![[Introduction to] Why is English Literature? Language and Letters for the Twenty-First Century](https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1114/thumbnail.jpg)
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Description
Why is English synonymous with literature in the United States? At the turn of the twentieth century, literature courses were taught in the original language, and English did not signify literature any more than did French, Italian, or other modern languages. Fifty years later, English had colonized literature, and non-English literatures became configured as "foreign language study." This timely and important intervention into an on-going debate shows how the multilingual population of American faculty and students became progressively more monoglot, as did the configuration of literary studies. Thomas Paul Bonfiglio locates these changes within the anti-immigration, xenophobic, anti-labor, mercantile, militarist, and technocratic ideologies that arose in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and recommends the return of literary studies and the humanities to their roots.
ISBN
9781137379870
Publication Date
2013
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
City
New York
Keywords
United States English literature, foreign language study, monoglot
School
School of Arts and Sciences
Department
Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Disciplines
Modern Literature
Recommended Citation
Bonfiglio, Thomas P. Why Is English Literature? Language and Letters for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Comments
Listen to Podcasts@Boatwright and hear Dr. Thomas Paul Bonfiglio discuss Why is English Literature? Language and Letters for the Twenty-First Century.
Read the Introduction to the book by clicking the Download button above.