Frederick Crews

Frederick C. Crews (born 1933, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American essayist, author, and Professor of English Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. Crews is a prominent literary critic in the United States, and received popular attention for his 1963 book "The Pooh Perplex".

Publications and research

Crews's 1963 bestseller "The Pooh Perplex: A Student Casebook" satirized a type of casebook then assigned to first-year university students in introductory courses to English or rhetoric. It described the approaches of imaginary scholars of different views, including Marxist, Freudian, Leavisite and Fiedlerian to the interpretation of the themes and characters of A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books. He published a follow-up in 2001 entitled "Postmodern Pooh" which repeated the satire with more contemporary critical perspectives such as deconstruction and queer theory.

Crews' 1966 study of Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes", took a Freudian approach. However, in a major turnaround, Crews subsequently repudiated psychoanalysis. See, for example, his 1975 essay collection "Out of My System".

Crews expressed his rejection of psychoanalysis most forcefully in his article "Analysis Terminable", first published in Commentary Magazine in 1980 and reprinted in his collection "Skeptical Engagements" in 1986. "Analysis Terminable" criticised psychoanalysis for what Crews considered faulty methodology and questioned its effectiveness as therapy.

Crews wrote two essays criticizing Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis, and the recovered memory movement published in the "New York Review of Books" starting in November 1993. Crews decried what he saw as the harmful influence of psychoanalysis on American society. [cite book |first=Frederick. |last=Crews |year=1995 |title=The Memory Wars|publisher=The New York Review of Books|location=New York |id= ISBN 0-940322-04-8 |pages= pp. 71]

Crews in 1996 credited Henri F. Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious with beginning a twenty five year long reevaluation of the position of psychoanalysis within the history of medicine. [Crews, Frederick. (1996) [http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/Freudeval.html "The Verdict on Freud"] . "Psychological Science, vol. 7", No. 2.]

In "The Critics Bear It Away" (1992) Crews discussed what he saw as the excesses of various critics of American literature.

Honors and Awards

*Fulbright Lectureship, Turin, Italy, 1961-62.
*Guggenheim Fellowship, 1970-71.
*Distinguished Teaching Award, UCB, 1985.
*Spielvogel-Diamonstein PEN Award for Best Book of Previously Uncollected Essays, (The Critics Bear It Away), 1992.
*Berkeley Citation, 1994.
*Fellow, Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health, 2003-.
*Berkeley Fellow, 2005–.

Notes

Bibliography

*"The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James". Yale University Press, 1957
*"The Pooh Perplex: A Student Casebook". E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1963 0-226-12058-9
*"The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes". Oxford University Press, 1966
*"Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, and Critical Method". Oxford University Press, 1975
*"Skeptical Engagements". Oxford University Press, 1986
*"The Random House Handbook". 6/e. McGraw-Hill, 1991
*"The Critics Bear It Away." Random House, 1992
*"The Borzoi Handbook for Writers". 3/e. With Sandra Schor and Michael Hennessy. McGraw-Hill, 1992
*"The Memory Wars, Freud's Legacy in Dispute". New York Review of Books, 1997 ISBN 0940322048
*"Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend". (As editor) Viking Adult, 1998 ISBN 0-670-87221-0
*"Postmodern Pooh". North Point Press, 2001 ISBN 0-86547-626-8
*"E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism". Textbook Publishers, 2003 ISBN 0-7581-5768-1
*"Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays". 2005 ISBN 1-59376-101-5

External links

* [http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Crews/crews-con0.html A Conversation With Frederick Crews, August 24, 1999]
* [http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Crews/crews-pho1.html A series of photos of Crews with his family]