The Values of Literary Studies: Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas

Description

What is valuable about literary studies? What is its point and purpose? In The Values of Literary Studies: Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas, leading scholars in the field illuminate both the purpose and priorities of literary criticism. At a time when the humanities are increasingly called upon to justify themselves, this book seeks to clarify their myriad values and ideologies. Engaging the idea of literary value while at the same time remaining attuned to aesthetic, ethical, political and psychological principles, this book serves to underscore the enduring significance of literary studies in an academic climate that is ostensibly concerned with expediency and quantification. As a sophisticated examination of literary theory and criticism, The Values of Literary Studies: Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas provides a comprehensive and hopeful view of where the discipline is now and what avenues it is likely to take from here.

Ronan McDonald is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of New South Wales. His research interests include modern Irish literature and culture, literary criticism, and the value of the humanities. His books include Tragedy and Irish Literature, The Death of the Critic, and The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett (Cambridge, 2007).

'The value of this book and its timeliness in a culture that increasingly emphasises the exchange value of academic study (in the name of impact, transferable skills and value for money) may just involve the many ways in which its contributors argue for the non-instrumentalist transformative power of the literary as itself underpinning the values of literary studies.' Andrew Bennett, Textual Practice 'The collection The Values of Literary Studies: Critical Institutions, Scholarly Agendas is a timely and important response to the question: what is the value of literary studies? ... these essays offer diverse approaches that firmly attest to literary studies' value in generating ways to critically evaluate and reimagine the self and the world.' Michelle Chiang, Journal of Modern Literature