Lecture 24 - The Institutional Construction of Literary Study

In this lecture on critical identities, Professor Fry examines the work of Stanley Fish and John Guillory. The lecture begins by examining Tony the Tow Truck as a site for the emergence of literary identities, then brings the course's use of the children's story under scrutiny through the lens of Fish. The evolution of Fish's theory of interpretive communities is traced chronologically through his publications and examined in close-up in Milton's Paradise Lost. John Guillory's work on interpretive communities and the culture wars leads to a discussion of the Western canon and multiculturalism. Reading assignment: Fish, Stanley. "How to Recognize a Poem When You See One." In The Critical Tradition, pp. 1023-30 Guillory, John. "Cultural Capital." In The Critical Tradition, pp. 1472-83