{"product_id":"contingency-blues-the-search-for-foundations-in-american-criticism-paperback","title":"Contingency Blues: The Search for Foundations in American Criticism - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003ePaul Jay\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom Emerson to Rorty, American criticism has grappled in one way or another with the problem of modernity--specifically, how to determine critical and cultural standards in a world where every position seems the product of an interpretation. Part intellectual history, part cultural critique, this provocative book is an effort to shake American thought out of the grip of the nineteenth century--and out of its contingency blues.\u003cbr\u003e Paul Jay focuses his analysis on two strands of American criticism. The first, which includes Richard Poirier and Giles Gunn, has attempted to revive what Jay insists is an anachronistic pragmatism derived from Emerson, James, and Dewey. The second, represented most forcefully by Richard Rorty, tends to reduce American criticism to a metadiscourse about the contingent grounds of knowledge. In chapters on Emerson, Whitman, Santayana, Van Wyck Brooks, Dewey, and Kenneth Burke, Jay examines the historical roots of these two positions, which he argues are marked by recurrent attempts to reconcile transcendentalism and pragmatism. A forceful rejection of both kinds of revisionism, \u003ci\u003eContingency Blues\u003c\/i\u003e locates an alternative in the work of the \"border studies\" critics, those who give our interest in contingency a new, more concrete form by taking a more historical, cultural, and anthropological approach to the invention of literature, subjectivity, community, and culture in a pan-American context.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis excellent book, sharply and helpful mediates the recent debates sparked by pragmatist attacks on foundationalism over the 'legitimation crisis' of modernity, and it shows, as no book has done, the specific relevance of these debates to American cultural criticism since Emerson. Part intellectual history, part cultural critique, this provocative book is an effort to shake American thought out of the grip of the nineteenth century-and out of its contingency blues.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePaul Jay is associate professor of English at Loyola University of Chicago. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Selected Correspondence of Kenneth Burke and Malcolm Cowley, 1915-1981\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eBeing in the Text: Self-Representation from Wordsworth to Roland Barthes\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 234\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.53 x 8.97 x 5.99 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 04, 2004\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53344346276147,"sku":"9780299154141","price":27.68,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/XENtDYYoxq9780299154141.webp?v=1778725107","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/contingency-blues-the-search-for-foundations-in-american-criticism-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}