The Character of Criticism

ISBN-13: 9780415971324 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 256 str.

G. Harpham; Geoffrey Galt Harpham; Harpham Galt Harpham

Opis

Why are some critical texts more compelling, memorable, or engaging than others? Can criticism be judged as a discourse of description, explanation, and analysis alone, or do our evaluations reflect other kinds of investments in it? In this book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that the most powerful and effective criticism demands to be read as an expression of a distinctive sensibility, a way of being in the world; it demands, in other words, to be read as a discourse of character.
Through a series of detailed and intimate intellectual portraits of leading critics--Elaine Scarry, Martha Nussbaum, Slavoj Zizek, and Edward Said--Harpham unfolds the complex and indirect ways in which human character is expressed in criticism. A final chapter on "Criticism in a State of Terror" assesses the contemporary situation. The Character of Criticism represents not just a snapshot of contemporary criticism but a fresh approach to criticism itself that clarifies the stakes involved for writers and readers of criticism alike. It does so not by making difficult thinking easy but by making it stranger--more idiosyncratic, exotic, and singular.

Spis treści

Chapter 1The Character of Criticism1. What Matter Who's Speaking2. Criticism as Confession3. Griffes of the GreatChapter 2Criticism as Dream: Elaine Scarry and the Dream of PainChapter ThreeCriticism as Therapy: The Hunger of Martha NussbaumChapter Four Criticism as Symptom: Slavoj Zizek and the End of Knowledge1. As Other2. And Otherness3. And OthersChapter FiveCriticism as Obsession: Said and Conrad1. Emulations2. Identifications3. Prolongations4. NegationsConclusion Criticism in a State of Terror

O autorze

Geoffrey Galt Harpham is President and Director of the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. His many books include On the Grotesque, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, Getting It Right: Language, Literature, and Ethics, One of Us: The Mastery of Joseph Conrad, Shadows of Ethics: Criticism and the Just Society, and, most recently, Language Alone: The Critical Fetish of Modernity, also published by Routledge.