Confessions of the Critics: North American Critics' Autobiographical M

Description

The Confessions of the Critics shatters a certain silence. Autobiographical criticism has until now skated relatively free from the challenges that usually assail a new literary critical method. It has had this immunity from critique largely because feminists and third-world liberation fighters--such as Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich and Jane Gallop--ushered it to the North American academic... Read more

The Confessions of the Critics shatters a certain silence. Autobiographical criticism has until now skated relatively free from the challenges that usually assail a new literary critical method. It has had this immunity from critique largely because feminists and third-world liberation fighters--such as Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich and Jane Gallop--ushered it to the North American academic stage. Other women and men, including Rigoberta Menchu, Nawal al-Sadawi, Mahasweta Devi and Malcolm X, wrote in the tradition and genre of testimonio . These and other unimpeachably militant backgrounds gave confessional criticism a certain cache among the largely liberal community of literary scholars. We have hesitated to express misgivings about a form that seemed intrinsically tied to the most vital, powerful strivings. Telling stories about one's own past is probably our culture's richest way of characterizing the effects of social injustice and developing what it takes to resist various kinds of victimage, writes contributor Charles Altieri. Confessions of the Critics provides a revealing look into the thoughts and experiences of some of the most influential and important critics of the 20th century. The writers included avoid pretention and gross self-misrepresentation, giving way to raw, sometimes embarrassing, always wholly believable emotion. Describing cumulative literary shocks and episodes of self-recognition, contributors offer insights to their ruling passions and works. Powerful sensations, emotions, recognitions and revelations make up the heart of Confessions of the Critics. It is a book that none will put aside or easily forget. Contributors: Charles Altieri, William Andrews, Michael F. Berube, Timothy Brennan, Gillian Brown, Cathy Davidson, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Diane Freedman, Marjorie Garber, Gerald Graff, Stephen J. Greenblatt, Michael Hill, Marianne Hirsch, Alice Yeager Kaplan, Amitava Kumar, Candace Lang, Louis Menand, Judith Lowder Newton, Linda Orr, Vincent Pecora, David Simpson, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Madelon Sprengnether, Jane Tompkins, Marianna Torgovnick, H. Aram Veeser, Jeffrey Williams, Elizabeth Young-Bruehl. Read less

Part I Is It Okay to Read Subjectively?; Chapter 1 Autobiographical Literary Criticism as the New Belletrism, Diane P. Freedman; Chapter 2 Mourning Shakespeare, Madelon Sprengnether; Chapter 3 Interrupted Reading, Rachel M. Brownstein; Chapter 4 Autocritique, Candace Lang; Chapter 5 What Is at Stake in Confessional Criticism, Charles Altieri; Chapter 6 Confession versus Criticism, or What's the Critic Got to Do With It?, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese; Chapter 7 Through the Academic Looking Glass, Vincent P. Pecora; Chapter 8 Speaking Personally, David Simpson; Part II How Can a Critic Create a Self?; Chapter 9 Self-Interview, Gerald Graff; Chapter 10 Critical Personifications, Gillian Brown; Chapter 11 Overcoming “Auction Block”, Marjorie Garber; Chapter 12 Pictures of a Displaced Girlhood, Marianne Hirsch; Chapter 13 The MLA President's Column, Amitava Kumar; Chapter 14 Me and Not Me, Linda Orr; Chapter 15 Writing in Concert, Jeffrey Williams; Chapter 16 White-Boy Authenticity, Tim Brennan; Part III Just Do It!; Chapter 17 Life as We Know It, Michael Bérubé; Chapter 18 Lives, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Chapter 19 Laos Is Open, Stephen Greenblatt; Chapter 20 Damaged Goods, Bruce Robbins; Chapter 21 ::, William L. Andrews; Chapter 22 “Why Am I Always the Bad Guy?”, Judith Newton; Chapter 23 Let's Get Lost, Jane Tompkins;

Editor(s)

Biography

H. Aram Veeser is currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University and Associate Professor of English at Wichita State University. He is the editor of The New Historicism and The New Historicism Reader, both published by Routledge.

Confessions of the Critics North American Critics' Autobiographical Moves

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Table of Contents

Editor(s)

Biography

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