Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study

by John Guillory

A sociological history of literary study—both as a discipline and as a profession.

As the humanities in higher education struggle with a labor crisis and with declining enrollments, the travails of literary study are especially profound. No scholar has analyzed the discipline’s contradictions as authoritatively as John Guillory. In this much-anticipated new book, Guillory shows how the study of literature has been organized, both historically and in the modern era, both before and after its professionalization. The traces of this volatile history, he reveals, have solidified into permanent features of the university. Literary study continues to be troubled by the relation between discipline and profession, both in its ambivalence about the literary object and in its anxious embrace of a professionalism that betrays the discipline’s relation to its amateur criticism.

In a series of timely essays, Professing Criticism offers an incisive explanation for the perennial churn in literary study, the constant revolutionizing of its methods and objects, and the permanent crisis of its professional identification. It closes with a robust outline of five key rationales for literary study, offering a credible account of the aims of the discipline and a reminder to the professoriate of what they already do, and often do well.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Nonfiction, Academic, Essays, History, Theory, Philosophy

423 pages, Paperback

Published December 30, 2022

Reviews

[Meredith Goldsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm working my way through this -- slowly -- and am taking a break to read a few other things. If you read as someone within the field of literary studies, Guillory's work will prompt you to ask why we do what we do as literature teachers and scholars. I don't mean this in a contestatory way: it's simply that Guillory establishes that there is a context for this ambiguous thing called "the English professor." I think if we don't read this, we do so at our peril; there is an urgent need to understand our own field and to explain what we do to others. In this exquisitely researched book, Guillory explains that every facet of our current reality as literature professors came from somewhere: the structure of the academic department, the idea of "class discussion," the idea that criticism has a social or political function. Readers will relish little details like the history of the exam (what exam ever worked in literary studies?); a detailed discussion of the history of the fact (not particular facts, the idea that there is something called a "fact"). The dense footnotes require reading and appreciation of their own; that's where Guillory's wry humor comes out. You don't expect a scholarly book to nudge you in the ribs the way this one does at this! I'm only halfway through and I've identified numerous sources I feel I have to read, but I'm grateful that Guillory's done it for me.
Update: December 22: I finished the book about a week ago, and want to encourage any readers hoping to understand contemporary issues in the teaching and scholarship of litearature to dig in: Guillory sheds light on the job crisis in the humanities, the question of lay vs. scholarly/professional reading (this gave me a language to understand the difference between student reading and my own reading that I find extremely helpful), and a reward structure that fetishizes the monograph and devalues habits of professional scholarship.

The next time you tell someone that you teach English and they make a comment about their e I ngrammar, please remember that this is not an insult. Rather, the interlocutor is acting on a different, past, version of what the discipline of literary studies actually was. Try to be generous when you explain our field; I've learned that the defensiveness literary scholars might give off has something to do with the "uncertainty of aim" of our discipline. Guillory has helped me understand what I do as a literary scholar, but my own definition, like his, continues to evolve.

[Dallin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong set of essays on literary studies

The essays in this book do an excellent job of thinking through the meaning of literary studies today. The essay “Professing Criticism” is a must read. I was deflated by the conclusion, hoping for a much stronger claim about what literary studies could, or should be. I’m not sure if the author lost his nerve or felt unsure what such a future should look like. Still, I’m very glad I read this book.

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense, for sure, but worth it if you find the subject matter interesting. It helped put both my college years and my career as an educator in historical perspective.

I enjoyed the not so linear form.

[Chris Gallagher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sorta kinda a work book, but I'm counting it.