Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University: Poetry, Politics, and the Profession

At a time when the humanities are suffering crises of funding and legitimacy, Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University provides an alternative vision: a clear-eyed, nondogmatic approach to engaged scholarship and educational activism in the interest of the public good. This collection brings together distinguished and rising cultural studies scholars to explore the ways in which Cary Nelson's work unites scholarship and activism, demonstrating the need for radical engagement in order to democratize the academy and the production of knowledge in and about American culture. Neither a Festschrift nor a tribute, the volume looks at the new directions Nelson's work has inspired in research and activism about the history and politics of the academy, cultural studies, modern American poetry, and graduate pedagogy and mentoring. An engaging afterword by Cary Nelson is also included.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments 1. An Exemplary Career: Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University Michael Rothberg and Peter K. Garrett PART1: THE CANON AND THE POLITICS OF POETRY 2. Preserving Thresholds: The Scholar in the Museum, Junk Shop, and Library Edward Brunner 3. Cary Nelson:Expanding the Canon of American Poetry Walter Kalaidjian 4. "We Should Always Read What Other People Assure Us Is No Good": The Good of the No Good Grant Farred 5. The Lives of Haiku Poetry: Self, Selflessness, and Solidarity in Concentration Camp Haiku Karen Jackson Ford 6. Contexts, Choruses, and Katabases (Canonical and Non-): Some Methodological Implications of Cary Nelson's Recovery Work Michael Thurston PART2: CORPORATIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF THE ACADEMY 7. Worlds to Win:Toward a Cultural Studies of the University Itself Marc Bousquet 8. The Organization Man Michael Berube 9. The Humanities, the University, and the Enemy Within Stephen Watt 10. Everyday Life at the Corporate University Jane Juffer 11. Who's Afraid of Cultural Studies? Lisa Duggan 12. The Rise of the Global University Andrew Ross PART3: PEDAGOGY AND THEPOLITICS OF MENTORING 13. Graduate Mentoring: A Poetics Marsha Bryant 14. Empire and the Anxiety of Influence Brady Harrison 15. Learning My Professional Responsibilities James D. Sullivan 16. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Jim Finnegan 17. Cary Nelson at the Naval Academy Jeff Sychterz 18. Without Shame: On Cary Nelson's Legacy John Marsh AFTERWORD 19. Activism and Community in the Academy Cary Nelson List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Michael Rothberg is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Traumatic Realism: The Demands of Holocaust Representation. Peter K. Garrett is Professor of English and Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Gothic Reflections: Narrative Force in Nineteenth-Century Fiction.

Review :
"...[a] stimulating, wide-ranging book." - symploke "To sustain the university and enable it to enrich American culture, we need to redefine the communities dedicated to research. This book creates such a community." - Cary Nelson "Cary Nelson exemplifies the committed intellectual. This book recognizes him as a faculty model in just the way one wants: a readable, learned, and politically astute collection full of love and rage." - Paula Rabinowitz, author of They Must Be Represented: The Politics of Documentary "Rarely do a scholar's civic and intellectual pursuits blend as naturally and seamlessly as they have in Cary Nelson's career. It would be difficult for a single volume to do justice to the breadth and interconnectedness of such a scholar's contributions. Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University does so impressively. The essays collected here attest admirably to his remarkable influence as poetry scholar, tireless and astute activist in the struggle for integrity in education, and engaged mentor." - Adolph Reed Jr., author of Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene