Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Recollections of Dr. F. R. Leavis and Morris Shapira: The Ogre of Downing Castle
    Unavailable
    Recollections of Dr. F. R. Leavis and Morris Shapira: The Ogre of Downing Castle
    Unavailable
    Recollections of Dr. F. R. Leavis and Morris Shapira: The Ogre of Downing Castle
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    Recollections of Dr. F. R. Leavis and Morris Shapira: The Ogre of Downing Castle

    By Chris Terry

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Reflections on Dr Leavis, the Downing School of English, and Morris Shapira by a Leavis
    pupil of the closing years of Leavis’s time at Downing. More a memoir than a study, it takes
    letters received from Dr Leavis and one from Q. D. Leavis as the anchors for a story about
    the turbulences of that time as experienced by an undergraduate but recollected in
    retrospect.
    It considers the proposed reasons, causes of damage done, the nature of a single incident,
    the framework of a search for healing. One issue is that of “pastoral care" for undergraduate
    and former students. It is also about proximity to a national icon and the dynamics of
    teaching or learning in that context. It sketches a personal link to Dr Leavis, its privileges and
    its pitfalls, its emotional liability, while re-affirming or re-discovering the integrity and the
    necessity of Leavis' creative achievement in searching for a constant celebration of creative
    life sustaining values in the flux of the modern world after 1918.
    Simultaneously, it regrets the frantic debates and wounding squabbles within the Downing
    School from about 1963 onwards which denied the values the Downing experience sought to
    establish. It is argued that this was, in part, made inevitable by a cult building up around "the
    great man" in the search for security in the latter years which created both zealots and
    revisionists to their own detriment. Respect transformed into discipleship - a form of distance
    - and this into a form of dependence requiring revolt. In the process damage was done to the
    cause, to individuals around it, and to figures in the Diaspora.
    Based on letters received from Dr Leavis and one from Mrs. Leavis, the account speculates
    about the outlines of the crisis as it affected Dr Leavis and documents both his immersion in
    it and his emergence from it at a personal level.
    Another element considered is the energy released by the clash of adolescence, middle age,
    and old age (student aspirants, acolyte teachers, the Master) - the generations in conflict in
    the confined world of Cambridge. In this context the difficulties faced by the administrative
    body at Downing College concerned with winding down a whole era of teaching are taken
    into account: the task of finding a successor for a great, active and controversial figure in
    fairness and with harmony.
    At yet another level it is about looking for and finding doorways into the past and meeting
    friends on the other side.
    And, finally, it includes a positive memory of Morris Shapira, Director of Studies as of 1963,
    whose teaching was unique, selfless and effective during his Downing years. He is portrayed
    here as a victim of the process of post-Leavisian dénouement at Downing College.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLibertas
    Release dateNov 17, 2008
    ISBN9783946119258
    Unavailable
    Recollections of Dr. F. R. Leavis and Morris Shapira: The Ogre of Downing Castle

    Related to Recollections of Dr. F. R. Leavis and Morris Shapira

    Titles in the series (2)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Language Arts & Discipline For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Deconstructing The Decolonisers

      Jul 27, 2023

      TO DECOLONISE THE CURRICULUM or not to decolonise the curriculum, that is the question. In his latest book, Against Decolonisation: Campus Culture Wars and the Decline of the West, Doug Stokes turns his analytical eye for international affairs inward

      4 min read

    • Article

      Angry Students Called This Professor ‘Disgusting.’ He’s Still An Optimist.

      Apr 2, 2019

      Yale Prof. Nicholas Christakis’ new book, “Blueprint,” looks at how humans have evolved into a species that is fundamentally good.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Teach What You Love

      Sep 1, 2020

      Teach What You Love
      17 min read

    • Article

      Campus Confidential

      Feb 29, 2024

      I HAD HEARD RUMOURS OF CAMBRIDGE’S SECRET s societies — of Sunday morning symposiums devoted to sex and scrambled eggs — each tale too outrageous to be true. But it is not the promise of illicit affairs driving students and academics underground. It

      5 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Cusk, Barry, Eltahawy, Foer, Klein, Kois, and More

      Sep 17, 2019

      It's blockbuster season, which means new books from big names: Naomi Klein, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jacqueline Woodson, and Tracey Chevalier. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Cusk, Barry, Eltahawy, Foer, Klein, Kois, and More appeared first o

      8 min read

    • Article

      Humans Are Wired for Goodness

      Aug 22, 2019

      Nicholas Christakis and I are on the same page: We would definitely sacrifice our lives to save a billion strangers, perhaps even several hundred million, plucked at random from Earth’s population. But, for sure, not a thousand strangers, or a millio

      15 min read

    • Article

      Finding Real Answers

      Apr 27, 2023

      MAY IN WESTMINSTER SEES SPRING, blossom and the National Conservatism Conference. This movement has its origins in the work of, among others, the philosophers Yoram Hazony and, here in the UK, James Orr. It raises the most fundamental questions of ou

      1 min read

    • Article

      How America Got Mean

      Aug 14, 2023

      How America Got Mean
      23 min read

    • Article

      What Universities Owe to the Liberal Project

      Jan 25, 2023

      We live in an era fraught with challenge. From a global pandemic to rising authoritarianism and a European war, the world is as fundamentally unsettled as it has been in nearly a century. Domestically, Americans face rising levels of polarization and

      14 min read

    Reviews for Recollections of Dr. F. R. Leavis and Morris Shapira

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words