Virginia Woolf, the Intellectual, and the Public Sphere

by Melba Cuddy-Keane

Overview

Melba Cuddy-Keane relates Woolf's literary reviews and essays to early twentieth-century debates about the value of "highbrow" culture; the methods of instruction in universities and adult education; and the importance of an educated public for the realization of democratic goals. Combining a wealth of historical detail with a penetrating analysis of Woolf's essays, this study will alter our views of Woolf, modernism, and intellectual endeavor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521035385
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/18/2007
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Melba Cuddy-Keane is Associate Professor of English and a Northrop Frye Scholar at the University of Toronto. She has written widely on Virginia Woolf and literary criticism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; Introduction: a wider sphere; Part I. Cultural Contexts: 1. Democratic highbrow: Woolf and the classless intellectual; 2. Woolf, English studies and the making of the (new) common reader; Part II. Critical Practice: 3. Woolf and the theory and pedagogy of reading; Postscript: intellectual work today; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"I enthusiastically recommend the book to all readers, common and academic. ...[it] will stimulate important thinking and provide us, in our own dilemmas over education, social discourse and the future health of democracy, with a thoughtful and strategic example for negotiating these complexities." Jeanette McVicker, SUNY-Fredonia

"In this meticulous, often brilliant book, Cuddy-Keane focuses on both the 'cultural contexts' and 'critical practice' of Woolf's more than 500 essays and reviews on literary history and criticism.... Readers of this groundbreaking book—one of the most important studies of Woolf in years—will hereafter approach Woolf's critical writings with closer attention and increased respect. Essential." Choice

From the Publisher