Geoffrey Harpham's Books

The Humanities and the Dream of America

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Humanities and the Dream of America

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

The contents of this book cover beneath and beyond the 'crisis in the humanities', between humanity and the homeland, gold mines in Parnassus, melancholy in the midst of abundance, and much more.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

255

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226316998

ISBN 13

9780226316994

The Character of Criticism

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

206

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136088660

ISBN 13

9781136088667

Scholarship and Freedom

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Scholarship and Freedom

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

A powerful and original argument that the practice of scholarship is grounded in the concept of radical freedom, beginning with the freedoms of inquiry, thought, and expression. Why are scholars and scholarship invariably distrusted and attacked by authoritarian regimes? Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that at its core, scholarship is informed by an emancipatory agenda based on a permanent openness to the new, an unlimited responsiveness to evidence, and a commitment to conversion. At the same time, however, scholarship involves its own forms of authority. As a worldly practice, it is a struggle for dominance without end as scholars try to disprove the claims of others, establish new versions of the truth, and seek disciples. Scholarship and Freedom threads its general arguments through examinations of the careers of three scholars: W. E. B. Du Bois, who serves as an example of scholarly character formation; South African Bernard Lategan, whose New Testament studies became entangled on both sides of his country’s battles over apartheid; and Linda Nochlin, whose essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” virtually created the field of feminist art history.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

209

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674245016

ISBN 13

9780674245013

A Glossary of Literary Terms

By: M.H. Abrams,Geoffrey Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A Glossary of Literary Terms

By: M.H. Abrams,Geoffrey Harpham

First published over fifty years ago, A GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS remains an essential text for all serious students of literature. Now fully updated to reflect the latest scholarship on recent and rapidly evolving critical theories, the eleventh edition contains a complete glossary of essential literary terms presented as a series of engaging, beautifully crafted essays that explore the terms, place them in context, and suggest related entries and additional reading. This indispensable, authoritative, and highly affordable reference covers terms useful in discussing literature and literary history, theory, and criticism. Perfect as a core text for introductory literary theory or as a supplement to any literature course, this classic work is an invaluable reference that students can continue to use throughout their academic and professional careers. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

448

Publisher

Cengage Learning

Published Date

ISBN 10

1285465067

ISBN 13

9781285465067

Language Alone

The Critical Fetish of Modernity

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Language Alone

The Critical Fetish of Modernity

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

How did the concept of language come to dominate modern intellectual history? In Language Alone, Geoffrey Galt Harpham provides at once the most comprehensive survey and most telling critique of the pervasive role of language in modern thought. He shows how thinkers in such diverse fields as philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, and literary theory have made progress by referring their most difficult theoretical problems to what they presumed were the facts of language. Through a provocative reassessment of major thinkers on the idea of language-Saussure, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Rorty, and Chomsky, among them-and detailed accounts of the discourses of ethics and ideology in particular, Harpham demonstrates a remarkable consensus among intellectuals of the past century and beyond that philosophical and other problems can best be understood as linguistic problems. And furthermore, that a science of language can therefore illuminate them. Conspicuously absent from this consensus, he shows, is any consideration of contemporary linguistics, or any awareness of the growing agreement among linguists that the nature of language as such cannot be known. Ultimately, Harpham argues, the thought of language has dominated modern intellectual history because of its singular capacity to serve as a proxy for a host of concerns, questions, and anxieties-our place in the order of things, our rights and obligations, our nature or essence-that resist a strictly rational formulation. Language Alone will interest literary critics, philosophers, and anyone with an interest in the uses of language in contemporary thought.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

272

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1134734328

ISBN 13

9781134734320

What Do You Think, Mr. Ramirez?

The American Revolution in Education

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

What Do You Think, Mr. Ramirez?

The American Revolution in Education

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Geoffrey Galt Harpham’s book takes its title from a telling anecdote. A few years ago Harpham met a Cuban immigrant on a college campus, who told of arriving, penniless and undocumented, in the 1960s and eventually earning a GED and making his way to a community college. In a literature course one day, the professor asked him, “Mr. Ramirez, what do you think?” The question, said Ramirez, changed his life because “it was the first time anyone had asked me that.” Realizing that his opinion had value set him on a course that led to his becoming a distinguished professor. That, says Harpham, was the midcentury promise of American education, the deep current of commitment and aspiration that undergirded the educational system that was built in the postwar years, and is under extended assault today. The United States was founded, he argues, on the idea that interpreting its foundational documents was the highest calling of opinion, and for a brief moment at midcentury, the country turned to English teachers as the people best positioned to train students to thrive as interpreters—which is to say as citizens of a democracy. Tracing the roots of that belief in the humanities through American history, Harpham builds a strong case that, even in very different contemporary circumstances, the emphasis on social and cultural knowledge that animated the midcentury university is a resource that we can, and should, draw on today.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

247

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022648095X

ISBN 13

9780226480954

The Humanities and the Dream of America

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Humanities and the Dream of America

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

In this bracing and original book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that today’s humanities are an invention of the American academy in the years following World War II, when they were first conceived as an expression of American culture and an instrument of American national interests. The humanities portray a “dream of America” in two senses: they represent an aspiration of Americans since the first days of the Republic for a state so secure and prosperous that people could enjoy and appreciate culture for its own sake; and they embody in academic terms an idealized conception of the American national character. Although they are struggling to retain their status in America, the concept of the humanities has spread to other parts of the world and remains one of America's most distinctive and valuable contributions to higher education. The Humanities and the Dream of America explores a number of linked problems that have emerged in recent years: the role, at once inspiring and disturbing, played by philology in the formation of the humanities; the reasons for the humanities’ perpetual state of “crisis”; the shaping role of philanthropy in the humanities; and the new possibilities for literary study offered by the subject of pleasure. Framed by essays that draw on Harpham’s pedagogical experiences abroad and as a lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Academy, as well as his vantage as director of the National Humanities Center, this book provides an essential perspective on the history, ideology, and future of this important topic.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

255

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226317013

ISBN 13

9780226317014

The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

In this bold interdisciplinary work, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that asceticism has played a major role in shaping Western ideas of the body, writing, ethics, and aesthetics. He suggests that we consider the ascetic as "the 'cultural' element in culture," and presents a close analysis of works by Athanasius, Augustine, Matthias, Grünewald, Nietzsche, Foucault, and other thinkers as proof of the extent of asceticism's resources. Harpham demonstrates the usefulness of his findings by deriving from asceticism a "discourse of resistance," a code of interpretation ultimately more generous and humane than those currently available to us.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

344

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226316920

ISBN 13

9780226316925

Citizenship on Catfish Row

Race and Nation in American Popular Culture

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Citizenship on Catfish Row

Race and Nation in American Popular Culture

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

A radical reinterpretation of three controversial works that illuminate racism and national identity in the United States Citizenship on Catfish Row focuses on three seminal works in the history of American culture: the first full-length narrative film, D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation; the first integrated musical, Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern's Showboat; and the first great American opera, George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Each of these works sought to make a statement about American identity in the form of a narrative, and each included in that narrative a prominent role for Black people. Each work included jarring or discordant elements that pointed to a deeper tension between the kind of stories Americans wish to tell about themselves and the historical and social reality of race. Although all three have been widely criticized, their efforts to connect the concepts of nation and race are not only instructive about the history of the American imagination but also provide unexpected resources for contemporary reflection.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

184

Publisher

Univ of South Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1643363298

ISBN 13

9781643363295

Scholarship and Freedom

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Scholarship and Freedom

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

209

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674245016

ISBN 13

9780674245013

Shadows of Ethics

Criticism and the Just Society

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Shadows of Ethics

Criticism and the Just Society

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Collection of essays on our contemporary tendency to revisit Enlightenment concerns and the ways attributes of the 'highest'--reason, ethics, high cultural aesthetics, even theory--have become implicated with and confused with the 'lowes

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

308

Publisher

Duke University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0822323206

ISBN 13

9780822323204

The Character of Criticism

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Character of Criticism

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

206

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136088660

ISBN 13

9781136088667

One of Us

The Mastery of Joseph Conrad

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

One of Us

The Mastery of Joseph Conrad

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Joseph Conrad has traditionally been seen as a master - a master mariner, master storyteller, master of the secrets of the human heart, master of fictional technique. Recently, however, these compliments have given way to charges that Conrad is complicit in the various masteries associated with racism, imperialism, and the patriarchy. In this book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham inquires not only into Conrad's work and reputation, but also into the idea of mastery as such.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

232

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226316963

ISBN 13

9780226316963

Language Alone

The Critical Fetish of Modernity

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Language Alone

The Critical Fetish of Modernity

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

276

Publisher

Psychology Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0415942195

ISBN 13

9780415942195

The Little Book of Yorkshire

By: Geoffrey Howse

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Little Book of Yorkshire

By: Geoffrey Howse

The Little Book of Yorkshire is a funny, fast-paced, fact-packed compendium of the sort of frivolous, fantastic or simply strange information which no-one will want to be without. The county's most unusual crimes and punishments, eccentric inhabitants, famous sons and daughters, royal connections and literally hundreds of wacky facts about Yorkshire's landscape, cities, towns and villages (plus some authentically bizarre bits of historic trivia), come together to make it essential reading for visitors and locals alike. Soak up the vast array of quirky tales from the regal Richmond of John of Gaunt to the sporting Barnsley of Dickie Bird. A handy little book for residents and visitors alike.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

192

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0752462679

ISBN 13

9780752462677

Hermeneutica

Computer-Assisted Interpretation in the Humanities

By: Geoffrey Rockwell,Stefan Sinclair

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Hermeneutica

Computer-Assisted Interpretation in the Humanities

By: Geoffrey Rockwell,Stefan Sinclair

An introduction to text analysis using computer-assisted interpretive practices, accompanied by example essays that illustrate the use of these computational tools. The image of the scholar as a solitary thinker dates back at least to Descartes' Discourse on Method. But scholarly practices in the humanities are changing as older forms of communal inquiry are combined with modern research methods enabled by the Internet, accessible computing, data availability, and new media. Hermeneutica introduces text analysis using computer-assisted interpretive practices. It offers theoretical chapters about text analysis, presents a set of analytical tools (called Voyant) that instantiate the theory, and provides example essays that illustrate the use of these tools. Voyant allows users to integrate interpretation into texts by creating hermeneutica—small embeddable “toys” that can be woven into essays published online or into such online writing environments as blogs or wikis. The book's companion website, Hermeneuti.ca, offers the example essays with both text and embedded interactive panels. The panels show results and allow readers to experiment with the toys themselves. The use of these analytical tools results in a hybrid essay: an interpretive work embedded with hermeneutical toys that can be explored for technique. The hermeneutica draw on and develop such common interactive analytics as word clouds and complex data journalism interactives. Embedded in scholarly texts, they create a more engaging argument. Moving between tool and text becomes another thread in a dynamic dialogue.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

255

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262545896

ISBN 13

9780262545891

Hope in All Directions

By: Geoffrey Karabin

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Hope in All Directions

By: Geoffrey Karabin

From literature, history, film study, philosophy, social work, theology, pedagogy, psychology, gender studies, and music, hope is here. If you find hope important, this volume is essential.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

238

Publisher

BRILL

Published Date

ISBN 10

1848882599

ISBN 13

9781848882591

The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

344

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226316912

ISBN 13

9780226316918

What Do You Think, Mr. Ramirez?

The American Revolution in Education

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

What Do You Think, Mr. Ramirez?

The American Revolution in Education

By: Geoffrey Galt Harpham

Some fifty years ago, a Cuban teenager landed penniless and without papers on the Florida shore. Soon he had earned his GED and found his way to a community college, a literature class, and an encounter with a Shakespeare sonnet. An instructor asked him, "Mr. Ramirez, what do you think?" It was a question that changed his life. By the time Geoffrey Harpham met him, Mr. Ramirez had become a distinguished professor at an American university. "What do YOU think?" This question and the fact that it was asked in a community college humanities classroom tell us much about the postwar ideals that made American higher education so revolutionary. What were Americans thinking when we created the educational system that could work such wonders? What conditions made it possible? And why is it today so embattled? Reaching back to the era of the Founders, Harpham traces the deep historical roots of our interest in the citizen's opinion, and the corresponding prominence of textual interpretation in American education. He explores America's path toward general, liberal education, focusing on its Golden Age immediately following WWII. And he puzzles out why the country turned to English teachers as the people best positioned to train students to thrive as interpreters, which is to say as citizens of a democracy. Harpham shows that the American system of general, liberal education formalized in the middle of the twentieth century can still inspire us in the early twenty-first. Public education in the US is everywhere under assault, and so too is the ideal of education that cultivates individuals and citizens rather than merely trains employees. Harpham recovers the core elements of liberal education in order that we might give them new form in the contemporary world. "What Do YOU Think?" teaches us that the American revolution in education, like the pursuit of happiness, is not yet finished.

Average ratings

N/A