Background
Booth, Wayne Clayson was born on February 22, 1921 in American Fork, Utah, United States. Son of Wayne Chipman and Lillian (Clayson) Booth.
( When should I change my mind? What can I believe and wh...)
When should I change my mind? What can I believe and what must I doubt? In this new "philosophy of good reasons" Wayne C. Booth exposes five dogmas of modernism that have too often inhibited efforts to answer these questions. Modern dogmas teach that "you cannot reason about values" and that "the job of thought is to doubt whatever can be doubted," and they leave those who accept them crippled in their efforts to think and talk together about whatever concerns them most. They have willed upon us a "befouled rhetorical climate" in which people are driven to two self-destructive extremes—defenders of reason becoming confined to ever narrower notions of logical or experimental proof and defenders of "values" becoming more and more irresponsible in trying to defend the heart, the gut, or the gonads. Booth traces the consequences of modernist assumptions through a wide range of inquiry and action: in politics, art, music, literature, and in personal efforts to find "identity" or a "self." In casting doubt on systematic doubt, the author finds that the dogmas are being questioned in almost every modern discipline. Suggesting that they be replaced with a rhetoric of "systematic assent," Booth discovers a vast, neglected reservoir of "good reasons"—many of them known to classical students of rhetoric, some still to be explored. These "good reasons" are here restored to intellectual respectability, suggesting the possibility of widespread new inquiry, in all fields, into the question, "When should I change my mind?"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226065723/?tag=2022091-20
( Perhaps no other critical label has been made to cover ...)
Perhaps no other critical label has been made to cover more ground than "irony," and in our time irony has come to have so many meanings that by itself it means almost nothing. In this work, Wayne C. Booth cuts through the resulting confusions by analyzing how we manage to share quite specific ironies—and why we often fail when we try to do so. How does a reader or listener recognize the kind of statement which requires him to reject its "clear" and "obvious" meaning? And how does any reader know where to stop, once he has embarked on the hazardous and exhilarating path of rejecting "what the words say" and reconstructing "what the author means"? In the first and longer part of his work, Booth deals with the workings of what he calls "stable irony," irony with a clear rhetorical intent. He then turns to intended instabilities—ironies that resist interpretation and finally lead to the "infinite absolute negativities" that have obsessed criticism since the Romantic period. Professor Booth is always ironically aware that no one can fathom the unfathomable. But by looking closely at unstable ironists like Samuel Becket, he shows that at least some of our commonplaces about meaninglessness require revision. Finally, he explores—with the help of Plato—the wry paradoxes that threaten any uncompromising assertion that all assertion can be undermined by the spirit of irony.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226065537/?tag=2022091-20
( For the Love of It is a story not only of one intimate ...)
For the Love of It is a story not only of one intimate struggle between a man and his cello, but also of the larger struggle between a society obsessed with success and individuals who choose challenging hobbies that yield no payoff except the love of it. "If, in truth, Booth is an amateur player now in his fifth decade of amateuring, he is certainly not an amateur thinker about music and culture. . . . Would that all of us who think and teach and care about music could be so practical and profound at the same time."—Peter Kountz, New York Times Book Review "This book serves as a running commentary on the nature and depth of this love, and all the connections it has formed in his life. . . . The music, he concludes, has become part of him, and that is worth the price."—Clea Simon, Boston Globe "The book will be read with delight by every well-meaning amateur who has ever struggled. . . . Even general readers will come away with a valuable lesson for living: Never mind the outcome of a possibly vain pursuit; in the passion that is expended lies the glory."—John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune "Hooray for amateurs! And huzzahs to Wayne Booth for honoring them as they deserve. For the Love of It celebrates amateurism with genial philosophizing and pointed cultural criticism, as well as with personal reminiscences and self-effacing wit."—James Sloan Allen, USA Today "Wayne Booth, the prominent American literary critic, has written the only sustained study of the interior experience of musical amateurism in recent years, For the Love of It. It succeeds as a meditation on the tension between the centrality of music in Booth's life, both inner and social, and its marginality. . . . It causes the reader to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the pleasures involved in making music; the satisfaction in playing well, the pride one takes in learning a difficult piece or passage or technique, the buzz in one's fingertips and the sense of completeness with the bow when the turn is done just right, the pleasure of playing with others, the comfort of a shared society, the joy of not just hearing, but making, the music, the wonder at the notes lingering in the air."—Times Literary Supplement
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226065863/?tag=2022091-20
( In his autobiography, My Many Selves, Wayne C. Booth is...)
In his autobiography, My Many Selves, Wayne C. Booth is less concerned with his professional achievements---though the book by no means ignores his distinguished career---than with the personal vision that emerges from a long life lived thoughtfully. For Booth, even the autobiographical process becomes part of a quest to harmonize the diverse, often conflicting aspects of who he was. To see himself clearly and whole, he broke the self down, personified the fragments, uncovered their roots in his experience and background, and engaged those selves and experiences in dialogue. Basic to his story and to its lifelong concern with ethics and rhetoric was his Mormon youth in rural Utah. In adulthood he struggled with that background, abandoning most Mormon doctrines, but he retained the identity, ethical questions, and concern with communication that this upbringing gave him. The uncommon wisdom and careful attention that empower Wayne Booth's many other books cause My Many Selves to transcend its genre, as the best memoirs always do. The book becomes a window through which we who read it will see our own conflicts, our own ongoing struggle to live honestly and ethically in the world. Wayne Booth died in October 2005, soon after completing work on this autobiography.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874216311/?tag=2022091-20
( In The Company We Keep, Wayne C. Booth argues for the r...)
In The Company We Keep, Wayne C. Booth argues for the relocation of ethics to the center of our engagement with literature. But the questions he asks are not confined to morality. Returning ethics to its root sense, Booth proposes that the ethical critic will be interested in any effect on the ethos, the total character or quality of tellers and listeners. Ethical criticism will risk talking about the quality of this particular encounter with this particular work. Yet it will give up the old hope for definitive judgments of "good" work and "bad." Rather it will be a conversation about many kinds of personal and social goods that fictions can serve or destroy. While not ignoring the consequences for conduct of engaging with powerful stories, it will attend to that more immediate topic, What happens to us as we read? Who am I, during the hours of reading or listening? What is the quality of the life I lead in the company of these would-be friends? Through a wide variety of periods and genres and scores of particular works, Booth pursues various metaphors for such engagements: "friendship with books," "the exchange of gifts," "the colonizing of worlds," "the constitution of commonwealths." He concludes with extended explorations of the ethical powers and potential dangers of works by Rabelais, D. H. Lawrence, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520062108/?tag=2022091-20
( With more than 400,000 copies now in print, The Craft o...)
With more than 400,000 copies now in print, The Craft of Research is the unrivaled resource for researchers at every level, from first-year undergraduates to research reporters at corporations and government offices. Seasoned researchers and educators Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams present an updated third edition of their classic handbook, whose first and second editions were written in collaboration with the late Wayne C. Booth. The Craft of Research explains how to build an argument that motivates readers to accept a claim; how to anticipate the reservations of readers and to respond to them appropriately; and how to create introductions and conclusions that answer that most demanding question, “So what?” The third edition includes an expanded discussion of the essential early stages of a research task: planning and drafting a paper. The authors have revised and fully updated their section on electronic research, emphasizing the need to distinguish between trustworthy sources (such as those found in libraries) and less reliable sources found with a quick Web search. A chapter on warrants has also been thoroughly reviewed to make this difficult subject easier for researchers Throughout, the authors have preserved the amiable tone, the reliable voice, and the sense of directness that have made this book indispensable for anyone undertaking a research project.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226065669/?tag=2022091-20
( This critically acclaimed collection is both a passiona...)
This critically acclaimed collection is both a passionate celebration of teaching as a vocation and an argument for rhetoric as the center of liberal education. While Booth provides an eloquent personal account of the pleasures of teaching, he also vigorously exposes the political and economic scandals that frustrate even the most dedicated educators. "Booth is unusually adept at addressing a wide variety of audiences. From deep in the heart of this academic jungle, he shows a clear eye and a firm step."—Alison Friesinger Hill, New York Times Book Review "A cause for celebration. . . . What an uncommon man is Wayne Booth. What an uncommon book he has provided for our reflection."—James Squire, Educational Leadership "This book stands as a vigorous reminder of the traditional virtues of the scholar-teacher."—Brian Cox, Times Literary Supplement
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226065820/?tag=2022091-20
( Critics will always disagree, but, maintains Wayne Boot...)
Critics will always disagree, but, maintains Wayne Booth, their disagreement need not result in critical chaos. In Critical Understanding, Booth argues for a reasoned pluralism—a criticism more various and resourceful than can be caught in any one critic's net. He relates three noted pluralists—Ronald Crane, Kenneth Burke, and M. H. Abrams—to various currently popular critical approaches. Throughout, Booth tests the abstractions of metacriticism against particular literary works, devoting a substantial portion of his discussion to works by W. H. Auden, Henry James, Oliver Goldsmith, and Anatole France.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226065553/?tag=2022091-20
( The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transforme...)
The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"—have become part of the standard critical lexicon. For this new edition, Wayne C. Booth has written an extensive Afterword in which he clarifies misunderstandings, corrects what he now views as errors, and sets forth his own recent thinking about the rhetoric of fiction. The other new feature is a Supplementary Bibliography, prepared by James Phelan in consultation with the author, which lists the important critical works of the past twenty years—two decades that Booth describes as "the richest in the history of the subject."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226065588/?tag=2022091-20
author English literature and rhetoric educator
Booth, Wayne Clayson was born on February 22, 1921 in American Fork, Utah, United States. Son of Wayne Chipman and Lillian (Clayson) Booth.
AB, Brigham Young University, 1944. Master of Arts, University Chicago, 1947. Doctor of Philosophy, University Chicago, 1950.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Rockford College, 1965. Doctor of Letters (honorary), St. Ambrose College, 1971. Doctor of Letters (honorary), University New Hampshire, 1977.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Butler University, 1984. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Lycoming College, 1985. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), State University of New York, 1987.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Wabash College, 1990. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Kalamazoo College, 1991. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Ball State University, 1992.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), DePaul University, 1994. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Earlham College, 1995. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Carleton College, 1995.
Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Villanova University, 2002.
Instructor, University of Chicago, 1947-1950;
assistant professor, Haverford College, 1950-1953;
Professor of English, department chairman, Earlham College, 1953-1962;
George M. Pullman Professor of English, University of Chicago, 1962-1991;
dean College, University of Chicago, 1964-1969;
professor emeritus, University of Chicago, since 1992;
Chairman of Commission on ideas and methods, University of Chicago, 1972-1975;
Beckman lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, 1979;
Beckman lecturer, School Criticism, Irvine, California, 1979;
Whitney Oates visiting professor, Princeton University, 1984. Visiting consultant (with wife) South African schools universities, 1963. Lecturer English Coalition Conference, 1987.
Amnesty International lecturer University of Oxford, 1992.
( With more than three-quarters of a million copies sold ...)
( For the Love of It is a story not only of one intimate ...)
( For the Love of It is a story not only of one intimate ...)
( With more than 400,000 copies now in print, The Craft o...)
( Perhaps no other critical label has been made to cover ...)
( This critically acclaimed collection is both a passiona...)
( This critically acclaimed collection is both a passiona...)
( When should I change my mind? What can I believe and wh...)
( The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transforme...)
( Critics will always disagree, but, maintains Wayne Boot...)
( In his autobiography, My Many Selves, Wayne C. Booth is...)
( In The Company We Keep, Wayne C. Booth argues for the r...)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
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Trustee Earlham College, 1965-1975. Served with infantry Army of the United States, 1944-1946. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society.
Member Modern Language Association (executive county 1973-1976, president 1981-1992, Francis Andrew March award for Distinguished Svc. of Profession of English 1991), American Association of University Professors, National Council Teachers English (commission on literature 1967-1970), College Conference on Composition and Comm., National Commision on Educating Undergrads. in Research Universities.
Married Phyllis Barnes, June 19, 1946. Children: Katherine, John Richard (deceased), Alison.