Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton
FBA
Eagleton in 2008
Born
Terence Francis Eagleton

(1943-02-22) 22 February 1943 (age 81)
Salford, England
Spouses
  • Rosemary Galpin
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1966; div. 1976)​
  • Willa Murphy
    ​
    (m. 1997)​
Children5
Academic background
Alma mater
Academic advisorsRaymond Williams
Influences
Academic work
Discipline
Sub-disciplineLiterary theory
School or tradition
Institutions
Doctoral students
Notable studentsFrank Albers [nl]
Notable works
  • Literary Theory (1983)
  • The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990)
  • The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996)
Notable ideasGood/Bad utopianism[3]

Terence Francis Eagleton FBA[4] (born 22 February 1943) is an English philosopher, literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual.[5][6][7][8] He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University.

Eagleton has published over forty books, but remains best known for Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), which has sold over 750,000 copies.[9] The work elucidated the emerging literary theory of the period, as well as arguing that all literary theory is necessarily political. He has also been a prominent critic of postmodernism, publishing works such as The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996) and After Theory (2003). He argues that, influenced by postmodernism, cultural theory has wrongly devalued objectivity and ethics. His thinking is influenced by Marxism and Christianity.

Formerly the Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford (1992–2001) and John Edward Taylor Professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Manchester (2001–2008), Eagleton has held visiting appointments at universities around the world including Cornell, Duke, Iowa, Melbourne, Trinity College Dublin, and Yale.[10]

Eagleton delivered Yale University's 2008 Terry Lectures and the University of Edinburgh's 2010 Gifford Lecture entitled The God Debate.[11] He gave the 2010 Richard Price Memorial Lecture at Newington Green Unitarian Church, speaking on "The New Atheism and the War on Terror".[12] In 2009, he published a book which accompanied his lectures on religion, entitled Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate.

  1. ^ a b c d James Smith (2013). Terry Eagleton. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-7456-5795-0.
  2. ^ James Smith (2013). Terry Eagleton. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-7456-5795-0.
  3. ^ Terry Eagleton (1991). Ideology: An Introduction, p. 131.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference autogenerated2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Vallely, Paul (13 October 2007). "Terry Eagleton: Class warrior". The Independent. ...the man who succeeded F R Leavis as Britain's most influential academic critic.
  6. ^ John Sitter, Chairman of the English Department at the University of Notre Dame and Editor of The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth Century Poetry, has describes Eagleton as "someone widely regarded as the most influential contemporary literary critic and theorist in the English-speaking world" "Terry Eagleton Returns to ND as Distinguished Visitor in English Department // News and Stories // About Arts and Letters // College of Arts and Letters // University of Notre Dame". Archived from the original on 31 August 2009. Retrieved 23 June 2009.
  7. ^ "Eagleton himself has also replaced Leavis as the best known and most influential academic critic in Britain." Duke Maskell,[who?] as cited by Nicholas Wroe [1].
  8. ^ "Terry Eagleton is arguably the most influential contemporary British literary critic and theorist." James Smith. [who?] Cited in the Introduction to Terry Eagleton: A Critical Introduction (Key Contemporary Thinkers) Polity Press, 2008.
  9. ^ "A theoretical blow for democracy". 31 May 2001. Retrieved 29 June 2016.
  10. ^ University, Lancaster. "Terry Eagleton - English & Creative Writing - Lancaster University - Lancaster University". Retrieved 29 June 2016.
  11. ^ "Professor Terry Eagleton". College of Humanities & Social Science. University of Edinburgh. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011.
  12. ^ "Terry Eagleton to speak at Newington Green". Hackney Citizen. 29 August 2010. Retrieved 30 December 2011.