Synopses & Reviews
A sequel of sorts to the classic (and bestselling) sendup of literary criticism, The Pooh Perplex Thirty-seven years ago, a slim parody of academic literary criticism called The Pooh Perplex became a surprise bestseller. Now Frederick Crews has written a hilarious new satire in the same vein. Purporting to be the proceedings of a forum on Pooh convened at the Modern Language Association's annual convention, Postmodern Pooh brilliantly parodies the academic fads and figures that hold sway at the millennium. Deconstruction, poststructuralist Marxism, new historicism, radical feminism, cultural studies, recovered-memory theory, and postcolonialism, among other methods, take their shots at the poor teddy bear and Crews takes his shots at them. The fun lies in seeing just how much adulteration Pooh can stand.
Review
"Cast as presentations at a Modern Language Association convention, each essay opens with a brief biography of its 'author,' and most 'presenters' are highly critical of the speakers who preceded them. Likely to entertain readers who wrestled with these theories in college." Mary Carroll, Booklist
Review
"Crews's targets often wriggle free of their creator's grasp and endow his satire with some of the passion, eloquence, and wit that has earned them their following....Crews's obvious pleasure in letting a stuffed bear show up those critics who have clearly kept him reading for years will keep anyone interested in literary scholarship in stitches." Library Journal
Synopsis
A sequel of sorts to the classic (and bestselling) sendup of literary criticism,
The Pooh PerplexPurporting to be the proceedings of a forum on Pooh convened at the Modern Language Association's annual convention, Postmodern Pooh brilliantly parodies the academic fads and figures that hold sway at the millennium.
Deconstruction, poststructuralist Marxism, new historicism, radical feminism, cultural studies, recovered-memory theory, and postcolonialism, among other methods, take their shots at the poor teddy bear and Crews takes his shots at them. The fun lies in seeing just how much adulteration Pooh can stand.
Synopsis
A sequel of sorts to the classic (and bestselling) sendup of literary criticism, The Pooh Perplex.
About the Author
Frederick Crews is professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley.
Table of Contents
Preface
1 Why? Wherefore? Inasmuch as Which? 3
2 A Bellyful of Pooh 19
3 The Fissured Subtext: Historical Problematics, the Absolute Cause, Transcoded Contradictions, and Late-Capitalist Metanarrative (in Pooh) 33
4 Just Lack a Woman 47
5 The Importance of Being Portly 65
6 Resident Aliens 81
7 Gene/Meme Covariation in Ashdown Forest: Pooh and the Consilience of Knowledge 97
8 The Courage to Squeal 117
9 Virtual Bear 133
10 Twilight of the Dogs 147
11 You Don't Know What Pooh Studies Are About, Do You, and Even If You Did, Do You Think Anybody Would Be Impressed? 163