Professional Correctness : Literary Studies and Political Change

The discipline of literary criticism is strictly defined, and the most pressing issues of the late 20th-century - racism, violence against women and homosexuals, cultural imperialism and the like - are located outside its domain.

Stanley Fish raises a provocative challenge in this text to those who try to turn literary studies into an instrument of political change, arguing that when literary critics try to influence society at large by addressing social and political issues, they cease to be literary critics at all.

Those people interested in the debate over the place of cultural studies in the field of literary criticism, or the more general question of whether academics can become the "public intellectuals" many aspire to be, may be interested to read Fish's unconventional argument for restoring discipline to the academy.