition

Since Tenured Radicals first appeared in 1990, it has achieved a stature as the leading critique of the ways in which the humanities are now taught and studied at American universities. Trenchant and witty, it lays bare the sham of what now passes for serious academic pursuit in too many circles. In this new edition, completely reset, Roger Kimball has brought the text up to date and has added a new Introduction. Those who have never read Tenured Radicals are in for a treat; others may find a second reading worth their while. “Mr. Kimball names his enemies precisely…. This book will breed fistfights.”—Roger Rosenblatt, New York Times Book Review. “All persons serious about education should see it.”—Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind. “Tenured Radicals is a withering critique.”—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World. “A bravado performance of critical journalism…a vivid, up-to-the-minute account, alternately amusing and dismaying, of the takeover of the academy by ideology.”—Robert Alter, Newsday. “A stinging account…. The commonsense approach of Tenured Radicals provokes constant reflections and occasional laughter at the squirming victims.”—Roger Shattuck, author of The Banquet Years.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Citing examples of specialized constituencies using unconventional approaches to higher education, this controversial study argues that "yesterday's radical is today's tenured professor or academic dean." "To the debate awakened by Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and E. D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy , this sobering assessment is a pointed contribution," PW said.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

A stinging account...provokes constant reflection and occasional laughter. (Roger Shattuck )

A bravado performance of critical journalism...vivid, amusing, dismaying. (Robert Alter Newsday )

All persons serious about education should see it. (Bloom, Allan )

A withering critique. (Jonathan Yardley Washington Post Book World )

Mr. Kimball names his enemies precisely...this book will breed fistfights. (New York Times Book Review )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; 3rd Edition edition (September 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566637961
• ISBN-13: 978-1566637961
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #164,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meaning Has No Meaning, August 12, 2008

By 

Martin Asiner "Adjunct College Instructor" (Jersey City, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tenured Radicals, Revised: How Politics has Corrupted our Higher Education (Paperback)

America's colleges and universities have always had their fair share of leftist radicals but as astounding as it may seem today, until the early 1960s the majority of college teachers tended toward the right or at the least managed to avoid the radicalism so thoroughly entrenched today. In TENURED RADICALS, Roger Kimball, himself a conservative critic of the arts, analyzes how and why this transformation has taken place. The villain he notes is that the very faculty who are charged with the education of our young have willingly and eagerly abandoned the search for truth by denying the very existence of absolutes like "truth" "justice" and "universality." Politics, in his opinion, has trumped an impartial quest for a firm and unwavering underpinning for Western culture.

This attack began, oddly enough, in Plato's day as Plato had the good sense to recognize the seductive appeal of rhetoric and could reject it in favor of elevating the reality behind that rhetoric over the rhetoric itself. Kimball notes that over the next two millenia most philosophers have succeeded in avoiding this pitfall--at least until this century when Jacques Derrida began to unravel the meaning of meaning by imputing to it a foundation of relativism that says in essence that human beings can never "know" anything for certain because of unvoidable biases, prejudices, and ideologies. Kimball takes an interesting tack by structuring much of his book in the form of academic conferences in which he attends and by using his trusty tape recorder captures the very words and intonations of speakers who rail against the very jobs that pay them such lofty paychecks. Kimball is a very witty and funny writer. As these academic deans speak their deconstructionist jargon, Kimball will then translate into plain English. As he does so, he, like Dorothy in Oz, swoops away the linguistic curtain that hides speakers who literally exhibit a gross lack of the very essentials that they are expounding.

Kimball is aghast at the willingness of academia to abandon the canon of Great Books. He notes that it is bad enough to suggest that this canon be discarded but that it is infinitely worse to replace it with second and third rate works that are represented only because the authors fall into an acceptable mixture or racial, ethnic, and gender divisions. Kimball also plays devil's advocate by examining the defense of academia against charges that this radicalization of curricula has rendered our nation's humanities departments largely irrelevant. Their defense, he notes, usually takes the tack of a call for "diversity" when the overwhelming number of courses offered today are anything but.

In TENURED RADICALS, Roger Kimball is not optimistic that there will be any significant changes anytime soon. The philosophical mind rot has embedded itself too deeply. For those who still believe that there are still some universal sentiments worth learning, then this book is invaluable reading.

98 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What the Academy Dosen't Want You to Hear, November 28, 2000

By 

Andrew Hanson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tenured Radicals, Revised: How Politics has Corrupted our Higher Education (Paperback)

Roger Kimball's work is a refreshing look at the sad state of the Humanities today. Is the book rather one-sided in its views on the 'culture wars'? Yes, but then again one will not get much vigorous debate on the subject in most Humanities departments today-and this is exactly Mr. Kimball's point. Even putting aside the complete contempt for truth these scholars show, if this neglect and subversion of Humanities departments were simply an academic affair, perhaps Mr. Kimball would sound histrionic, but he clearly identifies the real victims-the students. Indeed, the book comes off at points almost conspiratorial, as Mr. Kimball implies that the failed radical fight these scholars fought while students is now being played out for the hearts and minds of contemporary students. Sadly, that argument is not without some merit. The adolescent postures of these scholars that are lauded as arguments by the so-called 'cultural Left' make amusing, if at times frustrating reading for those accustomed to the naive belief that the universities existed for higher learning in pursuit of such feeble contemporary notions such as truth. Mr. Kimball lances the proponents with their own words and ideas, not their backgrounds or politics, something his opponents should take note of.

47 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for tuition-paying parents..., October 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Tenured Radicals, Revised: How Politics has Corrupted our Higher Education (Paperback)

When I read the first edition some years ago, when I was in college myself, I wanted to stand up and cheer. This book does an excellent job of exposing how the study of humanities has ceased to be an academic discipline, and more of an exercise in political posturing in Lit. and humanities departments across the nation. This book is also a wickedly funny skewering of all those in higher ed. who perceive their mission to be the indoctrination, rather than education, of today's college students. I see (sadly) that in the eight years since the publication of the 1'st edition, things have only gotten worse....