Literature Against Itself

Since its first publication more than fifteen years ago, Literature Against Itself has achieved wide recognition as the first major critique of post-1960s cultural radicalism - and still one of the best. In it Gerald Graff argues that the reigning strategies for defending literature now end up by trivializing it, and he analyzes why and how they have gone wrong. He charges that our leading literary critics, whether they claim to be traditionalists or innovators, have taken positions that ultimately undermine the authority of art, literature, and criticism itself.

Gerald Graff is George M. Pullman Professor of English and Education at the University of Chicago. His other books include Beyond the Culture Wars, Professing Literature, and The Myth of Cultural Decline.