Challenging Theory: Disciplines after Deconstruction

Booknews

Burgass (English, U. of Liverpool) warns that the recent trend towards conflating literature teaching with cultural studies in British and American universities puts English literature under threat as an academic discipline. She discusses textual differences and how these may dissolve and reform in different cultural contexts, practical issues associated with teaching literature and literary theory, and some of what she sees as the more invidious claims of literary theorists. She severely questions the value of metaphysical analysis as a tool for political critique. The series will present new writing in the humanities, emphasizing the explicitly European and interdisciplinary. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)