Ho to Be an Intellectual Essays on Criticism, Culture, and the University [Hardcover]

Over the past decade, Jeffrey J. Williams has been one of the most perceptive observers of contemporary literary and cultural studies. He has also been a shrewd analyst of the state of American higher education. How to Be an Intellectual brings together noted and new essays and exemplifies Williamss effort to bring criticism to a wider public

How to Be an Intellectual profiles a number of critics, drawing on a unique series of interviews that give an inside look at their work and careers. The book often looks at critical thought from surprising angles, examining, for instance, the history of modern American criticism in terms of its keywords as they morphed from sound to rigorous to smart. It also puts in plain language the political travesty of higher education policies that produce student debt, which, as Williams demonstrates, all too readily follow the model of colonial indenture, not just as a metaphor but in actual point of fact.

How to Be an Intellectual tells a story of intellectual life since the culture wars. Shedding academic obscurity and calling for a better critical writing, it reflects on what makes the critic and intellectualthe accidents of careers, the trends in thought, the institutions that shape us, and politics. It also includes personal views of living and working with books.

The 'criticism without footnotes' that Jeffrey Williams proposes and enacts in How to Be an Intellectual makes for lively and engaging reading. His shrewd assessments of contemporary critical pashas, schools, and fashions are necessary reading for anyone involved in the literary and cultural issues of our times.Critics, books, journals, institutions, money: Jeffrey Williams takes on the many faces of the humanities in this engaging book. If only more scholars wrote with such verve and clarity! How to be an Intellectual is the perfect guide to the idiosyncrasies of academic life.'How to Be an Intellectual' can best be recommended because of Williams slãt