Critical Quarterly
Encyclopedia
Critical Quarterly is a peer-reviewed
academic journal
in the humanities
published by Wiley-Blackwell. The editor-in-chief is Colin MacCabe
.
at the University of Cambridge
, then dominated by the figure of F.R. Leavis. The latter's legacy was a notable feature of Critical Quarterlys early years, when it published work by a new generation of scholars including Raymond Williams
, David Lodge
, and Frank Kermode
. In some respects the journal sought to modify Leavis' project; in particular Cox and Dyson felt that Leavis and his acolytes tended unfairly to ignore contemporary writing, partly because of their unshakeable belief in the "myth of a culture in decline". The early years of the journal were notable for the inclusion of contemporary poetry, and Critical Quarterly helped to launch the careers of Sylvia Plath
(who won one of the first poetry competitions), Thom Gunn
, Philip Larkin
, and Ted Hughes
.
on education - named after government white papers - were published by Critical Quarterly starting in 1969. These were collections of essays that were critical of the drive towards comprehensive education, and proved particularly inflammatory in the context of the student activism of the late 1960s with its democratising rhetoric. Contributors included Kingsley Amis
, Robert Conquest
, Geoffrey Bantock, Jacques Barzun
, Iris Murdoch
, and Rhodes Boyson
. The Black Papers caused considerable controversy, reasserting traditional educational values at a time when liberal educational reforms were in the ascendancy. While Cox later described his views on education in this period as those of a "moderate progressive", at the time, the black papers were widely denounced by the left as reactionary. The debate was a rancorous one and Richard Hoggart
resigned in protest from the editorial board of Critical Quarterly after the publication of the first black paper. Critical Quarterly itself became embroiled in a national debate about declining educational values, and Dyson evoked Matthew Arnold
in its pages:
Dyson acknowledged that this represented a partial reversal of the journal's earlier rejection of Leavisite cultural pessimism: perhaps, after all, this was a culture in decline.
took over as editor, announcing some new ambitions for the journal in "Aims for Critical Quarterly". The Year's Work in English Studies for 1987 noted that "CritQ certainly had seemed for many years to be stuck in a rut, even if a pleasant and occasionally lively one, and one looks forward to the new team's effort to revamp the project entirely." MacCabe's name was at that time strongly associated with the (at times controversial) importation of various structuralist and post-structuralist ideas into the study of English Literature, and - whilst largely sticking to its original ethos - the journal moved in more theoretical directions at the same time as expanding into adjacent disciplines, notably film studies
, cultural studies
, and history
, alongside its more traditional focus on literary criticism
. Its website now claims that the journal "addresses the whole range of cultural forms so that discussions of, for example, cinema and television can appear alongside analyses of the accepted literary canon." Under MacCabe's editorship, Critical Quarterly has published the work of Fredric Jameson
, Slavoj Zizek
, Jacqueline Rose
, and Paul Gilroy
, among many other prominent scholars.
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
in the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
published by Wiley-Blackwell. The editor-in-chief is Colin MacCabe
Colin MacCabe
Colin MacCabe is a British writer and film producer. He is distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh, professor of English and humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, and a visiting professor at the University of Exeter....
.
Early Years
Critical Quarterly was established in 1958 by its first editors C.B. Cox and A.E. Dyson. Cox's intellectual formation was in the Department of English LiteratureEnglish literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, then dominated by the figure of F.R. Leavis. The latter's legacy was a notable feature of Critical Quarterlys early years, when it published work by a new generation of scholars including Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts...
, David Lodge
David Lodge (author)
David John Lodge CBE, is an English author.In his novels, Lodge often satirises academia in general and the humanities in particular. He was brought up Catholic and has described himself as an "agnostic Catholic". Many of his characters are Catholic and their Catholicism is a major theme...
, and Frank Kermode
Frank Kermode
Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 ....
. In some respects the journal sought to modify Leavis' project; in particular Cox and Dyson felt that Leavis and his acolytes tended unfairly to ignore contemporary writing, partly because of their unshakeable belief in the "myth of a culture in decline". The early years of the journal were notable for the inclusion of contemporary poetry, and Critical Quarterly helped to launch the careers of Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
(who won one of the first poetry competitions), Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
, Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
, and Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...
.
The Black Papers
The Black PapersBlack Papers
The Black Papers were a series of pamphlets on education, their name being a contrast to government White Papers.According to the Critical Quarterly website the Black Papers were:...
on education - named after government white papers - were published by Critical Quarterly starting in 1969. These were collections of essays that were critical of the drive towards comprehensive education, and proved particularly inflammatory in the context of the student activism of the late 1960s with its democratising rhetoric. Contributors included Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
, Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
, Geoffrey Bantock, Jacques Barzun
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
, Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
Dame Iris Murdoch DBE was an Irish-born British author and philosopher, best known for her novels about political and social questions of good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious...
, and Rhodes Boyson
Rhodes Boyson
Sir Rhodes Boyson is a British educator, author and politician and a former Conservative Member of Parliament for Brent North...
. The Black Papers caused considerable controversy, reasserting traditional educational values at a time when liberal educational reforms were in the ascendancy. While Cox later described his views on education in this period as those of a "moderate progressive", at the time, the black papers were widely denounced by the left as reactionary. The debate was a rancorous one and Richard Hoggart
Richard Hoggart
Herbert Richard Hoggart is a British academic and public figure, whose career has covered the fields of sociology, English literature and cultural studies, with a special concern for British popular culture.-Career:...
resigned in protest from the editorial board of Critical Quarterly after the publication of the first black paper. Critical Quarterly itself became embroiled in a national debate about declining educational values, and Dyson evoked Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
in its pages:
- "If Arnold were to return in 1969 ... he would be horrified to discover anarchy subverting the temple of culture itself. What would he make of the Jacobinism rampant in our educational theory, or of the spectacle of universities becoming the new home of the mob? What would he make of the inroads made by romantic egotism on disciplined learning, or of the theory that 'self-fulfilment' is the chief end for which education exists?"
Dyson acknowledged that this represented a partial reversal of the journal's earlier rejection of Leavisite cultural pessimism: perhaps, after all, this was a culture in decline.
MacCabe editorship
In 1987, after nearly 30 years of Cox's editorship, Colin MacCabeColin MacCabe
Colin MacCabe is a British writer and film producer. He is distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh, professor of English and humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, and a visiting professor at the University of Exeter....
took over as editor, announcing some new ambitions for the journal in "Aims for Critical Quarterly". The Year's Work in English Studies for 1987 noted that "CritQ certainly had seemed for many years to be stuck in a rut, even if a pleasant and occasionally lively one, and one looks forward to the new team's effort to revamp the project entirely." MacCabe's name was at that time strongly associated with the (at times controversial) importation of various structuralist and post-structuralist ideas into the study of English Literature, and - whilst largely sticking to its original ethos - the journal moved in more theoretical directions at the same time as expanding into adjacent disciplines, notably film studies
Film studies
Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to films. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies...
, cultural studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
, and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, alongside its more traditional focus on literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
. Its website now claims that the journal "addresses the whole range of cultural forms so that discussions of, for example, cinema and television can appear alongside analyses of the accepted literary canon." Under MacCabe's editorship, Critical Quarterly has published the work of Fredric Jameson
Fredric Jameson
Fredric Jameson is an American literary critic and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends—he once described postmodernism as the spatialization of culture under the pressure of organized capitalism...
, Slavoj Zizek
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
, Jacqueline Rose
Jacqueline Rose
Jacqueline Rose is a British academic who is currently Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London.-Life and work:...
, and Paul Gilroy
Paul Gilroy
-Biography:Born in the East End of London to Guyanese and English parents , he was educated at University College School and obtained his bachelor's degree at Sussex University in 1978. He moved from there to Birmingham University where he completed his Ph.D...
, among many other prominent scholars.
Critical Quarterly Book Series
In 2007, Critical Quarterly commenced publication of a book series, published by Wiley-Blackwell, which includes books by David Trotter, Moustapha Safouan, and Ashley Tauchert.External links
- Brian Cox Obituary
- Critical Quarterly Archive held at the John Rylands University LibraryJohn Rylands University LibraryThe John Rylands University Library is the University of Manchester's library and information service. It was formed in July 1972 from the merger of the library of the Victoria University of Manchester with the John Rylands Library...
at the University of ManchesterUniversity of ManchesterThe University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
.