Summary Of Beyond The Culture Wars By Gerald Graff

Gerald Graff, a professor of English at the University of Chicago, has written several books containing various approaches to learning and education. In one of these books Beyond the Culture Wars an excerpt titled “Disliking Books” recounts his struggle with reading throughout his academic career and focuses on the experiences that changed his perspectives on literature and, ultimately, encouraged him to pursue a career in teaching literature. The excerpt is summarized below in this paper as part of my studies in English literature. In his youth, Gerald Graff had an unabashed stance on books—he didn't like them at all. Growing up as Jew in an urban Chicago neighborhood, he was vulnerable to being bullied, and demonstrating any culmination of intellect would have only made him an easier target. Those that showed interest in school were also often stereotyped. To Graff, reading had no conceivable purpose only unintended risks.

He recalls reading in middle-school about the potential knowledge could have on his personal growth and understanding of the world, but he lacked the motivation. Graff’s farther recommended books to him which he believed would encourage his son to read. It was all in vain. Graff knowing that, for him at least, college was next the venue, after eliminating other fields of study, he decided to major in what he believed to be non-career-specific, English. Graff, no longer preoccupied by malice from his peers, was stimulated to do well in college by sheer desire to pass his courses; however, he still found serious reading difficult and foreign regardless of the material. When in class and asked to opine on the reading he completed, though literate, he spoke in a way which he states felt unnatural compared to other