Literature Against Criticism : University English and Contemporary Fiction in Conflict

• Main Author: Martin Paul Eve (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Open Book Publishers
• Subjects: University English; academia; contemporary fiction
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

This is a book about the power game currently being played out between two symbiotic cultural institutions: the university and the novel. As the number of hyper- knowledgeable literary fans grows, students and researchers in English departments waver between dismissing and harnessing voices outside the academy. Meanwhile, the role that the university plays in contemporary literary fiction is becoming increasingly complex and metafictional, moving far beyond the 'campus novel' of the mid-twentieth century. Martin Paul Eve's engaging and far-reaching study explores the novel's contribution to the ongoing displacement of cultural authority away from university English. Spanning the works of Jennifer Egan, Ishmael Reed, Tom McCarthy, Sarah Waters, Percival Everett, Roberto Bolaño and many others, Literature Against Criticism forces us to re-think our previous notions about the relationship between those who write literary fiction and those who critique it. Professor Martin Paul Eve is Chair of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London. He is also the author of Pynchon and Philosophy (2014), Open Access and the Humanities (2014), and Password (2016).