Teaching - Literature, College Education, Philosophy - General & Miscellaneous, Academic & Research Paper Writing, Learning, Higher Education - General & Miscellaneous
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Overview
In this lively and provocative book, cultural critic Marjorie Garber, who has written on topics as different as Shakespeare, dogs, cross-dressing, and real estate, explores the pleasures and pitfalls of the academic life. Academic Instincts discusses three of the perennial issues that have surfaced in recent debates about the humanities: the relation between "amateurs" and "professionals," the relation between one academic discipline and another, and the relation between "jargon" and "plain language." Rather than merely taking sides, the book explores the ways in which such debates are essential to intellectual life. Garber argues that the very things deplored or defended in discussions of the humanities cannot be either eliminated or endorsed because the discussion itself is what gives humanistic thought its vitality.
Written in spirited and vivid prose, and full of telling detail drawn both from the history of scholarship and from the daily press, Academic Instincts is a book by a well-known Shakespeare scholar and prize-winning teacher who offers analysis rather than polemic to explain why today's teachers and scholars are at once breaking new ground and treading familiar paths. It opens the door to an important nationwide and worldwide conversation about the reorganization of knowledge and the categories in and through which we teach the humanities. And it does so in a spirit both generous and optimistic about the present and the future of these disciplines.
Editorials
New Scientist
Garber's own writing is, as you would hope, admirably clear. She does a fine job of persuading us that these controversies are a sign of cultural vitality. . . .— Jon Turney
Ruminator Review
Academic Instincts reminds humanists and scientists alike that their professional languages require thoughtful attention, discussion, and scholarship.— John Ramsey
American Prospect
More breezy than scholarly in this book, Garber straddles the divide between the academy and the popular press with aplomb. Reading Academic Instincts is like sharing the newspaper with a current events junkie who can't help but comment on everything that catches her eye.— Leah Platt
The Economist
Seductively slim, witty . . .The book is, in effect, an elegant demonstration of the nature of dialectical thinking as applied to some of the hot topics of the recent culture wars.Toronto Globe & Mail
It is sometimes more provoking than provocative, but it is always interesting. In her willingness to theorize on just about any subject and her delight in taking eccentric positions, I don't believe there is anyone like Marjorie Garber writing today.— Katherine Govier
Toronto Globe and Mail
It is sometimes more provoking than provocative, but it is always interesting. In her willingness to theorize on just about any subject and her delight in taking eccentric positions, I don't believe there is anyone like Marjorie Garber writing today.
— Katherine Govier
Toronto Globe and Mail -
It is sometimes more provoking than provocative, but it is always interesting. In her willingness to theorize on just about any subject and her delight in taking eccentric positions, I don't believe there is anyone like Marjorie Garber writing today.New Scientist -
Garber's own writing is, as you would hope, admirably clear. She does a fine job of persuading us that these controversies are a sign of cultural vitality. . . .Ruminator Review -
Academic Instincts reminds humanists and scientists alike that their professional languages require thoughtful attention, discussion, and scholarship.American Prospect -
More breezy than scholarly in this book, Garber straddles the divide between the academy and the popular press with aplomb. Reading Academic Instincts is like sharing the newspaper with a current events junkie who can't help but comment on everything that catches her eye.American Prospect
More breezy than scholarly in this book, Garber straddles the divide between the academy and the popular press with aplomb. Reading Academic Instincts is like sharing the newspaper with a current events junkie who can't help but comment on everything that catches her eye.— Leah Platt
Ruminator Review
Academic Instincts reminds humanists and scientists alike that their professional languages require thoughtful attention, discussion, and scholarship.— John Ramsey
Economist
Ms Garber is the queen of crossover. "Crossover", in case you haven't heard, refers to the way in which certain individuals or books manage to combine serious academic standing with wider non-academic popularity.Katherine Govier
More compelling is her final essay on language. "What is jargon," she asks, "and why are they saying such terrible things about it?" She traces the word back to Aristotle, where it appears as the Greek barbarismos, meaning non-Greek. Schools have long been accused of dealing in language that is newly invented, unfamiliar, hard to understand. In Chaucer, the word turns up as the inarticulate chattering of birds. But, Garber argues, this is not bad. Jargon is merely language under stress, in process, being created. Shakespeare is full of jargon.&3151; Globe and Mail
Boston Herald
Her tone is soothing, even therapeutic, as she delves into the meaning of professional terms of abuse such as "amateur" and "jargon," turning pejoratives into positive virtues.Publishers Weekly -
If leftist critics bash universities as sports crazy and profit mad, right-wingers often depict them as more interested in trendy multiculturalism than classic truths. How refreshing, then, to have Garber's perspective, according to which neither the left nor the right is asking the pertinent questions. Garber (Sex and Real Estate; Dog Love; etc.), a Harvard English professor, thinks like a cultural anthropologist as she looks beyond the surface products of academe and studies what academicians really do. The most effective of them, she finds, are "professional amateurs"; she offers the case of Harold Bloom, originally the author of footnote-encrusted, hard-to-read texts on Romantic poets and now an accessible authority on virtually everything literary. The various disciplines, too, are at their best when they push beyond their narrow boundaries, because "their desire is for genius, and genius... does not follow given rules or tread familiar paths." Disciplines keep a close eye on each other, writes Garber, both out of envy as well as the desire to commingle, as the great philosophers do with important figures of the past in Raphael's painting of The School of Athens. Recognizing this transcendent urge on the part of both the individual scholar and the various disciplines makes Garber much more sympathetic to jargon than other contemporary writers on academe, describing harsh-seeming technical terms as "language in action." Liberally sprinkling her prose with names ranging from Kierkegaard to Oprah Winfrey, Garber suggests that smugness and stasis are the real enemies in academe, not football and political correctness. The professor's life is not a position but a practice, and Garber practices, with gusto, everything that she preaches. Even better, she does so with commendable brevity as well as grace, and anyone interested in academic life or intellectual life in general will appreciate her fresh perspective. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
In this scholarly study, Garber (English, Harvard) explores her area of expertise--the humanities--through people, institutions, and language. Taking each part separately, she considers how each scholarly discipline can make its own mark and shows how contradictory the world of academia is. (The book title itself is meant to sound like a contradiction.) Garber begins by discussing what the terms such as "amateur professional" and "professional amateur" mean, how the lines between them can be blurred, and where they fit in higher education. She moves on to discuss the phenomenon of "discipline envy" found on many campuses and then considers the language used in individual fields of study. At one point, she states that "academic is one of the harshest things you can say about books written for popular and mainstream audiences, while journalistic is the kiss of death for scholarly writing." This work falls somewhere in the middle, although it leans more toward the former. While the author has a certain flair with words, she is often too erudite for the typical public library reader. Hence, academia will enjoy and appreciate this book the most.--Terry Christner, Hutchinson P.L., KS Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Book Details
Published
August 18, 2003
Publisher
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2001.
Pages
200
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780691115719