Publisher's Synopsis
"Exploding English" crosses the boundaries of disciplines in a response to the frequently-asked question "What is going on in English studies?". It brings together elements of critical theory, intellectual history and the sociology of knowledge, with a linking thread of autobiography. The author, who has published poetry and fiction as well as literary criticism, and has been active in university administration, describes the changes in a particular form of British cultural life - academic literary study - that he has experienced since he became a university teacher in 1959. He sees the study of English in higher education as a synthesis that has been potentially insecure ever since it emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, and is now visibly fragmenting. The author considers the impact on traditional practices of the Thatcherite transformation of the academy, and of the "rainbow coalition" comprising poststructuralism, Marxism, and feminism, which he regards as symptoms rather than causes of disturbance. His reflections are pessimisitic but not despairing, and he offers some practical proposals for future developments.;Anyone teaching English in higher education, and in schools; graduate students of English, students of theory of criticism.
