Bloom and His Detractors

Pedagogy Oct 2009

Adam Ellwanger

Abstract

Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind elicited a storm of critical discourse regarding the condition of higher education in the United States. This essay performs a retrospective evaluation of the rhetorical modes that animated that body of discourse, suggesting that the polemical responses offered by Bloom's detractors validate his claims about the contradictory ways that openness, tolerance, and diversity are pursued in the university. Revisiting this controversy provides an opportunity for considering the ethics of the academic polemic.

Journal: Pedagogy
Published: 2009-10-01
DOI: 10.1215/15314200-2009-007
Open Access: Closed
Topics: discourse analysis multimodality

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Cites in this index (2)

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College English
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Beyond Anti-Foundationalism to Rhetorical Authority: Problems Defining "Cultura…

College English

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