Jane P. Tompkins

This was a very important book when it came out in the 1980s. It is now quite dated however and it is more obvious than ever how weakly reasoned much of it is. For critiques, see Brook Thomas's The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics and Paul Guillory's Cultural Capital.

Normally this kind of a book would be like an excellent, strong cheese and a dark beer for a book nerd like me. Yet, I felt a distance to her writing from cover to cover. As it’s been some time since I read the book, and my notes about it have been scattered to the winds, I will write no more.

I'll admit that there are a few essays I did not read, but this is, on the whole, a great collection.

Here one of our leading literary scholars looks back on her own life in the classroom, and discovers how much of what she learned there needs to be unlearned.