Why Read? - Hardcover

Edmundson, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582344256 ISBN 13: 9781582344256

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2004

Synopsis

In this important book reconceiving the value and promise of reading, acclaimed author Edmundson dramatizes what the recent identity crisis of the humanities has effectively obscured: that reading can change your life for the better.

Mark Edmundson's Harper's Magazine article "On the Uses of the Liberal Arts" is reported to be the most photocopied essay on college campuses over the last five years. Ruminating on his essay and the intense reaction to it, Edmundson exposes universities' ever-growing consumerism at the expense of a challenging, life-altering liberal arts education.

Edmundson encourages educators to teach students to read in a way that can change their lives for the better, rather than just training and entertaining. He argues that questions about the uses of literature-what would it mean to live out of this book, to see it as a guide to life-are the central questions to ask in a literary education. Right now they are being ignored, even shunned. And if religion continues to lose its hold on consequential parts of society, what can take its place in guiding souls? Great writing, Edmundson argues. At once controversial and inspiring, this is a groundbreaking book written with the elegance and power to change the way we teach and read.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Edmundson is a professor of English at the University of Virginia. A prizewinning scholar, he has published a number of works of literary and cultural criticism, including Literature Against Philosophy: Plato to Derrida as well as a memoir, Teacher: The One Who Made a Difference. He has also written for such publications as the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine, the Nation, and Harper's, where he is a contributing editor.

From Publishers Weekly:

Extending the argument of his tome Literature Against Philosophy: Plato to Derrida, Edmundson laments the state of liberal arts teaching—and, despite his protestations to the contrary, effectively caricatures critical theory as the soulless antithesis to his own humanistic pedagogical ideals. While a stylish, erudite piece of rhetoric, Edmundson’s book is dated, rooted as it is in the author’s Harper’s article of 1997 and in the culture wars of that decade. Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, claims he is not "antitheory," but a humanist who believes a liberal arts education ought to expand minds rather than shut them down. For him, critical theory comes "between" the reader and the power of great books, distracting students from the big questions concerning life and how best to live it—questions central to a democracy. As an alternative approach, Edmundson permits students to identify with characters in a naïve manner currently out of favor in the academy and highlights the author’s voice (a technique he calls "ventriloquism"). Edmundson gives examples of how he teaches classics from Wordsworth to Orwell and takes positions on canonicity, multiculturalism and pop culture. Yet for all its learning and elegance, Edmundson’s challenge to teachers might have done more to rejuvenate or deepen the tired debate in which it engages had its observations extended beyond his own classroom.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1582344256
• ISBN 13: 9781582344256
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224