Description
Book SynopsisControversy over what role "the great books" should play in college curricula and questions about who defines "the literary canon" are at the forefront of debates in higher education. This study offers a defence of educational reform in response to attacks by academic traditionalists.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction: The Public, the Press, and the Professors / Barbara Herrnstein Smith 1
Humanities for the Future: Reflections on the Western Culture Debate at Stanford / Mary Louise Pratt 13
The Extraordinary Convergence: Democracy, Technology, Theory, and the University Curriculum / Richard A. Lanham 33
Teach the Conflicts / Gerald Graff 57
Cult-Lit: Hirsh, Literacy, and the "National Culture" / Barbara Herrnstein Smith 75
The Master's Pieces: On Canon Formation and the African-American Tradition / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 95
Liberal Arts Education and the Struggle for Public Life: Dreaming about Democracy / Henry A. Giroux 119
Pedagogy in the Context of an Antihomophobic Project / Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 145
Serious Watching / Alexander Nehamas 163
From Ivory Tower to Tower of Babel? / Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich 187
The Emergence of the Humanities / Bruce Kuklick 201
The Academy and the Public / Phyllis Franklin 213
Classics and Canons / George A. Kennedy 223
Two Cheers for the Cultural Left / Richard Rorty 233
The Common Touch, or, One Size Fits All / Stanley Fish 241
Against Nostalgia: Reflections on Our Present Discontents in American Higher Education / Francis Oakley 267
Notes on Contributors 291
Index 295
