Is There a Text in this Class?

The Authority of Interpretive Communities

Stanley Fish

    PART ONE: Literature in the Reader

    1. Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics

    2. What Is Stylistics and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things About It?

    3. How Ordinary Is Ordinary Language?

    4. What It's Like To Read L'Allegro and II Penseroso

    5. Facts and Fictions: A Reply to Ralph Rader

    6. Interpreting the Variorum

    7. Interpreting "Interpreting the Variorum"

    8. Structuralist Homiletics

    9. How To Do Things with Austin and Searle: Speech- Act Theory and Literary Criticism

    10. What Is Stylistics and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things About It? Part II

    11. Normal Circumstances and Other Special Cases

    12. A Reply to John Reichert

    PART TWO: Interpretive Authority in the Classroom and in Literary Criticism

    13. Is There a Text in This Class?

    14. How To Recognize a Poem When You See One

    15. What Makes an Interpretation Acceptable?

    16. Demonstration vs. Persuasion: Two Models of Critical Activity

    Notes

    Index

  • Cover: Is There a Text in this Class?
  • A photo of the author

Stanley Fish is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His many books include There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing Too.