A sequel of sorts to the classic (and bestselling) sendup of literary criticism,The Pooh PerplexPurporting to be the proceedings of a forum on Pooh convened at the Modern Language Association's annual convention,Postmodern Poohbrilliantly parodies the academic fads and figures that hold sway at the millennium.Deconstruction, poststructuralist Marxism, new historicism, radical feminism, cultural studies, recovered-memory theory, and postcolonialism, among other methods, take their shots at the poor teddy bear and Crews takes his shots at them. The fun lies in seeing just how much adulteration Pooh can stand.Frederick Crews is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition toThe Pooh Perplex, he is the author ofThe Memory Wars and other books about psychology.Nearly forty years ago, young literary scholar Crews had an inspired idea: to portray his trendsetting peers in the act of applying their critical acumen to the adventure of that deceptively simpleminded teddy bear story-book fame, Winnie-the-Pooh. In incisive chapters entitled "A la recherche du pooh perdu," and so forth, Freudian and Marxist, New Critic and Neo-Aristotelian alike had at the Pooh texts, dredging up their hidden layers of meaning for the enlightenment of the hitherto unsuspecting reader. These essays, collected in book form as The Pooh Perplex, became a bestseller.Now Winnie-the-Pooh is three-quarters of a century old—and Professor Crews lags not far behind. Thanks, however, to the efforts of Princeton's superstar professor N. Mack Hobbs, Crews has been coaxed out of retirement long enough to lend his blessing and his name to a project undertaken in homage to his own—a panel on Pooh convened at the December 2000 Modern Language Association convention in Washington, D.C., at which the leading lights of contemporary criticism were invited to train their wits upon the beloved bear. Radical feminist Sisera Catheter, Lacanian postcolonialist Das Nuffa Dat, and trailblazing proponents of Deconstruction, Poststructuralist Marxism, New Historicism, Biopoetics, Cultural Studies, and recovered memory theory all took their turns at the podium and their shots at dear Edward Bear, leaving no ammunition in the arsenal of contemporary literary hermeneutics unexploded. Here, then, are the published proceedings of this remarkable event, for the edification (and delectation) of a new generation of readers."Postmodern Pooh is energized by Crews's freedom and his four decades of experience as an English professor. The result is a brilliant and savagely witty skewering of the combatants on all sides of the academic culture wars . . . These are pitch-perfect lampoons of the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, and of the prose style of intellectual rage . . . If it weren't contrary to my own professional interest, I'd say this is the last academic satire you'll ever need to read . . . Incisive and hilarious."—James Hynes, The Washington Post"Postmodern Pooh is energized by Crews's freedom and his four decades of experience as an English professor. The result is a brilliant and savagely witty skewering of the combatants on all sides of the academic culture wars . . . These are pitch-perfect lampoons of the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, and of the prose style of intellectual rage . . . If it weren't contrary to my own professional interest, I'd say this is the last academic satire you'll ever need to read . . . incisive and hilarious."—James Hynes, The Washington Post"He can't resist the opportunity to invent clever and weirdly convincing theories about Winnie-the-Pooh even as he mercilessly mocks those who live by the criticism racket. Ultimately, the most basic of academic instincts is to play with ideas. If literary theory can generate a book as funny as Postmodern Pooh, you have to love it."—Elaine Showalter, Princeton University, author ofInventing Herself"Postmodern Pooh should be required reading. Required for any parent with a child leaning toward universities that make much of culture theory . . . required for students who are befuddled by obscurities and affectations on the parts of their teachers . . . Required for university trustees, potential benefactors and administrators. Required for anybody who wants to understand the absurdity of these culture-theory Keystone Kops' ideas and the damage they're inflicting on young minds."—Michael Pakenham,The Baltimore Sun"Mr. Crews humorously skewers the academic's compulsion to reject the simple and to find support for pet causes in the unlikeliest of texts. Between the jabs, readers get a dismaying overview of literary criticism at the end of the 20th century."—The Wall Street Journal“A vicious attack on contemporary literary theory, where some critics are so bound by their own theoretical hobbyhorses that their work becomes absurd. By designing the book as eleven papers from a mock panel on A. A. Milne at the 2000 MLA convention, Crews parodies not only the theories themselves, but the convention's aggressive nature . . . We laugh at Crew’s satire, but somewhat uncomfortably as we recognize that his message—literary criticism often pushes itself too far—is regrettably correct.”—Geralyn Strecker, Review of Contemporary Fiction"Highlights how badly written much contemporary criticism has become. Crews himself is such a felicitous stylist that I suspect that, try as he might, he could not bring himself to write prose sufficiently unreadable to capture what many of the dominant critics sound like today . . . Crews skewers the hyperprofessionalism of the literary academy today: the narrow specialization, the retreat behind hermetic jargon, the relentless careerism . . . A worthy successor to [The Pooh Perplex]."—Paul A. Cantor, University of Virginia, Academic Questions"Like its predecessor, it is extremely amusing. But this time the fun is not really funny at all. One laughs only, as Lawrence Sterne more or less put it, so as not to cry. The critical madness being mocked is, alas, quite of our time."—Valentine Cunningham, professor of English language and literature, Oxford University, The Times Higher EducationSupplement"Sparkling wit and brilliant parodies . . . make this a funny book."—Merle Rubin,Los Angeles Times"Really good academic fun."—Barbara Fisher, The Boston Globe"Postmodern Pooh is to literary criticism what Madame Tussaud's is to celebrity: a wax museum of grotesques that are lifelike enough to make you do a double-take . . . the book's most provocative or illegible assertions are lifted gingerly, as if with gloves and tongs out of actual texts . . . Though the book winks broadly to the cognoscenti, you don't need a program to know the players."—Mark Shechner,Boston Book Review"With Postmodern Pooh . . . Crews seems intent on playing Christopher Robin, exposing the fallacies he believes have deluded his theory-hunting colleagues."—Kate Julian,Linguafs26Franca"A delightful sequel to the 1963 bestseller The Pooh Perplex, that, like its predecessor, both skewers and synopsizes contemporary lit-crit approaches . . . there's so much more to laugh at in literary criticism now than in 1963 . . . The essays display such erudition that they provide a backhanded overview of modern critic Read Less