Gerald Graff (born 1937) is a
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...
of English and Education at the
University of Illinois at Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois ...
. He received his B.A. in English from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
in 1959 and his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from
Stanford University in 1963.
He has taught at the
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
,
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
, the
University of California at Irvine
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...
and at Berkeley, as well as
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
,
Washington University
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
, and the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
. He has been teaching at the University of Illinois at Chicago since 2000.
Work
Graff's earlier works emphasized literature's rational, discursive qualities, and in ''Literature Against Itself'' (1979) he took aim at what he saw as the anti-mimetic, irrationalist assumptions underlying both avant-garde writing and structuralist/poststructuralist critical theory. Graff's emphasis on literature as rational statement bears comparison with the theories of
Yvor Winters
Arthur Yvor Winters (October 17, 1900 – January 25, 1968) was an American poet and literary critic.
Life
Winters was born in Chicago, Illinois and lived there until 1919 except for brief stays in Seattle and in Pasadena, where his grandparen ...
, his professor at Stanford in the 1960s.
Graff's later research has a heavy focus on
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
. He has discussed things like his own dislike of books at an early age and the way in which academic discourse is needlessly obscure. Graff is also the founder of
Teachers for a Democratic Culture, an organization dedicated, in their words, to "combating conservative misrepresentations" of college pedagogy.
Graff coined the term "teach the controversy" in his college courses in the 1980s and later set the idea in print in his 1993 book ''Beyond The Culture Wars''. Graff's thesis was that college instructors should teach the conflicts around academic issues so that students may understand how knowledge becomes established and eventually accepted. The term "teach the controversy" has since become better known after having been appropriated in a different form as the
"teach the controversy" movement by individuals seeking to legitimize the teaching of
creationism and
intelligent design
Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...
in classrooms. A self-described liberal secularist, Graff has publicly lamented what he considers the misappropriation of his idea for unscholarly purposes.
Graff teaches both graduate courses on teaching undergraduate writing and undergraduate writing courses. He teaches writing courses with his wife, Cathy Birkenstein, who is a lecturer in English and received her Ph.D. in
American literature and is currently working on a biography of
Booker T. Washington. She created the templates that make up ''They Say/I Say'', a composition textbook that gives students templates to use in their academic writing.
Also, while at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, Graff co-founded the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH), a one-year interdisciplinary program, allowing students to take courses in philosophy, English, art history, and other fields.
He was president of the
Modern Language Association in 2008.
Bibliography
*
* Literature Against Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern Society (1979)
* Criticism in the University (1980)
* Professing Literature: An Institutional History (1987)
* Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education (1993)
* Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind (2004)
* They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (with Cathy Birkenstein) (2005)
Critical studies and reviews of Graff's work
;''Beyond the culture wars''
References
External links
Gerald Graff, Ph.D. official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graff, Gerald
University of Chicago faculty
University of Illinois Chicago faculty
American academics of English literature
University of Chicago alumni
Stanford University alumni
Washington University in St. Louis faculty
Living people
1937 births
American Book Award winners
Presidents of the Modern Language Association