Beauty and the Footnote: Universities and the Study of Literature
About this episode
The episode explores the evolution of English literature as an academic discipline within universities over the last two centuries.
Stefan Collini, FBA. Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature, University of Cambridge. The Donald Winch Lectures in Intellectual History. University of St Andrews. 11th, 12th & 13th October 2022. In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, universities expanded to include a wide range of what came to be regarded as academic ‘disciplines’. In Britain, the study of ‘English literature’ was eventually to become one of the biggest and most popular of these subjects, yet it was in some ways an awkward fit: not obviously susceptible to the ‘scientific’ treatment considered the hallmark of a scholarly discipline, it aroused a kind of existential commitment in many of those who taught and studied it. These lectures explore some of the ways in which these tensions worked themselves out in the last two hundred years, drawing on a wide range of sources to understand the aspirations invested in the subject, the resistance that it constantly encountered, and the distinctive forms of enquiry that came to define it. In so doing, they raise larger questions about the changing character of universities, the peculiar cultural standing of ‘literature’, and the…
People in this episode
Guest: Stefan Collini
Topics covered
- history of literature
- academic disciplines
- higher education
- cultural studies
- intellectual history
Keywords
- English literature
- academic disciplines
- universities
- intellectual history
- cultural expectations
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Cambridge, University of St Andrews
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