Debating P.C.
The Controversy over Political Correctness on College Campuses
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- $199.00
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- $199.00
Descripción editorial
The debate over "P.C." at America's universities is the most important discussion in American education today and has grown into a major national controversy raging on the covers of our top magazines and news shows. This provocative anthology gives voice to the top thinkers of our time, liberal and conservative, as they tackle the question. From the multicultural perspective of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who argues passionately for more diversity, to the erudition of Irving Howe, who stresses the profound value of the literary canon, this exciting collection is required reading for thinking Americans . . . and for everyone concerned with the future of higher education and the shaping of young minds.
Contents include:
“The Big Chill? Interview with Dinesh D’Souza” by Robert MacNeil
“On Differences: Modern Language Association Presidential Address 1990” by Catharine R. Stimpson
“The Periphery v. the Center: The MLA in Chicago” by Roger Kimball
“The Storm over the University” by John Searle
“Public Imaged Limited: Political Correctness and the Media’s Big Lie” by Michael Berubé
“The Value of the Canon” by Irving Howe
“The Politics of Knowledge” by Edward W. Said
“Whose Canon Is It, Anyway?” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
“Why Do We Read?” by Katha Pollitt
“’Speech Codes’ on the Campus and Problems of Free Speech” by Nat Hentoff
“Freedom of Hate Speech” by Richard Perry and Patricia Williams
“There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing, Too” by Stanley Fish
“The Statement of the Black Faculty Caucus” by Ted Gordon and Wahneema Lubiano
“Radical English” by George F. Will
“Critics of Attempts to Democratize the Curriculum Are Waging a Campaign to Misrepresent the Work of Responsible Professors” by Paula Rothenberg
“Multiculturalism: E Pluribus Plures” by Diane Ravitch
“Multiculturalism: An Exchange” by Molefi Kete Asante
“The Prospect Before Us” by Hilton Kramer
“P.C. Rider” by Enrique Fernández
“Diverse New World” by Cornel West
“The Challenge for the Left” by Barbara Ehrenreich
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This collection of 21 pieces covers a far broader controversy than that about ``political correctness on campus.'' (Berman, a MacArthur fellow and Tikkun magazine contributing editor, notes that the phrase originated in the 1920s for those communists and fellow travelers who towed the Leninist line.) Most of the pieces focus on the thornier issue of multiculturalism or efforts to ``deconsecrate the Eurocentrism'' (Edward Said) of the ``canon'' of great works studied in the humanities. Almost all of the essays calling for a multicultural curriculum allude to the need for more works by ``people of color'' and women, omitting such white ethnic groups as Italian and Polish Americans and such minority religions as Judaism and Islam. Yet while this volume includes too much superficial polemic and counter-polemic, Berman's excellent introduction is worthwhile, as are Irving Howe's defense of the classical canon and Katha Pollitt's provocative suggestion that the canon question evokes such strong emotions because we all assume that the books read in college are the only books most people will ever read. Enrique Fernandez makes a witty attack on the assumption that writers like Garcia Marquez are ``non-Western.''
