About this item
A timely, provocative, necessary look at how identity politics has come to dominate college campuses and higher education in America at the expense of a more essential commitment to equality.Thirty years after the culture wars, identity politics is now the norm on college campuses-and it hasn't been an unalloyed good for our education system or the country. Though the civil rights movement, feminism, and gay pride led to profoundly positive social changes, William Egginton argues that our culture's increasingly narrow focus on individual rights puts us in a dangerous place. The goal of our education system, and particularly the liberal arts, was originally to strengthen community; but the exclusive focus on individualism has led to a new kind of intolerance, degrades our civic discourse, and fatally distracts progressive politics from its commitment to equality.
About the Author
William Egginton is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches on Spanish and Latin American literature, literary theory, and the relation between literature and philosophy. He is the author of How the World Became a Stage (2003) , Perversity and Ethics (2006) , A Wrinkle in History (2007) , The Philosopher's Desire (2007) , The Theater of Truth (2010) , and In Defense of Religious Moderation (2011) . He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (2004) , translator of Lisa Block de Behar's Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation (2003, 2nd edition 2014) , and co-editor with David E. Johnson of Thinking With Borges (2009) . His most recent book is The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered In the Modern World (2016) .
