Academic Instincts

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by Marjorie Garber

Princeton University Press

Due/Published January 2001, 160 pages, cloth

ISBN 069104970X

Garber explores the pleasures and pitfalls of the academic life. She discusses three of the perennial issues that have surfaced in recent debates about the humanities: the relation between "amateurs" and "professionals," the relation between one academic discipline and another, and the relation between "jargon" and "plain language." Rather than taking sides, the book explores the ways in which such debates are essential to intellectual life. Garber argues that the very things deplored or defended in discussions of the humanities cannot be either eliminated or endorsed because the discussion itself is what gives humanistic thought its vitality.

"In Academic Instincts--a bravura inspection of various foibles and follies currently besetting the academic humanities--Marjorie Garber reveals herself as an ideal tour guide: energetic, canny, jocund, illuminating, and as wicked as she needs to be. Yet even as she skewers the amour-propre of contemporary pedants and pullulaters, she also offers a passionate defense of the intellectual enterprise itself. Garber's book is solace as well as sortie: a potent affirmation of our noblest 'academic instincts' and the quest after truth they continue to embody."--Terry Castle

"I have been waiting for years for a book about my profession as vital and zesty as Academic Instincts. Now Marjorie Garber has written it with her customary fireworks, learning, and flair. It should change our minds about academic life--for the better."--Catharine R. Stimpson

"Marjorie Garber's Academic Instincts is a light, tripping, subtle argument in defense of the academic profession. It is itself a fascinating instance of refusing 'to have arbitrary lines drawn between things: between old masterpieces and contemporary works, between art and the rest of the world, between criticism and conversation."--Alexander Nehamas

Review

Books about academic controversies can leave the reader a bit cold if it is directed too much at the specific concerns of those academia. They can also be slightly off-putting when they engage in the tired sabre-rattling of the seemingly endless "culture wars." Thankfully, Marjorie Garber has come along with a critical and passionate analysis that avoids all this and instead offers fresh viewpoints into the meaning of disputes within the humanities. Though a professor of English at Harvard and a well-respected Shakespeare scholar, Garber does not fit the mold of the typical academic. With each of her new books she proves herself to be one of the more engaging and versatile writers around, whether her subject be dogs, bi-sexaulity, ethics, or how real estate resembles sex. In the first essay in Academic Instincts Garber writes about the dividing line that is made between "amateurs" and "professionals" and how these terms and their connotations are constantly in flux. In "Discipline Envy," Garber looks at the relations between various disciplines, how they differentiate themselves, and the ways in which they borrow from each other. The concluding essay looks at the relation between "jargon" and "plain language," and the frequent transformation of academic terminology into members of our common vocabulary. Garber does not take sides but, analyzes the varying positions and argues that these disputes give humanistic thought its vitality.

Alexander Nehamas writes, "Marjorie Garber's Academic Instincts is a light, tripping, subtle argument in defense of the academic profession. It is itself a fascinating instance of refusing 'to have arbitrary lines drawn between things: between old masterpieces and contemporary works, between art and the rest of the world, between criticism and conversation."

For other recent Marjorie Garber titles:

• The Turn to Ethics
• Sex & Real Estate: Why We Love Houses
• Symptoms of Culture

  For titles in Education