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Michael Levenson considers how the humanities exist beyond the walls of universities and take place in daily life- in book clubs, public libraries, museums, and historical re-enactments. He poses questions about amateurs versus professionals, what constitutes expertise, and the recent backlash against political elites.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: The Humanities at Large
- 2: Departments, Disciplines
- 3: Experts and Expertise
- 4: The Humanities in Time
- 5: Places to Think in: Library, Museum, Seminar
- Conclusion
About the author
Michael Levenson is William B. Christian Professor of English at the University of Virginia and author of A Genealogy of Modernism (Cambridge University Press, 1984), Modernism and the Fate of Individuality (Cambridge University Press, 1990), The Spectacle of Intimacy (co-authored with K. Chase, Princeton University Press, 2000), and Modernism (Yale University Press, 2011); and editor of the Cambridge Companion to Modernism (2000, 2nd edition 2011). Professor Levenson has published essays in such journals as ELH, Novel, Modernism / Modernity, The New Republic, Wilson Quarterly, and Raritan. He has been chair of the English Department at the University of Virginia and is the founding director of the Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures. His teaching has ranged through literary history from the eighteenth century to the present, and more recently toward global cultural studies.
Summary
Michael Levenson considers how the humanities exist beyond the walls of universities and take place in daily life- in book clubs, public libraries, museums, and historical re-enactments. He poses questions about amateurs versus professionals, what constitutes expertise, and the recent backlash against political elites.
