Beyond Cheering and Bashing

Beyond Cheering and Bashing
Author: William K. Buckley
Publisher: Popular Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1992
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780879725488

The debate over the central issue confronted in Closing--the role of the university and the liberal arts in the United States--has become increasingly urgent and contentious. The goal of this collection of essays is to consider what we can learn about the dilemmas confronting American culture through a consideration of both The Closing of the American Mind and the debate it has aroused. The contributors differ among themselves as to the validity of both the diagnoses and the solutions Bloom offers, yet they do not engage in "Bloom-bashing" or hero-worship. The goal of the book is to place the debate over Closing into the larger context than can be achieved in a book review format. To provide the historical perspective that has been missing in the controversy over Bloom, included in this volume is Christopher Lasch's "The Great Experiment: Where Did it Go Wrong?" Also included are essays by other leading critics: John K. Roth, Frank Caucci, William K. Buckley, Milton R. Stern, Susan Bourgeois, Margaret C. Jones, Daniel Zins, Kenneth Alan Hovey, Bonnie A. Hain, John Peacock, Patricia L. Lundberg, Peter Siedlecki, Mark W. Roche, William Thickstun, Lorraine Clark, and Gerald Graff. This volume of essays does much to illuminate the issue surrounding The Closing of the American Mind.

Modern Jeremiahs

Modern Jeremiahs
Author: Mark Stephen Jendrysik
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2008
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0739121928

This book identifies where modern Jeremiahs place the sources of national decline and their purposed solutions and its analysis also reveals the central problem faced by this form of writing: the need to balance condemnation of certain practices within the democratic polity with calls for repentance. For these writers and political actors, the tensions created by these demands prove impossible to resolve, as the modern jeremiad further divides an already divided nation.

Professor Bloom's Delight on the Right: American Conservatism and The Closing of the American Mind

Professor Bloom's Delight on the Right: American Conservatism and The Closing of the American Mind
Author: Moritz P. Mücke
Publisher: diplom.de
Total Pages: 58
Release: 2014-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3954898039

In 1987 the American philosopher Allan Bloom published his controversial book The Closing of the American Mind, in which he criticized contemporary trends in American academia as well as in the culture at large. The book was largely perceived to be a conservative tract, and many commentators on the political Right praised the work, although Bloom himself rejected the label ‘conservative’. The controversy Bloom unleashed was - and is - a battle between political forces for cultural sovereignty, especially in the universities, and the commanding heights of American intellectual life. This conflict was well captured in Camille Paglia’s famous description of The Closing of the American Mind as the ‘first shot in the culture wars.’ The purpose of this study is to inquire into the American Right’s reception and reconstruction of Bloom’s book and to determine the initial impact and lasting influence it had on American conservative thought. To provide the necessary context, the history of American conservatism from 1945 up to the respective points in time is also illuminated in this work.

Literary Criticism from Plato to Postmodernism

Literary Criticism from Plato to Postmodernism
Author: James Seaton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2014-04-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139916270

This book offers a history of literary criticism from Plato to the present, arguing that this history can best be seen as a dialogue among three traditions - the Platonic, Neoplatonic, and the humanistic, originated by Aristotle. There are many histories of literary criticism, but this is the first to clarify our understanding of the many seemingly incommensurable approaches employed over the centuries by reference to the three traditions. Making its case by careful analyses of individual critics, the book argues for the relevance of the humanistic tradition in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Cultural Conservatism, Political Liberalism

Cultural Conservatism, Political Liberalism
Author: James Seaton
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1996
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780472106455

Examines whether cultural studies has been too dismissive of the tradition of literary-cultural criticism that preceded it

Leo Strauss, The Straussians, and the Study of the American Regime

Leo Strauss, The Straussians, and the Study of the American Regime
Author: Kenneth L. Deutsch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 467
Release: 1999-09-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1461600677

Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamental crises of modernity and liberal democracy. This book emphasizes the broad range of Strauss's influence, from literary criticism to constitutional thought, and it denies the existence of a monolithic Straussian political orthodoxy. Both critics and supporters of Strauss' thought are included. All political theorists interested in Strauss's extraordinary impact on political thought will want to read this book.

The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy

The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
Author: Christopher Lasch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 289
Release: 1996-01-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0393348415

"[A] passionate, compelling, and disturbing argument that the ills of democracy in the United States today arise from the default of its elites." —John Gray, New York Times Book Review (front-page review) In a front-page review in the Washington Post Book World, John Judis wrote: "Political analysts have been poring over exit polls and precinct-level votes to gauge the meaning of last November's election, but they would probably better employ their time reading the late Christopher Lasch's book." And in the National Review, Robert Bork says The Revolt of the Elites "ranges provocatively [and] insightfully." Controversy has raged around Lasch's targeted attack on the elites, their loss of moral values, and their abandonment of the middle class and poor, for he sets up the media and educational institutions as a large source of the problem. In this spirited work, Lasch calls out for a return to community, schools that teach history not self-esteem, and a return to morality and even the teachings of religion. He does this in a nonpartisan manner, looking to the lessons of American history, and castigating those in power for the ever-widening gap between the economic classes, which has created a crisis in American society. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy is riveting social commentary.

T. S. Eliot and Christian Tradition

T. S. Eliot and Christian Tradition
Author: Benjamin G. Lockerd
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2014-06-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1611476127

T. S. Eliot was raised in the Unitarian faith of his family in St. Louis but drifted away from their beliefs while studying philosophy, mysticism, and anthropology at Harvard. During a year in Paris, he became involved with a group of Catholic writers and subsequently went through a gradual conversion to Catholic Christianity. Many studies of Eliot's writings have mentioned his religious beliefs, but most have failed to give the topic due weight, and many have misunderstood or misrepresented his faith. More recently, scholars have begun exploring this dimension of Eliot's thought more carefully and fully. In this book readers will find Eliot's Anglo-Catholicism accurately defined and thoughtfully considered. Essays illuminate the all-important influence of the French Catholic writers he came to know in Paris. Prominent among them were those who wrote for or were otherwise associated with the Nouvelle Revue Française, including André Gide, Paul Claudel, and Charles-Louis Philippe. Also active in Paris at that time was the notorious Charles Maurras, whose influence on Eliot has been exaggerated by those who wished to discredit Eliot's traditionalist views. A more measured assessment of Maurras's influence has been needed and is found in several essays here. A wiser French Catholic writer, Jacques Maritain, has been largely ignored by Eliot scholars, but his influence is now given due consideration. The keynote of Eliot's cultural and political writings is his belief that religion and culture are integrally related. Several contributors examine his ideas on this subject, placing them in the context of Maritain's ideas, as well as those of the Catholic historian Christopher Dawson. Contributors take account of Eliot's intellectual relationship with such figures as John Henry Newman, Charles Williams, and the expert on church architecture, W. R. Lethaby. Eliot's engagement with other contemporaries who held a variety of Christian beliefs—including George Santayana, Paul Elmer More, C. S. Lewis, and David Jones—is also explored. This collection presents the subject of Eliot's religious beliefs in rich detail, from a number of different perspectives, giving readers the opportunity to see the topic in its complexity and fullness.