Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind

Our schools and colleges often make the intellectual life seem more impenetrable, narrowly specialized, and inaccessible than it is or needs to be, argues this eminent scholar and educator, whose provocative book offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making the culture of ideas and arguments more readily understandable.“Graff is reopening the door on a major debate. In the wake of theory, in the wake of feminism, post-colonial criticism and all the rest, what is a liberal arts education supposed to be about? How should teachers teach? What should students learn? Intelligently, humanely, Gerald Graff is bringing all of these questions back home to the classroom, which, at least for now, seems exactly where they belong.”—Mark Edmundson, Washington Post Book World“[‘Graff] writes with lucidity and charm. . . . A worthwhile work.”—Steven Lagerfeld, Wall Street Journal“Clueless in Academe is charming. . . . The reader chuckles in recognition over the tales told of scholars and students.”—Terence Kealey, The Times Higher Education Supplement