Description

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Selling the Humanities explores the challenges facing literature, philosophy, and theory at a time when the humanities appear to some as burnt out.  There is incredible pressure to demonstrate the value of the humanities within institutions dedicated to economic feasibility and job placement, not intellectual power and social commitment.  This situation is further intensified by the demand that one must always be prepared to sell the humanities to others in an effort to save them.  But is it even possible to commodify the humanities?  And if so, might our efforts to sell the humanities also have the potential to kill them in the process?

About the Author

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Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston-Victoria. He is editor and founder of the critical theory journal Symplokē, editor-in-chief of the American Book Review, and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Winter Theory Institute.

Praise For…

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“Instead of predictably lamenting the devaluation of the humanities, avant-pop intellectual Jeffrey R. Di Leo’s Selling the Humanities does the exact opposite: it invites us to use the art of publishing as a strategic intervention into academia’s financialized regimes of truth to revalue the humanities. Essential reading!” 
—Mark Amerika, Professor of Distinction, University of Colorado
— Mark Amerika

“Jeffrey R. Di Leo represents Texas scholarly royalty. If he were a jazz musician we would call him Duke or Count. If he played ball we would have to find a nickname for him. I would call him ‘Mr. Book’ or maybe just ‘Page.’ This man continues to do important academic work. When will we return to the business of protecting the humanities?  Di Leo has written a book not just for the campus president but also the general community. These twenty-four essays are fresh produce. Selling The Humanities is filled with nourishing food for thought.”
—E. Ethelbert Miller, writer, literary activist, and host of On The Margin (WPFW 89.3 FM)
— E. Ethelbert Miller

“[Selling the Humanities] is a high-speed tour comprising twenty-four brief (3000-word) essays. You move past these exhibits not shuffling along behind a lugubrious museum docent but rather speeding in a red El Dorado convertible”
—H. Aram Veeser, author of The Rebirth of American Literary Theory and Criticism
 
— H. Aram Veeser