John Guillory

Essays on the Organization of Literary Study

Professing Criticism

The Problem of Literary Canon Formation

Cultural Capital

Judith Butler

Kendall Thomas

A debate on the politics of theory is being conducted within literary studies. What is meant by politics? What is meant by theory? This book brings together not only outstanding questioners, but outstanding questions.

New Work on the Politics of Literary Theory

What's Left of Theory?

John Guillory challenges the most fundamental premises of the canon debate by resituating the problem of canon formation in an entirely new theoretical framework. The result is a book that promises to recast not only the debate about the literary curriculum but also the controversy over "multiculturalism" and the current "crisis of the humanities." Employing concepts drawn from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups than as a question of the distribution of "cultural capital" in the schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writing.

John Guillory

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