Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University

Michael Rothberg · Peter K. Garrett

Jan 2009 · SUNY Press

About this ebook

Scholars engage the ideas and legacy of Cary Nelson in conversations about the corporate university, teaching, poetry, and activism.At a time when the humanities are suffering crises of funding and legitimacy, Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University provides an alternative vision: a clear-eyed, nondogmatic approach to engaged scholarship and educational activism in the interest of the public good. This collection brings together distinguished and rising cultural studies scholars to explore the ways in which Cary Nelson’s work unites scholarship and activism, demonstrating the need for radical engagement in order to democratize the academy and the production of knowledge in and about American culture. Neither a Festschrift nor a tribute, the volume looks at the new directions Nelson’s work has inspired in research and activism about the history and politics of the academy, cultural studies, modern American poetry, and graduate pedagogy and mentoring. An engaging afterword by Cary Nelson is also included.

“…[a] stimulating, wide-ranging book.” — symploke

“To sustain the university and enable it to enrich American culture, we need to redefine the communities dedicated to research. This book creates such a community.” — Cary Nelson

“Cary Nelson exemplifies the committed intellectual. This book recognizes him as a faculty model in just the way one wants: a readable, learned, and politically astute collection full of love and rage.” — Paula Rabinowitz, author of They Must Be Represented: The Politics of Documentary

“Rarely do a scholar’s civic and intellectual pursuits blend as naturally and seamlessly as they have in Cary Nelson’s career. It would be difficult for a single volume to do justice to the breadth and interconnectedness of such a scholar’s contributions. Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University does so impressively. The essays collected here attest admirably to his remarkable influence as poetry scholar, tireless and astute activist in the struggle for integrity in education, and engaged mentor.” — Adolph Reed Jr., author of Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene

About the author

Michael Rothberg is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation. Peter K. Garrett is Professor of English and Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Gothic Reflections: Narrative Force in Nineteenth-Century Fiction.