The Professor: And Other Writings
By Terry Castle
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Terry Castle
Terry Castle was once described by Susan Sontag as ""the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today."" She is the author of seven books of criticism, including The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (1993) and Boss Ladies, Watch Out! Essays on Women and Sex (2002). Her anthology, The Literature of Lesbianism, won the Lambda Literary Editor's Choice Award in 2003. She lives in San Francisco and is Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University.
Read more from Terry Castle
Clarissa's Ciphers: Meaning and Disruption in Richardson's Clarissa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Professor and Other Writings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFearMaker: Family Matters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Professor
Related ebooks
O Beulah Land: Book II of The Beulah Quintet Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Wireless in the Corner: A boy’s eye view of London in peace and war Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Father's Son: The Memoir of Earl Haig Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSweet Caress Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Thackeray: The Life of a Literary Man Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Coleshanger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Portrait of a Muse: Frances Graham, Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Dream Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History Of Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Amber Tablets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bughouse: The Poetry, Politics, and Madness of Ezra Pound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poland's Daughter: How I Met Basia, Hitchhiked to Italy, and Learned About Love, War, and Exile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBefore Action: William Noel Hodgdon and the 9th Devons, A Story of the Great War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife of John Keats Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDr Ragab's Universal Language Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Selected Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Walking in the Shade: Growing Point, The Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pocket Guide to Victorian Writers and Poets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdward Burne-Jones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overture and Beginners Please: An Autobiography in Five Movements Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrue Manliness: From the Writings of Thomas Hughes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Road We Took: 4 Days in Germany 1933 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Judge's Cat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Works of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFootnotes: A Journey Round Britain in the Company of Great Writers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Romance For You
Home: the most moving and heartfelt novel you'll read this year Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Erotic Fantasies Anthology Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Adults Only Volume 3: Seven Erotica Shorts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Your Perfects: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Starts with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Him: Him, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ugly Love: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Messy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bossy: An Erotic Workplace Diary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Before We Were Strangers: A Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5November 9: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confess: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Under the Roses Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tess of the d'Urbervilles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Kingdom of Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hopeless Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swear on This Life: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Favorite Half-Night Stand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Now: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Something Borrowed: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Visitors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roomies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe Not: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures: a joyful and heart-warming novel you won't want to miss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Witches of New Orleans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dating You / Hating You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Glory Over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Professor
27 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Professor consists of seven essay/memoir pieces, the longest and last about Castle's sexual relationship as a grad student with a woman professor. It's a profoundly disturbing relationship and Cast le spares neither the professor nor herself in the telling of it. Castle is neurotic, needy, desperate, the professor cruel, disassociative, manipulative. I didn't like the way Castle wrote about lesbians of the seventies, with a limited, dismissive view. Another piece is called "Desperately Seeking Susan," and is about herself and Susan Sontag. She possibly nails Sontag in some ways, but still there is an aura of snarkiness about the writing. The fact that Castle acknowledges her own failings, including a tendency to nastiness, doesn't alleviate the sense of mean-spiritness that seeps in.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Castle's essays are extraordinary -- rollicking, erudite, hilarious, captivating.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Have you ever started to read a book and realized that it brought you a bit out of your comfort zone and frankly, was a bit over your head? This was one of those for me. I stuck with it though and it provoked many thoughts, feelings, and useful tidbits.
Terry Castle was once described by Susan Sontag as "the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today." She is the author of seven books of criticism, including The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (1993) and Boss Ladies, Watch Out! Essays on Women and Sex (2002). Her anthology, The Literature of Lesbianism, won the Lambda Literary Editor's Choice Award in 2003. She lives in San Francisco and is Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University.
The Professor and Other Writings is a collection of autobiographical essays that while I found often entertaining, came off at times as incredibly pretentious to me. I get that she is a well-known literary critic, but her constantly using French words and her naivety at the times she is writing about, hardly made me want to respect her. Or even like her for that matter.
I mentioned the nuggets of wisdom & entertainment….
“I’ve come to believe more and more about both writing and music making: that in order to succeed at either you have to stop trying to disguise who you are. The veils and pretenses of everyday life won’t work; a certain minimum truth-to-self is required. “ (in the essay, My Heroin Christmas)
Simply said, be who you are or you are going to fail. A lot of us, even in blogland, try to emulate other successful people as opposed to being ourselves. It is tough work and you can’t keep it up.
The essay, Home Alone, was a hilarious introspective on why we are all obsessed with shelter magazines. Castle refers to is as “house porn” and it kind of is.
I wouldn’t recommend The Professor and Other Writings by Terry Castle unless you are way more cultured and cooler than I am.