Takes a new look at the importance and the oddity of John Donne's "The Exstasie" through a feminist critical perspective. Discusses certain major elements in the poem: the situation, the the persons, and the images that carry key meanings. (EL)

Discusses teaching J. Austen's "Emma" in light of the issue of happiness in order to make the novel more interesting to students who do not like Emma, the character. Suggests that the multiplicity of questions raised by Austen will provide sufficient material for discussion. (SRT)

Considers the importance of textual studies to literature study, the expanded canon of contemporary criticism, and the anti-intuitive bias of contemporary literary theory. (CRH)

Warns that English departments' emphasis on literary criticism and "explications de texte" introduced too early in undergraduate English majors' careers can crush students' enthusiasm and interest. (AEA)

Addresses the question of what graduate students should know about fields of English in which they are not specializing. Finds the best answer is to teach "the classics." Illustrates with the example of a course on "The Faerie Queene" and "Paradise Lost," to show students how to work with texts and what can be…

Sketches a picture of recent scholarship in English studies that features moral earnestness, enthusiasm, and the desire for change. Describes literature as a social fact. Considers the effect of treating literature as something other than social fact--as an unsocial construction. (HB)

Proposes that English studies is not a privileged route to addressing and redressing social ills. Questions whether literary studies is now or has ever been a "serious" enterprise or whether those who engage in it are overly self-serious. (HB)

Notes that the hopeful threads binding Herman Melville's book "The Confidence-Man" also weave a valuable lesson for literature PhDs considering their career options. Suggests that the values crucial to a teacher or scholar are also crucial to those who work outside the university: willingness to entertain other points of view and an…

Poses the theory that Yeats' poems can be viewed as a "book" that tells a story, the narrating persona being a fictive projection of Yeats the poet. (JC)

Shows how teaching "The Bluest Eye" not only helps students learn about the time period of the novel and its relevant issues and techniques, but also helps them to understand themselves. Shows how it can fit into contemporary literature classes, introductory courses to fiction or literature, or into women's literature classes. (EL)

Argues that (1) even the most radical critics of departmental structures are committed to the perpetuation of English departments and, therefore, will adopt, regardless of potential contradictions, the professional discourse that validates them and (2) that this will be done even though the Babel of contemporary critical discourse makes a…

Discusses poststructuralism in the classroom--the use of contemporary literary theory in teaching undergraduates, as well as some of its consequences. (AEA)

Offers examples of ways that college and university departments of English can broaden students' capabilities as readers and critics. (AEA)

Suggests that feminism is at the heart of a profound revolution in both the intellectual as well as the political sphere and that feminist criticism reveals the literary classics as newly vital. (AEA)