Criticism and Politics : A Polemical Introduction

Bruce Robbins

ISBN 10: 1503630196 / ISBN 13: 9781503630192

Published by Stanford University Press Sep 2022, 2022

About this Item

Neuware - 'An accessible introduction to cultural theory and an original polemic about the purpose of criticism. What is criticism for Over the past few decades, violent disagreements over that question in the academy have burst into the news media. These conflicts have renewed the Culture Wars over the legacy of the 1960s, becoming entangled in national politics and leading to a new set of questions. Does a concern with race, gender, and sexuality, with unacknowledged power and privilege, with identity, give present critics the right to criticize the great works of the past If we have learned to see those works in terms of historical differences rather than universal truths, how is it that they speak to us at all In the study of the world's cultures, there is more than one way to avoid being Eurocentric; which way should we choose Re-examining key thinkers since 1970, including Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Edward Said, Hortense Spillers, Fredric Jameson, and Stuart Hall, Criticism and Politics offers both a non-specialist introduction to recent cultural theory and a strong new interpretation of how this theory applies to the everyday issue of what cultural critics do and how they should feel about what they do'--.

Seller Inventory # 9781503630192

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Criticism and Politics : A Polemical Introduction
• Publisher: Stanford University Press Sep 2022
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1503630196
• ISBN 13: 9781503630192
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 229W x 155H x 23D millimeters 229 millimeters width by 155 millimeters height by 23 millimeters depth
• Weight: 540 grams

About this title

Synopsis

An accessible introduction to cultural theory and an original polemic about the purpose of criticism. What is criticism for? Over the past few decades, impassioned disagreements over that question in the academy have burst into the news media. These conflicts have renewed the culture wars over the legacy of the 1960s, becoming entangled in national politics and leading to a new set of questions about critics and the power they do or don't wield. Re-examining theorists from Matthew Arnold to Walter Benjamin, to Fredric Jameson, Stuart Hall, and Hortense Spillers, Criticism and Politics explores the animating contradictions that have long propelled literary studies: between pronouncing judgment and engaging in philosophical critique, between democracy and expertise, between political commitment and aesthetic autonomy. Both a leftist critic and a critic of the left, Robbins unflinchingly defends criticism from those who might wish to de-politicize it, arguing that working for change is not optional for critics, but rather a core part of their job description.

About the Author

Bruce Robbins is Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University. He is the author of Secular Vocations: Intellectuals, Professionalism, Culture (1993), Perpetual War: Cosmopolitanism from the Viewpoint of Violence (2012), and, most recently, The Beneficiary (2017).