 |
Talking out of SchoolThis bitterly funny memoir reads like an exposé of the power structures in America’s higher education system: who’s got it, how they’re abusing it, what everyone else is willing to do to get it, and the social cost of doing educational business this way. We follow our protagonist, Kassie, as the academic world reshapes her life, her worst secrets and most humiliating mistakes revealing deep problems of race, class, gender, and sexuality. We watch as she alienates her family by hanging her “snobbish” nose over books; as she embarks on an adulterous affair with her instructor; as she comes to terms with her racist attitudes toward her own inner-city students; and as she abandons her principles for the sake of her career. A scathing and fierce work, at once sorry and triumphant.
Details
Format
Paperback
ISBN-10
1564785173
ISBN-13
9781564785176
Publication Date
19 November 2008
Nb of pages
278
List Price
$13.95
ExcerptThe first teacher I ever met catches me in perhaps the most unflattering shape of my life—slimy, blood-streaked, bruised, and shrieking. A desiccating tube streams from belly to knees. I can neither walk nor crawl, let along stand up to take my licks. In the early moments of my life a worker does her best to clean me up, make me presentable, get some clothes on me—and hand me over to the teacher, where I lie, for eternity, on her collapsed belly. ...more
ReviewsQuotations
Fleisher goes against the grain in her work and her thinking, doing so in richly considered, evocative, original, and provocative fashion that in every way promises to make a genuine difference in our understanding of the broadest definitions of what it means to write and learn, and to live and love, in an age of new media, global consciousness, and shifting notions of what it means to be human.
-Michael Joyce, author of Was
A shockingly honest examination of the academy. Calling this book a feminist critique of higher ed would be to read the book too narrowly given the discussions of class and race. Should be required reading for everyone in academia.
-Steve Tomasula, author of The Book of Portraiture WE ALSO SUGGEST
A Star-Bright Lie
A Star-Bright Lie recounts the age-old story of the young provincial who comes to New York and is dazzled and betrayed by the bright lights of Broadway, but with a few kinks to the story: the provincial in this case was gay and would later develop...
other titles related to Genres : Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs : Memoirs Countries : United States of America |
top