Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University. In 2012, he served as the President of the Modern Language Association. He is the author of several books, including Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies (NYU Press, 1997), The Left at War (NYU Press, 2009), What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and “ Bias” in Higher Education (2006), and Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1996).
"Bérubé's timely and significant contributions in The Secret Life
of Stories emboldens scholars of the humanities to study more
deeply intellectual disability and its function in narrative."An
enjoyable and thought-provoking work that will encourage continued
engagement with intellectual disability"
*Disability Studies Quarterly*
"Arguing that the idea of intellectual disability has been for
writers and can be for critics an extremely productive nexus for
thinking through big questions about narrative and irony, The
Secret Life of Storiespushes us further, brilliantly defending the
arts and humanities. Bérubés mind for literary analysis is a
powerhouse. This little book is a rare treat."
*Susan M. Schweik,author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in
Public*
"Michael Bérubé has long advocated for the importance of the
humanities in higher education and in public culture more
generally. InThe Secret Life of Stories, he puts that advocacy into
practice, demonstrating to readers the multifaceted pleasures of
reading. With dazzling ideas about narrative and disability,
interwoven with personal stories and delightful readings of a
variety of texts,The Secret Life of Storiesis a joy to read. An
extraordinary book."
*Robert McRuer,author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness
and Disability*
"Michael Bérubés son tells us that & in a story things have to
happen for a reasonas fine a definition of narrative as
Aristotles.That is also true of great literary criticism: it helps
us understand why things happen, in literature and in life.This
generous, expansive, brilliant book has deep insights for all of
us. The Secret Life of Storiesis preciousfor all the right
reasons."
*Cathy N. Davidson,Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, CUNY,
and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Scien*
""An enlightening examination."
*Library Journal*
"[Berube has] picked out select booksthat I can imagine him either
teaching or just reading for pleasure, identifying themes to
explicate, and taking as much delight in the retelling of key
episodes as he does in the deeper analysis."
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
"This volume is important for connecting disability studies with
literary scholarship."
*Choice*
"The Secret Life of Storiesis certainly a landmark text in literary
studies of disability and in literary criticism more generally. It
will change the way you think about disability."
*Canadian Review of Comparative Literature*
"The Secret Life of Stories...gives a reader the feeling of sitting
in an engaging seminar with a witty, candid, and empathetic leader.
It reviews literary disability studies in a way comprehensible to
those new to the field, even as it invigorates and extends that
thinking for current disability studiesscholars....Bérubé offers
therefore just the right voice to model ideas that make the case
for disability as both a matter of social justice and of artistic
innovation, marking the maturity of the field even as it works to
move it in new directions."
*College Literature*
"Michael Berube'sThe Secret Life of Storiesis that rare book that
manages to speak to its specialized academic audience while
imagining and addressing a much broader readership. Berube...has
crafted an accessible, if still rigorous, study of the way fiction
grapples with intellectual disability."
*Slant Magazine*
"[A] concise, fresh, and deeply informed look at how we read."
*STARRED Kirkus Reviews*
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