In this Book
- The Muses on Their Lunch Hour
- Book
- 2016
- Published by: Fordham University Press
summary
As a break from their ordained labors, what might the Muses today do on their lunch hour? This collection of witty, shrewd, and imaginative essays addresses interdisciplinary topics that range widely from Shakespeare, to psychoanalysis, to the practice of higher education today. With the ease born of deep knowledge, Marjorie Garber moves from comical journalistic quirks (“Fig Leaves”) to the curious return of myth and ritual in the theories of evolutionary psychologists (“Ovid, Now and Then”).
Two themes emerge consistently in Garber’s latest exploration of symptoms of culture. The first is that to predict the “next big thing” in literary studies we should look back at ideas and practices set aside by a previous generation of critics. In the past several decades we have seen the reemergence of—for example—textual editing, biography, character criticism, aesthetics, and philology as “hot” new areas for critical intervention. The second theme expands on this observation, making the case for “cultural forgetting” as the way the arts and humanities renew themselves, both within fields and across them. Although she is never represented in traditional paintings or poetry, a missing Muse—we can call her Amnesia—turns out to be a key figure for the creation of theory and criticism in the arts.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- Preface: The Muses on Their Lunch Hour
- pp. xi-xiv
- 1. Asking Literary Questions
- pp. 1-10
- 3. Over the Influence
- pp. 32-57
- 4. Fig Leaves
- pp. 58-71
- 5. Baggage Screening
- pp. 72-78
- 6. Identity Theft
- pp. 79-88
- 8. Occupy Shakespeare
- pp. 110-126
- 9. Shakespeare 451
- pp. 127-154
Additional Information
ISBN
9780823273768
Related ISBN(s)
9780823273720
MARC Record
OCLC
961152908
Pages
216
Launched on MUSE
2017-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No