How to Be an Intellectual ― Essays on Criticism, Culture, and the University

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 essays (and several appearing for the first time) and exemplifies his effort to bring criticism out of the cloister to a wider public.

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

Overall, 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 intellectual the 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.

Jeffrey J. Williams has published widely on criticism, the novel, and the politics of higher education, in Dissent, the Chronicle of Higher Education, LARB, Salon, and VLS, as well as in major academic journals. His most recent book is The Critical Pulse: Thirty-Six Credos from Contemporary Critics and he is one of the editors of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

Jeffrey J. Williams has published widely on the history of the novel, contemporary American fiction, the history of criticism, and the American university. He regularly publishes in magazines such as Dissent and The Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as academic journals. His most recent book is The Critical Pulse: Thirty-six Credos by Contemporary Critics (co-edited), and he is one of the editors of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticis (2001; 2nd ed. 2010). He also served as editor of the minnesota review from 1992 to 2010. Currently, he is Professor of English and of Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University.