Widely considered the standard history of the profession of literary studies,Professing Literatureunearths the long-forgotten ideas and debates that created the literature department as we know it today. In a readable and often-amusing narrative, Gerald Graff shows that the heated conflicts of our recent culture wars echoand often recyclecontroversies over how literature should be taught that began more than a century ago. Updated with a new preface by the author that addresses many of the provocative arguments raised by its initial publication,Professing Literatureremains an essential history of literary pedagogy and a critical classic. "Graff's history. . . is a pathbreaking investigation showing how our institutions shape literary thought and proposing how they might be changed."The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism