Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siècle

Published by Princeton University Press 2002

Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siècle

Edited by: Amanda Anderson and Joseph Valente

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691227559

Overview
Contents

About this book

Contemporary celebrations of interdisciplinary scholarship in the humanities and social sciences often harbor a distrust of traditional disciplines, which are seen as at best narrow and unimaginative, and at worst complicit in larger forms of power and policing. Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siècle questions these assumptions by examining, for the first time, in so sustained a manner, the rise of a select number of academic disciplines in a historical perspective.

This collection of twelve essays focuses on the late Victorian era in Great Britain but also on Germany, France, and America in the same formative period. The contributors--James Buzard, Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Liah Greenfeld, John Guillory, Simon Joyce, Henrika Kuklick, Christopher Lane, Jeff Nunokawa, Arkady Plotnitsky, Ivan Strenski, Athena Vrettos, and Gauri Viswanathan--examine the genealogy of various fields including English, sociology, economics, psychology, and quantum physics. Together with the editors' cogent introduction, they challenge the story of disciplinary formation as solely one of consolidation, constraint, and ideological justification.

Addressing a broad range of issues--disciplinary formations, disciplinarity and professionalism, disciplines of the self, discipline and the state, and current disciplinary debates--the book aims to dislodge what the editors call the "comfortable pessimism" that too readily assimilates disciplines to techniques of management or control. It advances considerably the effort to more fully comprehend the complex legacy of the human sciences.

Author / Editor information

Amanda Anderson is Professor of English at The Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of The Powers of Distance (Princeton) and Tainted Souls and Painted Faces. Joseph Valente is Associate Professor of English, Critical Theory, and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Dracula's Crypt and James Joyce and the Problem of Justice and the editor of Quare Joyce.

Reviews

"To think critically about disciplines—as rich intellectual traditions and supple devices for producing new knowledge rather than as restraining orders and fusty conventions—requires not only uncommon discrimination but also a good measure of contrarian brilliance. Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siècle fits that bill remarkably. The essays collected here will serve to remind readers where our disciplines came from and why they remain, on balance, good things to think with."—Michael Bérubé

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction. Discipline and Freedom Amanda Anderson and Joseph Valente Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. Disciplinary Formations
Chapter 1. Literary Study and the Modern System of the Disciplines John Guillory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Chapter 2. Disciplinary and Radicality: Quantum Theory and Nonclassical Thought at the Fin de Siecle, and as Philosophy of the Future Arkady Plotnitsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
PART II. Disciplines and Professionalism
Chapter 3. How Economics Became a Science: A Surprising Career of a Model Discipline Liah Greenfeld Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Chapter 4. Professional Status and the Moral Order Henrika Kuklick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Chapter 5. Durkheim, Disciplinarity, and the "Sciences Religieuses" Ivan Strenski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
PART III. Disciplines of the Self
Chapter 6. Subjecting English and the Question of Representation Gauri Viswanathan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Chapter 7. Dying Twice: Victorian Theories of Deja Vu Athena Vrettos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
Chapter 8. Oscar Wilde, Erving Goffman, and the Social Body Beautiful Jeff Nunokawa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
PART IV. Discipline and the State
Chapter 9. Character and Pastorship in Two British "Sociological" Traditions: Organized Charity, Fabian Socialism, and the Invention of New Liberalism Lauren M. E. Goodlad Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Chapter 10. Victorian Continuities: Early British Sociology and the Welfare of the State Simon Joyce Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
PART V. Disciplinary Contests and the Present Horizon
Chapter 11. The Arnoldian Ideal, or Culture Studies and the Problem of Nothingness Christopher Lane Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
Chapter 12. Notes on the Defenestration of Culture James Buzard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	312
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337