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The Origins of Literary Studies in America: A Documentary Anthology

Edited by Gerald Graff, Edited by Michael Warner

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Originally published in 1989, The Origins of Literary Studies in America brings together for the first time hard-to-find speeches, reports, and other writings by the founders of literary studies in the United States: Bliss Perry, Woodrow Wilson, Irving Babbitt, M. Carey Thomas, and many other scholars between 1874 and 1937. The selectionsâ€”on teaching, the MLA, and the goals of the disciplineâ€”are readable, accessible, often charming and amusing; what is most striking about them, however, is their resemblance to the debates over the crisis of American higher education. Gerald Graff and Michael Warner argue against the â€œmyth of consensusâ€â€”a naive belief that the academic humanities until quite recently enjoyed a coherent agreement on their goalsâ€”popularized by such critical voices as Secretary of Education William Bennett, E.D. Hirsch, and Allan Bloom. This remarkable anthology is a valuable corrective to twentieth century popular views of educational history and a work that broadens our understanding of professionalism within the academy.