Abstract
Introducing English Studies: The State of the Discipline, Past, Present, and Future, the editors trace some historical and contemporary debates surrounding English Studies in the university. Niall Gildea, Helena Goodwyn, Megan Kitching and Helen Tyson discuss the present threats to English and consider how critics of the discipline might capitalize on its problematic history of self-definition. Although indispensable for much work in English studies, this problem of self-definition simultaneously provides an avenue for instrumentalist attacks on the discipline. The challenge facing English scholars today is to position ourselves responsibly vis-à-vis this paradox, and at the same time to articulate what we value in English Studies. The authors introduce the essays that follow, indicating how these exemplify this crucial responsibility.
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Notes
Bill Readings, The University in Ruins, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 1996, pp.170–1.
Philip W. Martin, ‘Introduction: The Condition of the Subject’, in Philip Martin (ed.) English: The Condition of the Subject, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp.1–18.
Colin Evans, English People: The Experience of Teaching and Learning English in British Universities, Buckingham and Philadelphia, Open University Press, 1993, p.184.
Stefan Collini, What Are Universities For?, London, Penguin, 2012, p.63.
Andrew McGettigan, The Great University Gamble: Money, Markets and the Future of Higher Education, London, Pluto Press, 2013, p.2.
Richard Van Noorden, ‘Publishers Withdraw More than 120 Gibberish Papers’, Nature 24 February 2014. See also John Bohannon, ‘Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?’, Science 4, 342.6154, October 2013, pp.60–5.
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© 2015 Niall Gildea, Helena Goodwyn, Megan Kitching and Helen Tyson
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Gildea, N., Goodwyn, H., Kitching, M., Tyson, H. (2015). Introduction — English Studies: The State of the Discipline, Past, Present, and Future. In: Gildea, N., Goodwyn, H., Kitching, M., Tyson, H. (eds) English Studies: The State of the Discipline, Past, Present, and Future. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137478054_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137478054_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-50221-9
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