{"product_id":"the-elephants-teach-david-gershom-myers-9780226554549","title":"The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880","description":"When Vladimir Nabokov was up for a chair in literature at Harvard, the linguist Roman Jakobson protested: \"What's next? Shall we appoint elephants to teach zoology?\" That anecdote, with which D. G. Myers begins \u003ci\u003eThe Elephants Teach\u003c\/i\u003e, perfectly frames the issues this book tackles. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMyers explores more than a century of debate over how writing should be taught and whether it can or should be taught in a classroom at all. Along the way, he incorporates insights from a host of poets and teachers, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, John Berryman, John Dewey, Lionel Trilling, Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound, and Saul Bellow. And from his exhaustive research, Myers extracts relevant background information on nineteenth-century educational theory; shifts in technology, publishing, and marketing; the growth of critical theory in this country; and the politics of higher education. While he shows how creative writing has become a machine for creating more creative writing programs, Myers also suggests that its history supplies a precedent for something different--a way for creativity and criticism, poetry and scholarship, to join together to produce not just writing programs but good writers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eUpdated with fresh commentary on what's happened to creative writing in the academy since the first edition was published ten years ago, \u003ci\u003eThe Elephants Teach\u003c\/i\u003e will be indispensable for students and teachers of writing, literature, and literary history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e David Gershom Myers\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226554546\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226554549\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/01\/2006\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.85lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.92h x 6.08w x 0.73d","brand":"David Gershom Myers","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43992896995583,"sku":"9780226554549","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_d801b220-17f0-478b-8c97-68e8cfffd97e.jpg?v=1683321411","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-elephants-teach-david-gershom-myers-9780226554549","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}