Reading with Peter Brooks - by Rachel Bowlby

About the Book

Short, sharp and original commentary inspired by Peter Brooks's diverse critical work.

Book Synopsis

For many decades Peter Brooks's critical writing has been a force of illumination and inspiration for readers of many kinds, with memorable books that continue to generate new thinking. Reading for the Plot was perhaps the best known of these until Brooks published Seduced by Story (2022), a provocative calling out of the now ubiquitous cultural stress on 'stories' of all and any kind.

The mini-essays in this volume build on the diverse strands of Brooks's work in their own ways, to demonstrate -and celebrate--its significance for critical thinking across a range of different disciplinary fields and institutional settings: in literary history and narrative theory; in psychoanalytic and legal studies; through interdisciplinary initiatives at Yale. There are also two longer essays by Peter Brooks himself, including one on his experience of prison teaching.

Review Quotes

These lively, brief but extremely efficient essays by a host of distinguished contributors highlight the range and impact over the years of Peter Brooks's scholarship in the overlapping areas of narrative studies, psychoanalysis and law. Every reader will find something of interest here.--Jonathan Culler, Cornell University