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{{Short description|American essayist and literary critic (1933–2024)|bot=PearBOT 5}} | |||
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|name = Frederick Campbell Crews | |||
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|image = Frederick Crews.JPG | |||
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| name = Frederick Crews | ||
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| caption = Crews in 2005 | |||
|birth_place = ], ] | |||
| birth_date = {{birth date|1933|02|20}} | |||
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| birth_place = ], Pennsylvania, U.S. | |||
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| death_date = {{death date and age|2024|06|21|1933|02|20}} | |||
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| death_place = ], U.S. | |||
|citizenship = {{USA}} | |||
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Criticisms of ]<br/> | |||
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Skeptical essays on a variety of topics | |||
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'''Frederick Campbell Crews'''<ref name = GF>{{cite web | url = http://www.gf.org/fellows/all?index=c&page=20 | title = The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation list of All Fellows | publisher = ] | accessdate = 2009-02-19 }}</ref> (born 1933, ], ]) is an ] ] essayist, ], author, and ] of English at the ].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/87 | publisher = ] | title = Frederick C. Crews, Emeritus - Staff page at UC, Berkeley | accessdate = 2009-02-19 }}</ref> He received popular attention for ''The Pooh Perplex'', a book of ] essays ]ing contemporary ]. Initially a proponent of ], Crews later moved away from, and in the early 1980s rejected psychoanalysis, going on to criticize Freud's ] and ] standards. Crews became a prominent critic of Freud during the "Freud wars" of the 1980s and 90s, which debated the Viennese psychoanalyst's reputation, scholarship and impact on the 20th century. | |||
'''Frederick Campbell Crews''' (February 20, 1933 – June 21, 2024) was an American essayist and ]. Professor of English at the ],<ref>{{cite web | url = http://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/87 | publisher = ] | title = Frederick C. Crews, Emeritus – Staff page at UC, Berkeley | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = July 8, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150708184022/http://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/87 | url-status = live }}</ref> Crews was the author of numerous books, including ''The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of ]'' (1957), '']: The Perils of Humanism'' (1962), and ''The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes'' (1966), a discussion of the work of ]. He received popular attention for '']'' (1963), a book of ] essays parodying various schools of literary criticism. Initially a proponent of ], Crews later rejected ], becoming a critic of ] and his scientific and ethical standards. Crews was a prominent participant in the "]" of the 1980s and 1990s, a debate over the reputation, scholarship, and impact on the 20th century of Freud, who founded psychoanalysis. In 2017, he published ''Freud: The Making of an Illusion''. | |||
Crews has also published a variety of ] and ] essays, including book reviews and commentary for '']'', on a variety of topics including Freud's work and ], both of which were published as separate collections. Crews has also published several successful ]s on the ]. | |||
Crews published a variety of ] and ] essays, including book reviews and commentary for '']'', on a variety of topics including Freud and ], some of which were published in '']'' (1995). He also published successful ]s for college writers, such as ''The Random House Handbook''. | |||
==Biography== | |||
== |
==Life and career== | ||
Crews was born in suburban Philadelphia in 1933.<ref name="Fuchs2006">Fuchs, J. (28 Mar 2006). “Books: Crews skewers Follies of the Wise in new collection.” ''The Berkeley Daily Planet.'' | |||
===Personal life and death=== | |||
</ref> Both of his parents were avid readers and were tremendously influential in his life, said Crews; “They had both been raised in considerable poverty, and books had been extremely important to them personally, in shaping them. My mother was very literary; my father was very scientific. I feel that I got a little something of both sides.”<ref name="Kreisler 1999">Kreisler, H. (Interviewer) & Crews, F. (Interviewee). (1999). . Retrieved from </ref> In high school, Crews was co-captain of the tennis team; and he continues to be an avid skier, hiker, swimmer, motorcyclist, and runner.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /> Crews lives in Berkeley with his wife of 52 years, Elizabeth Crews, a photographer who was born and raised in Berkeley, CA.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /> They have two daughters and four grandchildren.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /> | |||
Crews was born in suburban Philadelphia on February 10, 1933.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7bYRAQAAMAAJ&q=Frederick+Campbell+Crews+20+Feb.+1933 |title=Profile of Frederick Campbell Crews |isbn=978-1-85743-428-6 |access-date=November 17, 2018 |archive-date=June 25, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142720/https://books.google.com/books?id=7bYRAQAAMAAJ&q=Frederick+Campbell+Crews+20+Feb.+1933 |url-status=live |last1=Publications |first1=Europa |date=August 23, 2007 |publisher=Routledge }}</ref><ref name="Fuchs2006">Fuchs, Jake (Mar 28, 2006). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216172630/http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2006-03-28/article/23768 |date=December 16, 2014 }} ''The Berkeley Daily Planet.''</ref> Both his parents were avid readers and were quite influential in his life, said Crews: "They had both been raised in considerable poverty, and books had been extremely important to them personally, in shaping them. My mother was very literary; my father was very scientific. I feel that I got a little something of both sides."<ref name="Kreisler 1999">Kreisler, H. (Interviewer) & Crews, F. (Interviewee). (1999). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120515233349/http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Crews/crews-con1.html |date=May 15, 2012 }}. Retrieved from {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140922040521/http://conversations.berkeley.edu/ |date=September 22, 2014 }}</ref> In high school, Crews was co-captain of the tennis team, and for decades he remained an avid skier, hiker, swimmer, and runner.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /> Crews lived in Berkeley with his wife, Elizabeth Crews, a photographer who was born and raised in Berkeley, California.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /> They had two daughters and four grandchildren.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /> | |||
Crews died in Oakland, California on June 21, 2024, at the age of 91.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/books/frederick-crews-dead.html|title=Frederick Crews, Withering Critic of Freud's Legacy, Dies at 91|first=Scott|last=Veale|work=]|date=June 24, 2024|access-date=June 24, 2024|archive-date=June 25, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142612/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/books/frederick-crews-dead.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="WaPoObit">{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Harrison |title=Frederick Crews, literary critic and steely Freud skeptic, dies at 91 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/06/28/frederick-crews-dead/ |access-date=June 29, 2024 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=June 28, 2024}}</ref> | |||
===Education=== | ===Education=== | ||
Crews completed his undergraduate education at ] in 1955.<ref name = Marcus2002>{{cite web | url = http://www.princeton.edu/paw/web_exclusives/features/features_013002a.html | title = Lit crit Frederick Crews *58, author of The Pooh Perplex, pokes the Academy once more with his new book, Postmodern Pooh | last = Marcus | first = D | date = |
Crews completed his undergraduate education at ] in 1955.<ref name = Marcus2002>{{cite web | url = http://www.princeton.edu/paw/web_exclusives/features/features_013002a.html | title = Lit crit Frederick Crews *58, author of The Pooh Perplex, pokes the Academy once more with his new book, Postmodern Pooh | last = Marcus | first = D | date = January 30, 2002 | access-date = April 28, 2009 | publisher = ] }}</ref> Though his degree was in English, Crews entered the Directed Studies program during his first two years at Yale, which he describes as his greatest experience because the program was taught by a coordinated faculty and required students to distribute their courses among sciences, social sciences, literature, and philosophy.<ref name="Kreisler 1999"/> He received his PhD in literature from ] in 1958.<ref name = Marcus2002/> Crews cited ], ], Hawthorne, and Freud as major influences during his time at Princeton.<ref name="Kreisler 1999"/> | ||
===Career=== | ===Career=== | ||
In 1958, Crews joined the UC Berkeley English Department where he taught for 36 years before retiring as its chair in 1994.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /><ref>{{cite web | url = http://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/87 | title = Details for: Frederick C. Crews | publisher = ] | |
In 1958, Crews joined the UC Berkeley English Department, where he taught for 36 years before retiring as its chair in 1994.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /><ref>{{cite web | url = http://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/87 | title = Details for: Frederick C. Crews | publisher = ] | access-date = April 27, 2009 | archive-date = July 8, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150708184022/http://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/87 | url-status = live }}</ref> He was a ] with a lectureship at ] in Italy for the 1961–1962 academic year.<ref name="Fulbright-Turin-1961-1962">{{cite web |title=Frederick Crews |url=https://fulbrightscholars.org/grantee/frederick-crews |website=Fulbright Scholar Program, fulbrightscholars.org |access-date=June 29, 2024}}</ref> | ||
Crews was an anti-war activist from 1965 to about 1970<ref name="Kreisler 1999"/> and advocated ] as co-chair of Berkeley's Faculty Peace Committee.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /> Though he shared the widespread assumption during the mid-1960s that psychoanalytic theory was a valid account of human motivation and was one of the first academics to apply that theory systematically to the study of literature, Crews gradually came to regard psychoanalysis as a ].<ref name= Fuchs2006 /> This convinced him that his loyalty should not belong to any theory but rather to ] standards and the skeptical point of view. Throughout his career, Crews brought his concern for rational discourse to the study of various issues, from the controversy over recovered memory, the credibility of the ], and belief in ]s to ] and "]." He also advocated for clear writing based on standards of sound argument and rhetorical effectiveness rather than adherence to rigid school-book rules.<ref name=Fuchs2006 /><ref>{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays | year = 2005 |page=220 | isbn = 1-59376-101-5 | publisher = Shoemaker & Hoard }}</ref> "What interests me is general rationality," said Crews in an interview: {{blockquote|General rationality requires us to observe the world carefully, to consider alternative hypotheses to our own hypotheses, to gather evidence in a responsible way, to answer objections. These are habits of mind that science shares with good history, good sociology, good political science, good economics, what have you. And I summarize all this in what I call the "empirical attitude." It's a combination of feeling responsible to the evidence that is available, feeling responsible to go out and find that evidence, including the evidence that is contrary to one's presumptions, and responsibility to be logical with one's self and others. And this is an ideal that is not so much individual as social. The rational attitude doesn't really work when simply applied to one's self. It is something that we owe to each other.<ref name="Kreisler 1999"/>}} | |||
==Publications== | ==Publications== | ||
===Satire=== | ===Satire=== | ||
In 1963, Crews published his first |
In 1963, Crews published his first bestseller '']: A Student Casebook'' that ] the type of casebooks then assigned to first-year university students in introductory literature and composition courses. The book featured a fictitious set of English professors writing essays on ]'s classic character ], parodying ], Freudian, Christian, ] and ] approaches to analyzing literary texts. Though urged by readers to publish a follow-up volume, Crews delayed writing one until after his retirement in 1994, producing ''Postmodern Pooh'' in 2001. While ''The Pooh Perplex'' parodies earlier trends in literary criticism, ''Postmodern Pooh'' parodies later trends in literary theory.<ref name=Giffin2012>Giffin, M. (2012). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141216172516/http://www.spanielbooks.com/pooh.pdf |date=December 16, 2014 }} ''Quadrant, LVI(1–2),'' 25–29.</ref> In it, Crews extends the satire of the original, covering more recent critical approaches such as ], ], ], and ], in part basing the essay authors and their approaches on actual academics and their work.<ref name = Marcus2002/> | ||
In ''The Patch Commission'' (1968), Crews satirized the activities of ], displaying his disapproval of American involvement in the then-ongoing ].<ref>{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Patch Commission | url = https://archive.org/details/patchcommission00crew | url-access = registration | publisher = ] | year = 1968 }} ] B001SUMQ08</ref><ref name = Erickson1993>{{cite journal | last = Erickson | first = P | title = The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy – book reviews | url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2220/is_n4_v35/ai_14690923/ | access-date = April 27, 2009 | year = 1993 | journal = Criticism }}</ref> The book is a transcription of the work of the fictional Patch Commission, a discussion among three government ]s attempting to save the nation from disaster caused by pediatrician ]'s overly permissive child-rearing guidelines.<ref>{{cite magazine | magazine = ] | date = August 2, 1968 | access-date = April 28, 2009 | title = Anti-Youth Movements | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838527-1,00.html | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121103043529/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838527-1,00.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = November 3, 2012 }}</ref> | |||
===Literary criticism=== | ===Literary criticism=== | ||
Much of Crews's career |
Much of Crews's career was dedicated to ]. Crews's first book, ''The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James'' (1957), was based on a prize-winning essay written by Crews while an ] student at Yale University, initially published as part of a series.<ref name= Carlson1985>{{cite book|author=Carlson SJ |title=Women of grace: James's plays and the comedy of manners |publisher=UMI Research Press |location=Ann Arbor, Mich |year=1985 |pages= |isbn=0-8357-1617-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/womenofgracejame00carl/page/5 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | title = The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James | journal = Yale University. Undergraduate Prize Essays | year = 1958 | volume = 10 | last = Crews | first = FC | publisher = ]}}</ref> In the book, Crews discussed three late novels by ]: '']'' (1903), '']'' (1902), and '']'' (1904), analyzing how, in those novels, adherence to social conventions serves to keep hidden relationships from coming to light.<ref name = Carlson1985/><ref>{{cite book |author=Simon L |title=The Critical Reception of Henry James: Creating a Master (Literary Criticism in Perspective) (Literary Criticism in Perspective) |publisher=Camden House |location=Columbia, SC, USA |year=2007 |pages= |isbn=978-1-57113-319-9 }}</ref> | ||
In 1962, Crews's doctoral ] from Princeton University was published as ''E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism''.<ref>{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism | publisher = ] | year = 1962 | isbn = 0-7581-5768-1 | pages = vii | url = https://archive.org/stream/emforstertheperi002053mbp/emforstertheperi002053mbp_djvu.txt}}</ref> In 1966, he published a study of Hawthorne, ''The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes'', in which he examined Hawthorne's entire literary career including unfinished novels; it was re-issued in 1989 with Crews's reassessment of his initial position and an analysis of how literary criticism had dealt with Hawthorne since 1966.<ref>{{cite book|author=Crews, Frederick C. |title=The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes |publisher=] |location=Berkeley |year=1989 |isbn=0-520-06817-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/sinsoffathershaw1881crew }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url = http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/2381.php | title = Frederick Crews - The Sins of the Fathers | date = October 1989 | publisher = ] | isbn = 978-0-520-06817-9 | access-date = April 29, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625125422/https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520068179/the-sins-of-the-fathers | url-status = live }}</ref> In 1970, Crews edited ''Psychoanalysis and Literary Process'', a collection of essays by his students that analyzed a variety of authors from a psychoanalytic perspective; a review by Jose Barchilon credited the book with important accomplishments, including being "an achievement in the teaching and learning of psychoanalysis in a department of literature", which the reviewer noted was a "rare occurrence".<ref>{{cite book |author=Tompkins, Jane P. |title=Reader-response criticism: from formalism to post-structuralism |url=https://archive.org/details/readerresponsecr00tomp |url-access=registration |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |year=1980 |isbn=0-8018-2401-X }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = Barchilon | first = J | url = http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=paq.042.0644a | title = Book Review: Psychoanalysis and Literary Process: Edited by Frederick Crews | journal = The Psychoanalytic Quarterly | volume = 42 | pages = 644–51 | year = 1973 | access-date = April 29, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625125418/https://pep-web.org/browse/document/paq.042.0644a | url-status = live }}</ref> The collection included an essay, "Anaesthetic Criticism," in which Crews disparaged contemporary schools of literary criticism, especially that of ] and his followers.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Stern | first = HR | year = 1973 | volume = 60 | journal = The Psychoanalytic Review | pages = 304–5 | title = Book Review: Psychoanalysis and Literary Process. Frederick Crews (ed.). | url = http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=psar.060.0304a | access-date = April 29, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625125418/https://pep-web.org/browse/document/psar.060.0304a | url-status = live }}</ref> | |||
In 1986, Crews published ''The Critics Bear It Away'', which was wholly devoted to literary criticism.<ref>{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy | publisher = ] | year = 1992 | isbn = 0-679-40413-9 }}</ref> ''The Critics Bear It Away'' was described as part of a ] revival within education after a long period of ] focussing on the revision of the ], and filled with an internal conflict between Crews's sympathies with and opposition to the revisionist position.<ref name = Erickson1993/> ''The Critics Bear It Away'' was nominated for the ] for nonfiction<ref name = Hartford1993>{{cite news | work = ] | title = Critics nominate best books of '92 | date = 1993-01-19 | accessdate = 2009-04-29 | url = http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/80171114.html?dids=80171114:80171114&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jan+19%2C+1993&author=&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=Critics+nominate+best+books+of+%2792&pqatl=google | pages = C.6 }}</ref> and won the Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay Winners.<ref name = SDA>{{cite web | url = http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/907 | title = Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay Winners | accessdate = 2009-02-19 }}</ref> | |||
In 1986, Crews published ''The Critics Bear It Away'', which was wholly devoted to literary criticism.<ref>{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy | publisher = ] | year = 1992 | isbn = 0-679-40413-9 | url = https://archive.org/details/criticsbearitawa00crew }}</ref> It was nominated for the ] for nonfiction<ref name = Hartford1993>{{cite news | work = ] | title = Critics nominate best books of '92 | date = January 19, 1993 | access-date = April 29, 2009 | url = https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/80171114.html?dids=80171114:80171114&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jan+19%2C+1993&author=&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=Critics+nominate+best+books+of+%2792&pqatl=google | pages = C.6 }}{{dead link|date=July 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> and won the Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay.<ref name=SDA>{{cite web | url = http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/907 | title = Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay Winners | access-date = February 19, 2009 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090316093958/http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/907 | archive-date = March 16, 2009 }}</ref> | |||
Parts of his 1975 collection ''Out of My System'',<ref name="Crews 1975">{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, and Critical Method | publisher = ] | year = 1975 | isbn = 0-19-501947-4 }}</ref> the 1986 collection ''Skeptical Engagements'',<ref name="Crews 1986">{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Skeptical Engagements | publisher = ] | isbn = 0-19-503950-5 | year = 1986}}</ref> and the 2005 ''Follies of the Wise''<ref>{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays | year = 2005 | isbn = 1-59376-101-5 | publisher = Shoemaker & Hoard }}</ref> were also dedicated to literary criticism. Crews's repeated message to literary critics is to be critical of their own interpretation when making statements about the meaning of a work.<ref name="Kreisler 1999"/> Regarding Crews's position on literary criticism, C. A. Runcie notes, “What Frederick Crews says about psychoanalysis is true for all criticism and its theorizing: 'A critic's sense of limits, like Freud's own, must come from … his awe at how little he can explain.'”<ref name="Runcie 1990">Runcie, C. A. (1990). ''The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, 15,'' 71-86.</ref> | |||
Parts of Crews's 1975 collection ''Out of My System'',<ref name="Crews 1975">{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, and Critical Method | publisher = ] | year = 1975 | isbn = 0-19-501947-4 | url = https://archive.org/details/outofmysystem00fred }}</ref> the 1986 collection ''Skeptical Engagements'',<ref name="Crews 1986">{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = Skeptical Engagements | publisher = ] | isbn = 0-19-503950-5 | year = 1986 | url = https://archive.org/details/skepticalengagem00crew }}</ref> and the 2006 ''Follies of the Wise''<ref>{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays | year = 2005 | isbn = 1-59376-101-5 | publisher = Shoemaker & Hoard }}</ref> were also dedicated to literary criticism. Crews's repeated message to literary critics is to be critical of their own interpretation when making statements about the meaning of a work.<ref name="Kreisler 1999"/> Regarding Crews's position on literary criticism, C. A. Runcie notes, "What Frederick Crews says about psychoanalysis is true for all criticism and its theorizing: 'A critic's sense of limits, like Freud's own, must come from … his awe at how little he can explain.'"<ref name="Runcie 1990">Runcie, C. A. (1990). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808080131/http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/ART/article/viewFile/5523/6194 |date=August 8, 2014 }} ''The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, 15,'' 71–86.</ref> Crews has been identified by the literary theorist ] as one of "the very few scholars who have consistently and effectively opposed poststructuralism."<ref>{{cite journal | last = Carroll | first = Joseph | title = Evolution and Literary Theory | journal = Human Nature |location=Columbia, Missouri | volume = 6 | issue = 2 | year = 1995 | pages = 119–134 | isbn = 0-8262-0979-3 | publisher = University of Missouri Press | url = https://archive.org/details/evolutionliterar00carr | url-access = registration | pmid = 24202937 | doi = 10.1007/BF02734174 | s2cid = 206821344 }}</ref> | |||
===Criticism of Freud and psychoanalysis=== | ===Criticism of Freud and psychoanalysis=== | ||
Crews began his career using ] but gradually rejected this approach and |
Crews began his career using ] but gradually rejected this approach and psychoanalysis in general. In his article "Reductionism and Its Discontents", published in ''Out of My System'' in 1975, Crews stated his belief that psychoanalysis can be usefully applied to literary criticism but expressed growing doubts about its use as a ] approach, suggesting that it had a weak, sometimes comical tradition of criticism.<ref name="Crews 1975"/> In 1977, Crews read the draft of a work by the philosopher ] that later became '']'', and helped Grünbaum to obtain a publication offer from the ].<ref>{{cite book | last = Grünbaum | first = Adolf | title = The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique | year = 1984 | pages = xi–xii | isbn = 0-520-05016-9 | publisher = University of California Press | url = https://archive.org/details/foundationsofpsy00grun }}</ref> | ||
In 1996, Crews credited the psychiatrist ]'s '']'' (1970) with beginning a twenty-five-year-long reevaluation of the position of psychoanalysis within the history of medicine, and acknowledged other book-length critical analyses of Freud and psychotherapy, including ]'s '']'' (1979), Grünbaum's ''The Foundations of Psychoanalysis'' (1984), and Malcolm Macmillan's ''Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc'' (1991).<ref name="Crews1996">{{cite journal|last=Crews |first=FC |year=1996 |url=http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/Freudeval.html |title=The Verdict on Freud |journal=Psychological Science |volume=7 |issue=2 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00331.x |pages=63–8 |s2cid=143453699 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201183908/http://www.cis.vt.edu/modernworld/d/Freudeval.html |archive-date=December 1, 2008 }}</ref> Crews wrote the foreword to the revised 1997 edition of ''Freud Evaluated'', suggesting that its republication "advanced the long debate over psychoanalysis to what may well be its decisive moment".<ref>{{cite book |author=Macmillan, Malcolm |title=Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc |publisher=The MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=1997 |page=vii |isbn=0-262-63171-7 }} (originally published in 1991).</ref> | |||
Crews, who described himself as "a one-time Freudian who had decided to help others resist the fallacies to which I had succumbed in the 1960s",<ref name=Miller1993>{{cite news | last = Miller | first = L | url = http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/1995/12/02/freud/ | title = Freudian Flame Wars – The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute | access-date = April 29, 2009 | date = December 2, 1995 | work = ] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080110010311/http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/1995/12/02/freud/ | archive-date = January 10, 2008 | url-status = dead }}</ref> sees his criticisms of Freud as two-pronged – one aimed at Freud's ethical and scientific standards, and the other aimed at showing that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience.<ref>Wade, C., Tavris, C. (2011). ''Psychology'' (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. {{ISBN|978-0-205-71146-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Cheerful assassin defies analysis | url = http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=96726§ioncode=26 | access-date = April 29, 2009 | date = March 3, 1995 | work = ] | archive-date = March 20, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120320035656/http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=96726§ioncode=26 | url-status = live }}</ref> | |||
Describing himself as "a one-time Freudian who had decided to help others resist the fallacies to which I had succumbed in the 1960s", his position was summarized in ] as "psychoanalysis is a spurious, ineffective ], based on the fudged data of an unscrupulous and calculating founder and perpetuated by followers who mimic his craftiness in a 'shell game whereby critics of Freudianism are always told that new breakthroughs render their strictures obsolete,'" supporting his objections to Freud's personal qualities and theories ] with "extensive and meticulous research."<ref name = Miller1993>{{cite news | last = Miller | first = L | url = http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/1995/12/02/freud/ | title = Freudian Flame Wars - The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute | accessdate = 2009-04-29 | date = 1995-12-02 | publisher = ] }}</ref> | |||
====The ″Freud Wars″==== | |||
Crews describes his criticisms of Freud as two-pronged – one aimed at Freud's ] and ] standards, and the other aimed at showing that psychoanalysis is a ].<ref>Wade, C., Tavris, C. (2011). ''Psychology'' (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-205-71146-8</ref><ref>{{cite news | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Cheerful assassin defies analysis | url = http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=96726§ioncode=26 | accessdate = 2009-04-29 | date = 1995-03-03 | work = ] }}</ref> Two of his essays, "Analysis Terminable" and "The Unknown Freud", published in 1993, have been described as shots fired at the beginning of the "Freud Wars", a long-running debate over Freud's reputation, work and impact.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E4D6173DF930A25754C0A9659C8B63&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=3 | title = The Literary Freud | last = Merkin | first = D | date = 2003-07-13 | work = ] | accessdate = 2009-02-19}} (subscription required)</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Gellner, Ernest |title=The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason |publisher=Blackwell Pub |location=Cambridge, MA |year=2003 |pages= |isbn=0-631-23413-6 |oclc= |doi= |accessdate=}}</ref> "The Unknown Freud" prompted an unprecedented number of letters to fill the pages of the '']'' for several issues.<ref name = Miller1993/> Crews went on to criticize Freud and psychoanalysis extensively, becoming a major figure in the discussions and criticisms of Freud that occurred during the 1980s and '90s. Crews was one of a number of critics who protested an exhibit presented at the ] in 1998, as too positive and favorable to Freud; the protests delayed the exhibit's opening by almost a year, and almost cancelled it outright.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june99/freud.html | title = A News Hour with Jim Lehrer - Sigmund Freud | date = 1999-01-06 | accessdate = 2009-04-29 | last = Lehrer | first = J |publisher = ] }}</ref> | |||
Crews rejected psychoanalysis entirely in his article "Analysis Terminable" (first published in '']'' in July 1980 and reprinted in his collection ''Skeptical Engagements'' in 1986), citing what he considered its faulty methodology, its ineffectiveness as therapy, and the harm it caused to patients.<ref name="Crews 1986"/> In 1985, Crews reviewed ''The Foundations of Psychoanalysis'' in '']''.<ref>{{cite magazine | last = Crews | first = Frederick | year = 1985 | volume = 92 | issue = 3 | magazine = The New Republic | pages = 28–33 | title = The Future of an Illusion }}</ref> | |||
Two of Crews's essays, "Analysis Terminable" and "The Unknown Freud," (the latter published in 1993), have been described as shots fired during the "Freud Wars," a long-running debate over Freud's reputation, work and impact.<ref>{{cite news | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E4D6173DF930A25754C0A9659C8B63&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=3 | title = The Literary Freud | last = Merkin | first = D | date = July 13, 2003 | work = ] | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625125321/https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/magazine/the-literary-freud.html | url-status = live }} (subscription required)</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Gellner, Ernest |author-link=Ernest Gellner|title=The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason |publisher=Blackwell Pub |location=Cambridge, MA |year=2003 |pages= |isbn=0-631-23413-6 }}</ref> "The Unknown Freud" prompted an unprecedented number of letters to '']'' for several issues.<ref name = Miller1993/> | |||
Crews went on to criticize Freud and psychoanalysis extensively, becoming a major figure in the discussions and criticisms of Freud that occurred during the 1980s and 1990s. Crews was one of almost fifty signatories of a petition submitted by Freud historian ] to the ] requesting that a Freud exhibition the Library had planned be rendered less one-sided; the protests evidently delayed the exhibit's opening by two years.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june99/freud.html |title=A News Hour with Jim Lehrer – Sigmund Freud |date=January 6, 1999 |access-date=April 29, 2009 |last=Lehrer |first=Jim |publisher=] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090531230939/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june99/freud.html |archive-date=May 31, 2009 }}</ref><ref>], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240625125311/https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/11/magazine/the-museum-show-has-an-ego-disorder.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3 |date=June 25, 2024 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-98-027/major-freud-exhibition-to-open-october-15/1998-04-20/ |title=Library of Congress, "Major Freud Exhibition to Open October 15," April 20, 1998 (revised August 20, 1998) |website=] |access-date=August 10, 2022 |archive-date=June 25, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240625125430/https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-98-027/major-freud-exhibition-to-open-october-15/1998-04-20/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Eli Zaretsky, who identifies Crews as one of Freud's most prominent critics, writes that Crews's challenges to Freud and psychoanalysis have gone largely unanswered.<ref>{{cite book|author=Zaretsky, Eli |title=Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis |publisher=] |location=New York |year=2004 |pages= |isbn=0-679-44654-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/secretsofsoul00eliz/page/295 }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine | magazine=] | date=March 23, 2017 | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/03/23/freuds-influence/ | title = Freud's Influence: Eli Zaretsky, reply by Frederick C. Crews | last1 = Crews | first1 = Frederick C. | last2 = Zaretsky | first2 = Eli }}</ref> | |||
====Biography of Freud==== | |||
Crews's ''Freud: The Making of an Illusion'' was published in August 2017.<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/10/26/freuds-clay-feet/ |title=Appignanesi, Lisa, "Freud's Clay Feet: Frederick Crews's biography 'Freud: The Making of an Illusion,'" ''The New York Review of Books'' (October 26, 2017) |journal=The New York Review of Books |date=October 26, 2017 |volume=64 |issue=16 |access-date=June 30, 2021 |archive-date=June 25, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142528/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/10/26/freuds-clay-feet/ |url-status=live |last1=Appignanesi |first1=Lisa }}</ref> Crews's research into letters that Freud wrote to Martha Bernays revealed that Freud's use of cocaine "was more severe and far longer-lasting than previously known. It significantly affected his writing, marriage, moods, and treatment assessments." The letters also revealed that Freud's daughter ] and his biographer ] covered up treatments that were ineffective.<ref name="Barglow">{{cite journal |last1=Barglow |first1=Peter |title=Jettisoning Freud's Spurious Contributions |journal=Skeptical Inquirer |date=2018 |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=56–57 |publisher=Committee for Skeptical Inquirer}}</ref> Crews traces the steps by which Freud was constrained to pursue a medical career, reveals how he overrode therapeutic failures by advancing dubious theoretical claims, and ends by exploring the authoritarian means by which he guided a movement lacking an empirical foundation. The psychiatrist ] concluded: "The culmination of more than 40 years of research ... is doubtful whether it will be surpassed as a scholarly work on Freud as a person or on the origin of his ideas."<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210618100928/https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2017/09/11/frederick-crews-freud-death/ |date=June 18, 2021 }} (September 11, 2017).</ref> | |||
===Criticism of recovered memory therapy=== | ===Criticism of recovered memory therapy=== | ||
In 1993 and 1994, Crews wrote a series of critical essays and reviews of books relating to ] and |
In 1993 and 1994, Crews wrote a series of critical essays and reviews of books relating to ] and recovered memories,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1950 |title=Freud and Memory: An Exchange |publisher=] |last=Crews |first=FC |author2=Erdelyi M |access-date=December 13, 2008 |archive-date=June 25, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240625125911/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/03/23/freud-and-memory-an-exchange/ |url-status=live }}</ref> which also provoked heated debate and letters to the editors of ''The New York Review of Books''.<ref name = Miller1993/> The essays, along with critical and supporting letters and his responses, were published as '']'' (1995).<ref>{{cite book|first=F. |last=Crews |year=1997 |title=The Memory Wars |publisher=] |location=New York |isbn=0-940322-04-8 |pages= |url=https://archive.org/details/memorywarsfreuds00crew/page/71 }}</ref> Crews believes the "memories" of childhood seduction Freud reported were not real memories but constructs that Freud created and forced upon his patients. According to Crews, the ] that Freud abandoned in the late 1890s acted as a precedent and contributing factor to the wave of ] in the 1980s and 1990s.<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/10/reviews/970810.10boxert.html?_r=4&scp=2&sq=Frederick%20Crews&st=cse | title = Floggin Freud | last = Boxer | first = S | work = ] | date = August 10, 1997 | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142428/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/10/reviews/970810.10boxert.html?_r=4&scp=2&sq=Frederick%20Crews&st=cse | url-status = live }} (subscription required)</ref> | ||
Crews |
Crews was a member of the now-disbanded ]'s advisory board<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.fmsfonline.org/?about=AdvisoryBoardProfiles#frederickcrews | title = The FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board – Profiles: FREDERICK C. CREWS, Ph.D. | publisher = ] | access-date = February 9, 2017 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625130822/http://www.fmsfonline.org/?about=AdvisoryBoardProfiles#frederickcrews | url-status = live }}</ref> and was described as "leading a backlash against recovered memory therapy."<ref>{{cite news | url = https://movies.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?res=990CE2D6173CF937A35757C0A963958260&scp=27&sq=Frederick%20Crews&st=cse | title = Television Review; A Growth Industry: Helping Recall Sexual Abuse | access-date = February 19, 2009 | date = April 4, 1995 | work = ] | last = Goodman | first = W }}</ref> | ||
===Other interests=== | ===Other interests=== | ||
====Writing handbooks==== | ====Writing handbooks==== | ||
In 1974, Crews published a |
In 1974, Crews published ''The Random House Handbook'', a best-selling college composition textbook that offered extensive rhetorical advice for writing academic essays as well as reference information on correct and effective use of the English language. The book brought together two aspects of writing instruction not generally covered in a single text. It was widely praised for being highly readable and helpful and was written in a clear, often elegant style, with occasional flashes of humor, something rare in college writing handbooks then or now.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Douglas | first = GH | title = Book Review : The Random House Handbook | doi = 10.1177/002194367401100311 | url = http://job.sagepub.com/cgi/content/citation/11/3/57 | journal = Journal of Business Communication | volume = 11 | issue = 3 | pages = 57 | year = 1974 | s2cid = 144278563 | access-date = April 27, 2009 | archive-date = July 9, 2012 | archive-url = https://archive.today/20120709175241/http://job.sagepub.com/cgi/content/citation/11/3/57 | url-status = live }}</ref> It was also highly successful,<ref>{{cite news | title = College Text 'Dumbing' Aids Sales | work = ] | last = Trombley | first = W | date = January 10, 1982 | pages = A1 }}</ref> running to six editions. Crews also co-authored three editions of ''The Borzoi Handbook for Writers '' for ].<ref>{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Borzoi Handbook for Writers (3rd ed.) |author2=Schor S |author3=Hennessy M | publisher = ] | year = 1993 | isbn = 0-07-911401-6}}</ref> | ||
====Advocacy for the innocence of Jerry Sandusky==== | |||
Up to his death on June 21, Crews continued to advocate for Jerry Sandusky in the belief that Jerry Sandusky is an innocent man. Crews wrote articles such as "A Shower of Lies and the Mess at Penn State"<ref>{{cite web | last=Crews | first=Frederick | title=A Shower Of Lies: Spanier, Sandusky And The Mess At Penn State | website=Big Trial | date=October 6, 2022 | url=https://www.bigtrial.net/2022/10/a-shower-of-lies.html | access-date=July 3, 2024}}</ref> and "The Sandusky Case is Exactly opposite to What the Public Believes: The Case Against Jerry Sandusky Revisited".<ref name=frank>{{cite web | last=Parlato | first=Frank | title=Berkeley Professor, Best Selling Author, Dr. Frederick Crews Has Died; His Last Message Was of Jerry Sandusky's Innocence | website=Frank Report | date=June 26, 2024 | url=https://frankreport.com/2024/06/25/berkeley-professor-best-selling-author-dr-frederick-crews-has-died-his-last-message-was-of-jerry-sanduskys-innocence/ | access-date=July 3, 2024}}</ref> | |||
His last interview on this topic was with the ''Daily Mail'' reporter Emma James as part of recent articles revisiting the Sandusky conviction in light of new evidence and a June 26, 2024 appeal hearing.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}}<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 11, 2024 |title=Docket No. 1059 MDA 203 and 1060 MDA 203 |url=https://www.pacourts.us/Storage/media/pdfs/20240514/192021-24a15.pdf?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3POIWBkZiKJ3j7qkK8wJoc1LaTZQDdaPmlX5opsrwjS_zi9n_dfRXZJk0_aem_0lZqW4FlXGJXCEeOJyDChw |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240705050705/https://www.pacourts.us/Storage/media/pdfs/20240514/192021-24a15.pdf |archive-date=July 5, 2024 |access-date=July 5, 2024 |website=www.pacourts.us/}}</ref> | |||
Crews' advocacy for justice in this case has been documented in a June 25 article on the Frank Report website titled "Berkeley Professor, Best Selling Author, Dr. Frederick Crews Had Died, His Last Message Was of Jerry Sandusky's Innocence".<ref name=frank /> | |||
Crews was motivated to defend Sandusky after reading ''The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment'' by ]. The book served as the basis for Crews' submission to ''Skeptic Magazine'', "Trial by Therapy: The Jerry Sandusky Case Revisited".<ref>{{cite web | last=Crews | first=Frederick | title=Trial by Therapy: The Jerry Sandusky Case Revisited | website=Skeptic | date=January 3, 2018 | url=https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/trial-by-therapy-jerry-sandusky-case-revisited/ | access-date=July 3, 2024}}</ref> Crews expanded on his thoughts in the case in an interview with John Ziegler on the ''World According to Zig'' podcast in October 2019.<ref>{{cite web | title=1 John interviews Frederick Crews | website=SoundCloud | date=October 13, 2019 | url=https://soundcloud.com/freespeechbroadcasting/2019-10-13-1-john-interviews-fred-crews | access-date=July 3, 2024}}</ref> | |||
====''The New York Review of Books''==== | ====''The New York Review of Books''==== | ||
In his capacity as a reviewer for '' |
In his capacity as a reviewer for ''The New York Review of Books'', Crews wrote on various topics including: | ||
* A 1988 review of books, |
* A 1988 review of books, "Whose American Renaissance?" criticizing a growing group of contemporary United States literary critics, whom Crews pejoratively termed "New Americanists," giving the hitherto unnamed movement coherence and a common enemy (Crews himself).<ref name = "Kramer 2001">Kramer, M. (2001). ''American Literary History, 13 (1),'' 108–125.</ref> | ||
* A 1998 review of books related to the UFO |
* A 1998 review of books related to the UFO abduction phenomenon, stating that he believed the use of ], ] and ] by unskilled ], and ] by the subjects were the primary causes of the phenomenon, and sources of the memories.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Crews | first = FC | journal = ] | title = The Mindsnatchers | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=800| access-date = February 19, 2009 | year = 1998 | volume = 45 | issue = 11 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = Crews | first = FC | volume = 45 | issue = 15 | year = 1998 | title = 'When Words Collide': An Exchange | author2 = Dumm TL | author3 = Hopkins B | author4 = Jacobs DM | author5 = Maier DF | journal = ] | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/724 | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142529/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/10/08/when-words-collide-an-exchange/ | url-status = live }}</ref> | ||
* A 2001 review of books related to the ], criticising the ] nature of |
* A 2001 review of books related to the ], criticising the ] nature of creationism and pointing out its lack of scientific merit.<ref>{{cite journal | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14581 | title = Saving us from Darwin | last = Crews | first = FC | journal = ] | volume = 48 | issue = 15 | year = 2001 | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142537/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/10/04/saving-us-from-darwin/ | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14870 | title = 'Saving us from Darwin': An Exchange | last = Crews | first = FC | author2 = Gross C | author3 = Kissin B | author4 = Plantinga A | author5 = Shattuck R | journal = ] | volume = 48 | issue = 19 | year = 2001 | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142538/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/11/29/saving-us-from-darwin-an-exchange/ | url-status = live }}</ref> | ||
* A 2007 review of books relating to ], ]s, discussing in particular ] (Prozac) and ] (Paxil) as part of a lengthy essay on the relationship between pharmaceutical companies, academic ] and psychiatrists and the United States ].<ref>{{cite journal | last = Crews | first = FC | year = 2007| title = Talking Back to Prozac | journal = ] | volume = 54 | issue = 19 | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20851| |
* A 2007 review of books relating to ], ]s, discussing in particular ] (Prozac) and ] (Paxil) as part of a lengthy essay on the relationship between ], academic ] and psychiatrists and the United States ].<ref>{{cite journal | last = Crews | first = FC | year = 2007 | title = Talking Back to Prozac | journal = ] | volume = 54 | issue = 19 | url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20851 | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = June 25, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240625142430/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/12/06/talking-back-to-prozac/ | url-status = live }}</ref> | ||
====Cybereditions==== | |||
Crews served on the editorial board of Cybereditions,<ref>{{cite news | title=Reading between the dots|work=Sydney Morning Herald|date=March 3, 2001 |first=Andrew |last=Riemer|page=8}}</ref> a ] publishing company founded by ] in 2000.<ref>{{Cite news| last = Boynton| first = Robert S.| title = Hoping Web Success Strikes Twice| work = New York Times| location = New York| date = November 11, 2000| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/11/arts/hoping-web-success-strikes-twice.html| access-date = November 22, 2017| archive-date = May 18, 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170518213241/http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/11/arts/hoping-web-success-strikes-twice.html| url-status = live}}</ref> | |||
==Honors and awards== | ==Honors and awards== | ||
* Fulbright Lectureship, Turin, Italy, 1961–62 | * Fulbright Lectureship, Turin, Italy, 1961–62<ref name="Fulbright-Turin-1961-1962" /> | ||
* Essay Prize, National Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1968 | * Essay Prize, National Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1968 | ||
* Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 1965–66 | * Fellow, ], Stanford, 1965–66<ref>{{cite web |title=Frederick Crews |url=https://casbs.stanford.edu/people/frederick-crews |website=casbs.stanford.edu |publisher=] |access-date=June 29, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> | ||
* Guggenheim Fellowship (Literary criticism), 1970<ref name=GF>{{cite web | url = http://www.gf.org/fellows/all?index=c&page=20 | title = The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation list of All Fellows | publisher = ] | access-date = February 19, 2009 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110603234203/http://www.gf.org/fellows/all?index=c&page=20 | archive-date = June 3, 2011 }}</ref> | |||
* Guggenheim Fellowship (Literary criticism), 1970<ref name = GF/> | |||
* Distinguished Teaching Award, University of California, Berkeley, 1985<ref>{{cite web | url = http://teaching.berkeley.edu/goodteachers/crews.html | title = Frederick Crews |
* Distinguished Teaching Award, University of California, Berkeley, 1985<ref>{{cite web | url = http://teaching.berkeley.edu/goodteachers/crews.html | title = Frederick Crews – Distinguished Teaching Award: 1985, English | year = 1985 | access-date = February 19, 2009 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090213005910/http://teaching.berkeley.edu/goodteachers/crews.html | archive-date = February 13, 2009 }}</ref> | ||
* Election to the ], 1991<ref>{{cite web | url = |
* Election to the ], 1991<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.amacad.org/pdfs/alphaList08.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090902163646/http://www.amacad.org/pdfs/alphaList08.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-date = September 2, 2009 | title = Alphabetical Index of Active Members | publisher = ] | access-date = April 27, 2009 }}</ref> | ||
* Faculty Research Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, 1991–92<ref>{{cite web |title=Faculty Research Lecturers 1990–Present |url=https://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/committees/frl/faculty-research-lecturers-1990-present |website=academic-senate.berkeley.edu |publisher=Academic Senate, ] |access-date=June 29, 2024}}</ref> | |||
* Faculty Research Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, 1991–92 | |||
* Editorial Board, |
* Editorial Board, "Rethinking Theory" series, ], 1992–2024 | ||
* Nomination for ] for Nonfiction (''The Critics Bear It Away''), 1992<ref name = Hartford1993/> | * Nomination for ] for Nonfiction (''The Critics Bear It Away''), 1992<ref name = Hartford1993/><ref>{{cite web |title=1992 Winners & Finalists. The National Book Critics Circle Awards |url=https://www.bookcritics.org/past-awards/1992/ |website=] |access-date=June 29, 2024}}</ref> | ||
*] (''The Critics Bear It Away''), 1993<ref name = SDA/> | *] (''The Critics Bear It Away''), 1993<ref name = SDA/> | ||
*Berkeley Citation, 1994<ref>{{cite web | url = http://awards.berkeley.edu/pdf/Berkeley_Citation. |
*Berkeley Citation, 1994<ref>{{cite web | url = http://awards.berkeley.edu/pdf/Berkeley_Citation.pdf | title = University of California, Berkeley Citation: Historical list of recipients as of 12/16/2008 | date = December 16, 2008 | access-date = February 19, 2009 | archive-date = June 9, 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100609221313/http://awards.berkeley.edu/pdf/Berkeley_Citation.pdf | url-status = dead }}</ref> | ||
* Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002, ed. Natalie Angier (]), 2002 | * Inclusion in ''] 2002'', ed. Natalie Angier (]), 2002<ref name="The Best American Science and Nature Writing">{{cite web |title=Online Index to The Best American Science and Nature Writing |url=https://bachlab.balbach.net/basnw.html |website=bachlab.balbach.net |access-date=June 29, 2024}}</ref> | ||
*Fellow, Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health, |
*Fellow, Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health, 2003–2024<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.csmmh.org/fellows.html |title=The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health: Coordinating Committee & Fellows |access-date=February 19, 2009 |publisher=Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100925212504/http://www.csmmh.org/fellows.html |archive-date=September 25, 2010 }}</ref> | ||
*Berkeley Fellow, |
*Berkeley Fellow, 2005–2024 | ||
* Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2005, ed. Jonathan Weiner (Houghton Mifflin), 2005 | * Inclusion in ''The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2005'', ed. Jonathan Weiner (Houghton Mifflin), 2005<ref name="The Best American Science and Nature Writing" /> | ||
* Nominated for National Book Critics Circle Award (''Follies of the Wise''), 2006 | * Nominated for National Book Critics Circle Award (''Follies of the Wise''), 2006<ref>{{cite web | last=Getlin | first=Josh | title=Book Critics Circle nominees declared | website=Los Angeles Times | date=January 21, 2007 | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-21-na-books21-story.html | access-date=June 26, 2024}}</ref> | ||
==Bibliography== | ==Bibliography== | ||
===As author=== | ===As author=== | ||
* {{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James | publisher = ] | year = 1957 | |
* {{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James | url = https://archive.org/details/tragedyofmanners0000crew | url-access = registration | publisher = ] | year = 1957 |orig-year=1971 Archon books re-issue |isbn = 0-208-01047-5 }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism | publisher = ] | year = 1962 | |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism | url = https://archive.org/details/emforsterperils00crew | url-access = registration | publisher = ] | year = 1962 |orig-year=2003 Textbook Publishers re-issue |isbn = 0-7581-5768-1 }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title= The Pooh Perplex: |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title= The Pooh Perplex: A Student Casebook (2003 re-issue)| publisher = ]/] | orig-year = 1963| year = 2003 | isbn = 0-226-12058-9 }} | ||
*{{cite book |
*{{cite book|last=Crews |first=FC |title=The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes |publisher=] |location=Berkeley |orig-year=1966 |year=1989 |isbn=0-520-06817-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/sinsoffathershaw1881crew }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Patch Commission | publisher = ] | year = 1968 |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Patch Commission | url = https://archive.org/details/patchcommission00crew | url-access = registration | publisher = ] | year = 1968 }} | ||
*{{cite book |
*{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, and Critical Method | publisher = ] | year = 1975 | isbn = 0-19-501947-4 | url = https://archive.org/details/outofmysystem00fred }} | ||
*{{cite book |
*{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Random House Handbook | publisher = ] | orig-year = 1980 | year = 1991 | isbn = 0-07-013636-X | url = https://archive.org/details/randomhousehand000crew }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Random House Handbook | publisher = ] | year = 1980/1991 | isbn = 0-07-013636-X }} | |||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Random House Reader | publisher = ] | year = 1981 | isbn = 978-0075535973}} | *{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Random House Reader | publisher = ] | year = 1981 | isbn = 978-0075535973}} | ||
*{{cite book |
*{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = Skeptical Engagements | publisher = ] | isbn = 0-19-503950-5 | year = 1986 | url = https://archive.org/details/skepticalengagem00crew }} | ||
*{{cite book |
*{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy | publisher = ] | year = 1992 | isbn = 0-679-40413-9 | url = https://archive.org/details/criticsbearitawa00crew }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Borzoi Handbook for Writers (3rd ed.) | |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Borzoi Handbook for Writers (3rd ed.) |author2=Schor S |author3=Hennessy M | publisher = ] | year = 1993 | isbn = 0-07-911401-6}} | ||
* |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute | url = https://archive.org/details/memorywarsfreuds00crew | url-access = registration | publisher = ] | year = 1995 | isbn = 0-940322-04-8}} | ||
* |
*{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = Postmodern Pooh | publisher = ] | year = 2001 | isbn = 0-86547-626-8 | url = https://archive.org/details/postmodernpooh00crew }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays | year = 2006 | isbn = 1-59376-101-5 | publisher = Shoemaker & Hoard }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Freud: The Making of an Illusion | year = 2017 | isbn = 9781627797177 | publisher = Metropolitan Books }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays | year = 2006 | isbn = 1-59376-101-5 | publisher = Shoemaker & Hoard | url = http://openlibrary.org/books/OL8874122M/Follies_of_the_Wise }} | |||
===As editor=== | ===As editor=== | ||
* {{cite book |
* {{cite book|last=Hawthorne |first=N. |editor=Crews, FC |title=Great Short Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne |publisher=] |location=New York |year=1962 |isbn=978-0060830748 |url=https://archive.org/details/greatshortworkso00hawt }} | ||
*{{cite book |
*{{cite book| last = Crews | first = FC | title = Psychoanalysis and Literary Process | publisher = Winthrop Publishers | year = 1970 | isbn = 0-13-732362-X | url = https://archive.org/details/psychoanalysisli00crew }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | |
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC |author2=Schell O |author-link2=Orville Schell | title = Starting Over: A College Reader | publisher = ] | year = 1970 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IunrAAAAMAAJ }} | ||
* {{cite book |author=Crews FC; McMichael GL |title= |
* {{cite book |author=Crews, FC; McMichael GL |title=Anthology of American Literature |publisher=] |location=Englewood Cliffs, N.J |year=1997 |isbn=0-13-573973-X |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/anthologyofameri0001unse }} | ||
*{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend | isbn = 0-670-87221-0 | publisher = ] | year = 1998 }} | *{{cite book | last = Crews | first = FC | title = Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend | url = https://archive.org/details/unauthorizedfreu00fred_0 | url-access = registration | isbn = 0-670-87221-0 | publisher = ] | year = 1998 }} | ||
* {{cite book |
* {{cite book|last=Crews |first=FC |author2=McMichael GL |title=Concise Anthology of American Literature |publisher=] |location=Englewood Cliffs, N.J |year=1998 |isbn=0-13-373291-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/conciseanthology00mcmi }} | ||
===As contributor=== | ===As contributor=== | ||
* {{cite book |last =Crane | first = S. | |
* {{cite book |last =Crane | first = S. |editor= E. C. Link |editor2=D. Pizer | title= The Red Badge of Courage (Fourth Edition) (Norton Critical Editions) |publisher= ] |location=New York |year=2007 |isbn=978-0393930757 }} | ||
== |
==References== | ||
{{reflist| |
{{reflist|30em}} | ||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
* by Crews at ] | * at ] magazine | ||
* at the ] | * at the ] | ||
===Articles=== | |||
* , '']'' magazine, July 1980 | |||
===Interviews=== | ===Interviews=== | ||
* with Institute of International Studies, ] | * () with Institute of International Studies, ] (Part of the Institute's "Conversations with History" series) | ||
* |
* from A ] transcripts | ||
{{Criticism of postmodernism}} | |||
{{Authority control|GND=115259724|LCCN=n/79/127921|VIAF=9895057}} | |||
{{Authority control}} | |||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crews, Frederick}} | |||
{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see ]. --> | |||
| NAME =Crews, Frederick C. | |||
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | |||
| SHORT DESCRIPTION = | |||
| DATE OF BIRTH = 1933 | |||
| PLACE OF BIRTH =], ] | |||
| DATE OF DEATH = | |||
| PLACE OF DEATH = | |||
}} | |||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crews, Frederick C.}} | |||
] | ] | ||
] | ] | ||
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Latest revision as of 15:38, 29 November 2024
American essayist and literary critic (1933–2024)
Frederick Crews | |
---|---|
Crews in 2005 | |
Born | (1933-02-20)February 20, 1933 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Died | June 21, 2024(2024-06-21) (aged 91) Oakland, California, U.S. |
Education | Yale University (BA) Princeton University (PhD) |
Frederick Campbell Crews (February 20, 1933 – June 21, 2024) was an American essayist and literary critic. Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, Crews was the author of numerous books, including The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James (1957), E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism (1962), and The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes (1966), a discussion of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He received popular attention for The Pooh Perplex (1963), a book of satirical essays parodying various schools of literary criticism. Initially a proponent of psychoanalytic literary criticism, Crews later rejected psychoanalysis, becoming a critic of Sigmund Freud and his scientific and ethical standards. Crews was a prominent participant in the "Freud wars" of the 1980s and 1990s, a debate over the reputation, scholarship, and impact on the 20th century of Freud, who founded psychoanalysis. In 2017, he published Freud: The Making of an Illusion.
Crews published a variety of skeptical and rationalist essays, including book reviews and commentary for The New York Review of Books, on a variety of topics including Freud and recovered memory therapy, some of which were published in The Memory Wars (1995). He also published successful handbooks for college writers, such as The Random House Handbook.
Life and career
Personal life and death
Crews was born in suburban Philadelphia on February 10, 1933. Both his parents were avid readers and were quite influential in his life, said Crews: "They had both been raised in considerable poverty, and books had been extremely important to them personally, in shaping them. My mother was very literary; my father was very scientific. I feel that I got a little something of both sides." In high school, Crews was co-captain of the tennis team, and for decades he remained an avid skier, hiker, swimmer, and runner. Crews lived in Berkeley with his wife, Elizabeth Crews, a photographer who was born and raised in Berkeley, California. They had two daughters and four grandchildren.
Crews died in Oakland, California on June 21, 2024, at the age of 91.
Education
Crews completed his undergraduate education at Yale University in 1955. Though his degree was in English, Crews entered the Directed Studies program during his first two years at Yale, which he describes as his greatest experience because the program was taught by a coordinated faculty and required students to distribute their courses among sciences, social sciences, literature, and philosophy. He received his PhD in literature from Princeton University in 1958. Crews cited Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hawthorne, and Freud as major influences during his time at Princeton.
Career
In 1958, Crews joined the UC Berkeley English Department, where he taught for 36 years before retiring as its chair in 1994. He was a Fulbright scholar with a lectureship at University of Turin in Italy for the 1961–1962 academic year.
Crews was an anti-war activist from 1965 to about 1970 and advocated draft resistance as co-chair of Berkeley's Faculty Peace Committee. Though he shared the widespread assumption during the mid-1960s that psychoanalytic theory was a valid account of human motivation and was one of the first academics to apply that theory systematically to the study of literature, Crews gradually came to regard psychoanalysis as a pseudoscience. This convinced him that his loyalty should not belong to any theory but rather to empirical standards and the skeptical point of view. Throughout his career, Crews brought his concern for rational discourse to the study of various issues, from the controversy over recovered memory, the credibility of the Rorschach test, and belief in alien abductions to Theosophy and "intelligent design." He also advocated for clear writing based on standards of sound argument and rhetorical effectiveness rather than adherence to rigid school-book rules. "What interests me is general rationality," said Crews in an interview:
General rationality requires us to observe the world carefully, to consider alternative hypotheses to our own hypotheses, to gather evidence in a responsible way, to answer objections. These are habits of mind that science shares with good history, good sociology, good political science, good economics, what have you. And I summarize all this in what I call the "empirical attitude." It's a combination of feeling responsible to the evidence that is available, feeling responsible to go out and find that evidence, including the evidence that is contrary to one's presumptions, and responsibility to be logical with one's self and others. And this is an ideal that is not so much individual as social. The rational attitude doesn't really work when simply applied to one's self. It is something that we owe to each other.
Publications
Satire
In 1963, Crews published his first bestseller The Pooh Perplex: A Student Casebook that satirized the type of casebooks then assigned to first-year university students in introductory literature and composition courses. The book featured a fictitious set of English professors writing essays on A. A. Milne's classic character Winnie-the-Pooh, parodying Marxist, Freudian, Christian, Leavisite and Fiedlerian approaches to analyzing literary texts. Though urged by readers to publish a follow-up volume, Crews delayed writing one until after his retirement in 1994, producing Postmodern Pooh in 2001. While The Pooh Perplex parodies earlier trends in literary criticism, Postmodern Pooh parodies later trends in literary theory. In it, Crews extends the satire of the original, covering more recent critical approaches such as deconstruction, feminism, queer theory, and recovered memory therapy, in part basing the essay authors and their approaches on actual academics and their work.
In The Patch Commission (1968), Crews satirized the activities of Presidential Commissions, displaying his disapproval of American involvement in the then-ongoing Vietnam War. The book is a transcription of the work of the fictional Patch Commission, a discussion among three government commissioners attempting to save the nation from disaster caused by pediatrician Benjamin Spock's overly permissive child-rearing guidelines.
Literary criticism
Much of Crews's career was dedicated to literary criticism. Crews's first book, The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James (1957), was based on a prize-winning essay written by Crews while an undergraduate student at Yale University, initially published as part of a series. In the book, Crews discussed three late novels by Henry James: The Ambassadors (1903), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1904), analyzing how, in those novels, adherence to social conventions serves to keep hidden relationships from coming to light.
In 1962, Crews's doctoral dissertation from Princeton University was published as E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism. In 1966, he published a study of Hawthorne, The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes, in which he examined Hawthorne's entire literary career including unfinished novels; it was re-issued in 1989 with Crews's reassessment of his initial position and an analysis of how literary criticism had dealt with Hawthorne since 1966. In 1970, Crews edited Psychoanalysis and Literary Process, a collection of essays by his students that analyzed a variety of authors from a psychoanalytic perspective; a review by Jose Barchilon credited the book with important accomplishments, including being "an achievement in the teaching and learning of psychoanalysis in a department of literature", which the reviewer noted was a "rare occurrence". The collection included an essay, "Anaesthetic Criticism," in which Crews disparaged contemporary schools of literary criticism, especially that of Northrop Frye and his followers.
In 1986, Crews published The Critics Bear It Away, which was wholly devoted to literary criticism. It was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and won the Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay.
Parts of Crews's 1975 collection Out of My System, the 1986 collection Skeptical Engagements, and the 2006 Follies of the Wise were also dedicated to literary criticism. Crews's repeated message to literary critics is to be critical of their own interpretation when making statements about the meaning of a work. Regarding Crews's position on literary criticism, C. A. Runcie notes, "What Frederick Crews says about psychoanalysis is true for all criticism and its theorizing: 'A critic's sense of limits, like Freud's own, must come from … his awe at how little he can explain.'" Crews has been identified by the literary theorist Joseph Carroll as one of "the very few scholars who have consistently and effectively opposed poststructuralism."
Criticism of Freud and psychoanalysis
Crews began his career using psychoanalytic literary criticism but gradually rejected this approach and psychoanalysis in general. In his article "Reductionism and Its Discontents", published in Out of My System in 1975, Crews stated his belief that psychoanalysis can be usefully applied to literary criticism but expressed growing doubts about its use as a therapeutic approach, suggesting that it had a weak, sometimes comical tradition of criticism. In 1977, Crews read the draft of a work by the philosopher Adolf Grünbaum that later became The Foundations of Psychoanalysis, and helped Grünbaum to obtain a publication offer from the University of California Press. In 1996, Crews credited the psychiatrist Henri F. Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970) with beginning a twenty-five-year-long reevaluation of the position of psychoanalysis within the history of medicine, and acknowledged other book-length critical analyses of Freud and psychotherapy, including Frank Sulloway's Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979), Grünbaum's The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984), and Malcolm Macmillan's Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc (1991). Crews wrote the foreword to the revised 1997 edition of Freud Evaluated, suggesting that its republication "advanced the long debate over psychoanalysis to what may well be its decisive moment".
Crews, who described himself as "a one-time Freudian who had decided to help others resist the fallacies to which I had succumbed in the 1960s", sees his criticisms of Freud as two-pronged – one aimed at Freud's ethical and scientific standards, and the other aimed at showing that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience.
The ″Freud Wars″
Crews rejected psychoanalysis entirely in his article "Analysis Terminable" (first published in Commentary in July 1980 and reprinted in his collection Skeptical Engagements in 1986), citing what he considered its faulty methodology, its ineffectiveness as therapy, and the harm it caused to patients. In 1985, Crews reviewed The Foundations of Psychoanalysis in The New Republic.
Two of Crews's essays, "Analysis Terminable" and "The Unknown Freud," (the latter published in 1993), have been described as shots fired during the "Freud Wars," a long-running debate over Freud's reputation, work and impact. "The Unknown Freud" prompted an unprecedented number of letters to The New York Review of Books for several issues.
Crews went on to criticize Freud and psychoanalysis extensively, becoming a major figure in the discussions and criticisms of Freud that occurred during the 1980s and 1990s. Crews was one of almost fifty signatories of a petition submitted by Freud historian Peter Swales to the Library of Congress requesting that a Freud exhibition the Library had planned be rendered less one-sided; the protests evidently delayed the exhibit's opening by two years. Eli Zaretsky, who identifies Crews as one of Freud's most prominent critics, writes that Crews's challenges to Freud and psychoanalysis have gone largely unanswered.
Biography of Freud
Crews's Freud: The Making of an Illusion was published in August 2017. Crews's research into letters that Freud wrote to Martha Bernays revealed that Freud's use of cocaine "was more severe and far longer-lasting than previously known. It significantly affected his writing, marriage, moods, and treatment assessments." The letters also revealed that Freud's daughter Anna and his biographer Ernest Jones covered up treatments that were ineffective. Crews traces the steps by which Freud was constrained to pursue a medical career, reveals how he overrode therapeutic failures by advancing dubious theoretical claims, and ends by exploring the authoritarian means by which he guided a movement lacking an empirical foundation. The psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey concluded: "The culmination of more than 40 years of research ... is doubtful whether it will be surpassed as a scholarly work on Freud as a person or on the origin of his ideas."
Criticism of recovered memory therapy
In 1993 and 1994, Crews wrote a series of critical essays and reviews of books relating to repressed and recovered memories, which also provoked heated debate and letters to the editors of The New York Review of Books. The essays, along with critical and supporting letters and his responses, were published as The Memory Wars (1995). Crews believes the "memories" of childhood seduction Freud reported were not real memories but constructs that Freud created and forced upon his patients. According to Crews, the seduction theory that Freud abandoned in the late 1890s acted as a precedent and contributing factor to the wave of false allegations of childhood sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s.
Crews was a member of the now-disbanded False Memory Syndrome Foundation's advisory board and was described as "leading a backlash against recovered memory therapy."
Other interests
Writing handbooks
In 1974, Crews published The Random House Handbook, a best-selling college composition textbook that offered extensive rhetorical advice for writing academic essays as well as reference information on correct and effective use of the English language. The book brought together two aspects of writing instruction not generally covered in a single text. It was widely praised for being highly readable and helpful and was written in a clear, often elegant style, with occasional flashes of humor, something rare in college writing handbooks then or now. It was also highly successful, running to six editions. Crews also co-authored three editions of The Borzoi Handbook for Writers for McGraw-Hill.
Advocacy for the innocence of Jerry Sandusky
Up to his death on June 21, Crews continued to advocate for Jerry Sandusky in the belief that Jerry Sandusky is an innocent man. Crews wrote articles such as "A Shower of Lies and the Mess at Penn State" and "The Sandusky Case is Exactly opposite to What the Public Believes: The Case Against Jerry Sandusky Revisited".
His last interview on this topic was with the Daily Mail reporter Emma James as part of recent articles revisiting the Sandusky conviction in light of new evidence and a June 26, 2024 appeal hearing.
Crews' advocacy for justice in this case has been documented in a June 25 article on the Frank Report website titled "Berkeley Professor, Best Selling Author, Dr. Frederick Crews Had Died, His Last Message Was of Jerry Sandusky's Innocence".
Crews was motivated to defend Sandusky after reading The Most Hated Man in America: Jerry Sandusky and the Rush to Judgment by Mark Pendergrast. The book served as the basis for Crews' submission to Skeptic Magazine, "Trial by Therapy: The Jerry Sandusky Case Revisited". Crews expanded on his thoughts in the case in an interview with John Ziegler on the World According to Zig podcast in October 2019.
The New York Review of Books
In his capacity as a reviewer for The New York Review of Books, Crews wrote on various topics including:
- A 1988 review of books, "Whose American Renaissance?" criticizing a growing group of contemporary United States literary critics, whom Crews pejoratively termed "New Americanists," giving the hitherto unnamed movement coherence and a common enemy (Crews himself).
- A 1998 review of books related to the UFO abduction phenomenon, stating that he believed the use of hypnosis, suggestion and demand characteristics by unskilled hypnotherapists, and confabulation by the subjects were the primary causes of the phenomenon, and sources of the memories.
- A 2001 review of books related to the creation–evolution controversy, criticising the question-begging nature of creationism and pointing out its lack of scientific merit.
- A 2007 review of books relating to major depressive disorder, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, discussing in particular fluoxetine (Prozac) and paroxetine (Paxil) as part of a lengthy essay on the relationship between pharmaceutical companies, academic psychiatry and psychiatrists and the United States Food and Drug Administration.
Cybereditions
Crews served on the editorial board of Cybereditions, a print on demand publishing company founded by Denis Dutton in 2000.
Honors and awards
- Fulbright Lectureship, Turin, Italy, 1961–62
- Essay Prize, National Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1968
- Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 1965–66
- Guggenheim Fellowship (Literary criticism), 1970
- Distinguished Teaching Award, University of California, Berkeley, 1985
- Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1991
- Faculty Research Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, 1991–92
- Editorial Board, "Rethinking Theory" series, Northwestern University Press, 1992–2024
- Nomination for National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction (The Critics Bear It Away), 1992
- PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay (The Critics Bear It Away), 1993
- Berkeley Citation, 1994
- Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002, ed. Natalie Angier (Houghton Mifflin), 2002
- Fellow, Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health, 2003–2024
- Berkeley Fellow, 2005–2024
- Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2005, ed. Jonathan Weiner (Houghton Mifflin), 2005
- Nominated for National Book Critics Circle Award (Follies of the Wise), 2006
Bibliography
As author
- Crews, FC (1957) . The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-208-01047-5.
- Crews, FC (1962) . E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-7581-5768-1.
- Crews, FC (2003) . The Pooh Perplex: A Student Casebook (2003 re-issue). E.P. Dutton/University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-12058-9.
- Crews, FC (1989) . The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06817-3.
- Crews, FC (1968). The Patch Commission. E. P. Dutton.
- Crews, FC (1975). Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, and Critical Method. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-501947-4.
- Crews, FC (1991) . The Random House Handbook. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-013636-X.
- Crews, FC (1981). The Random House Reader. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0075535973.
- Crews, FC (1986). Skeptical Engagements. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503950-5.
- Crews, FC (1992). The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy. Random House. ISBN 0-679-40413-9.
- Crews, FC; Schor S; Hennessy M (1993). The Borzoi Handbook for Writers (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-911401-6.
- Crews, FC (1995). The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute. The New York Review of Books. ISBN 0-940322-04-8.
- Crews, FC (2001). Postmodern Pooh. North Point Press. ISBN 0-86547-626-8.
- Crews, FC (2006). Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays. Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 1-59376-101-5.
- Crews, FC (2017). Freud: The Making of an Illusion. Metropolitan Books. ISBN 9781627797177.
As editor
- Hawthorne, N. (1962). Crews, FC (ed.). Great Short Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0060830748.
- Crews, FC (1970). Psychoanalysis and Literary Process. Winthrop Publishers. ISBN 0-13-732362-X.
- Crews, FC; Schell O (1970). Starting Over: A College Reader. Random House.
- Crews, FC; McMichael GL (1997). Anthology of American Literature. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-573973-X.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Crews, FC (1998). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-87221-0.
- Crews, FC; McMichael GL (1998). Concise Anthology of American Literature. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-373291-6.
As contributor
- Crane, S. (2007). E. C. Link; D. Pizer (eds.). The Red Badge of Courage (Fourth Edition) (Norton Critical Editions). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393930757.
References
- "Frederick C. Crews, Emeritus – Staff page at UC, Berkeley". University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Publications, Europa (August 23, 2007). Profile of Frederick Campbell Crews. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-85743-428-6. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved November 17, 2018.
- ^ Fuchs, Jake (Mar 28, 2006). "Books: Crews Skewers Follies of the Wise in New Collection" Archived December 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine The Berkeley Daily Planet.
- ^ Kreisler, H. (Interviewer) & Crews, F. (Interviewee). (1999). "Criticism and the Empirical Attitude: Conversation with Frederick Crews" [Interview transcript] Archived May 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved from Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley Web site. Archived September 22, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- Veale, Scott (June 24, 2024). "Frederick Crews, Withering Critic of Freud's Legacy, Dies at 91". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
- Smith, Harrison (June 28, 2024). "Frederick Crews, literary critic and steely Freud skeptic, dies at 91". Washington Post. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
- ^ Marcus, D (January 30, 2002). "Lit crit Frederick Crews *58, author of The Pooh Perplex, pokes the Academy once more with his new book, Postmodern Pooh". Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved April 28, 2009.
- "Details for: Frederick C. Crews". University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015. Retrieved April 27, 2009.
- ^ "Frederick Crews". Fulbright Scholar Program, fulbrightscholars.org. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
- Crews, FC (2005). Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays. Shoemaker & Hoard. p. 220. ISBN 1-59376-101-5.
- Giffin, M. (2012). "Literary academics are full of pooh." Archived December 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Quadrant, LVI(1–2), 25–29.
- Crews, FC (1968). The Patch Commission. E. P. Dutton. ASIN B001SUMQ08
- Erickson, P (1993). "The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy – book reviews". Criticism. Retrieved April 27, 2009.
- "Anti-Youth Movements". Time. August 2, 1968. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved April 28, 2009.
- ^ Carlson SJ (1985). Women of grace: James's plays and the comedy of manners. Ann Arbor, Mich: UMI Research Press. pp. 5. ISBN 0-8357-1617-1.
- Crews, FC (1958). "The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James". Yale University. Undergraduate Prize Essays. 10. Yale University Press.
- Simon L (2007). The Critical Reception of Henry James: Creating a Master (Literary Criticism in Perspective) (Literary Criticism in Perspective). Columbia, SC, USA: Camden House. pp. 78. ISBN 978-1-57113-319-9.
- Crews, FC (1962). E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism. Princeton University Press. pp. vii. ISBN 0-7581-5768-1.
- Crews, Frederick C. (1989). The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06817-3.
- Frederick Crews - The Sins of the Fathers. University of California Press. October 1989. ISBN 978-0-520-06817-9. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
- Tompkins, Jane P. (1980). Reader-response criticism: from formalism to post-structuralism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-2401-X.
- Barchilon, J (1973). "Book Review: Psychoanalysis and Literary Process: Edited by Frederick Crews". The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 42: 644–51. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
- Stern, HR (1973). "Book Review: Psychoanalysis and Literary Process. Frederick Crews (ed.)". The Psychoanalytic Review. 60: 304–5. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
- Crews, FC (1992). The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy. Random House. ISBN 0-679-40413-9.
- ^ "Critics nominate best books of '92". The Hartford Courant. January 19, 1993. pp. C.6. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
- ^ "Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay Winners". Archived from the original on March 16, 2009. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- ^ Crews, FC (1975). Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology, and Critical Method. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-501947-4.
- ^ Crews, FC (1986). Skeptical Engagements. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503950-5.
- Crews, FC (2005). Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays. Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 1-59376-101-5.
- Runcie, C. A. (1990). "Dignifying Signifying: A Meditation on Interpretation." Archived August 8, 2014, at the Wayback Machine The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, 15, 71–86.
- Carroll, Joseph (1995). "Evolution and Literary Theory". Human Nature. 6 (2). Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press: 119–134. doi:10.1007/BF02734174. ISBN 0-8262-0979-3. PMID 24202937. S2CID 206821344.
- Grünbaum, Adolf (1984). The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. University of California Press. pp. xi–xii. ISBN 0-520-05016-9.
- Crews, FC (1996). "The Verdict on Freud". Psychological Science. 7 (2): 63–8. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00331.x. S2CID 143453699. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008.
- Macmillan, Malcolm (1997). Freud Evaluated: The Completed Arc. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. vii. ISBN 0-262-63171-7. (originally published in 1991).
- ^ Miller, L (December 2, 1995). "Freudian Flame Wars – The Memory Wars: Freud's Legacy in Dispute". Salon.com. Archived from the original on January 10, 2008. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
- Wade, C., Tavris, C. (2011). Psychology (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-205-71146-8
- Crews, FC (March 3, 1995). "Cheerful assassin defies analysis". Times Higher Education. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
- Crews, Frederick (1985). "The Future of an Illusion". The New Republic. Vol. 92, no. 3. pp. 28–33.
- Merkin, D (July 13, 2003). "The Literary Freud". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved February 19, 2009. (subscription required)
- Gellner, Ernest (2003). The Psychoanalytic Movement: The Cunning of Unreason. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Pub. pp. xxii. ISBN 0-631-23413-6.
- Lehrer, Jim (January 6, 1999). "A News Hour with Jim Lehrer – Sigmund Freud". PBS.com. Archived from the original on May 31, 2009. Retrieved April 29, 2009.
- Talbot, Margaret, "The Museum Show Has An Ego Disorder," The New York Times, October 11, 1998 Archived June 25, 2024, at the Wayback Machine
- "Library of Congress, "Major Freud Exhibition to Open October 15," April 20, 1998 (revised August 20, 1998)". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved August 10, 2022.
- Zaretsky, Eli (2004). Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 295, 339. ISBN 0-679-44654-0.
- Crews, Frederick C.; Zaretsky, Eli (March 23, 2017). "Freud's Influence: Eli Zaretsky, reply by Frederick C. Crews". The New York Review of Books.
- Appignanesi, Lisa (October 26, 2017). "Appignanesi, Lisa, "Freud's Clay Feet: Frederick Crews's biography 'Freud: The Making of an Illusion,'" The New York Review of Books (October 26, 2017)". The New York Review of Books. 64 (16). Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
- Barglow, Peter (2018). "Jettisoning Freud's Spurious Contributions". Skeptical Inquirer. 42 (1). Committee for Skeptical Inquirer: 56–57.
- "The Death of Freud," National Review Archived June 18, 2021, at the Wayback Machine (September 11, 2017).
- Crews, FC; Erdelyi M. "Freud and Memory: An Exchange". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved December 13, 2008.
- Crews, F. (1997). The Memory Wars. New York: The New York Review of Books. pp. 71. ISBN 0-940322-04-8.
- Boxer, S (August 10, 1997). "Floggin Freud". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved February 19, 2009. (subscription required)
- "The FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board – Profiles: FREDERICK C. CREWS, Ph.D." False Memory Syndrome Foundation. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
- Goodman, W (April 4, 1995). "Television Review; A Growth Industry: Helping Recall Sexual Abuse". The New York Times. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Douglas, GH (1974). "Book Review : The Random House Handbook". Journal of Business Communication. 11 (3): 57. doi:10.1177/002194367401100311. S2CID 144278563. Archived from the original on July 9, 2012. Retrieved April 27, 2009.
- Trombley, W (January 10, 1982). "College Text 'Dumbing' Aids Sales". Los Angeles Times. pp. A1.
- Crews, FC; Schor S; Hennessy M (1993). The Borzoi Handbook for Writers (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-911401-6.
- Crews, Frederick (October 6, 2022). "A Shower Of Lies: Spanier, Sandusky And The Mess At Penn State". Big Trial. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
- ^ Parlato, Frank (June 26, 2024). "Berkeley Professor, Best Selling Author, Dr. Frederick Crews Has Died; His Last Message Was of Jerry Sandusky's Innocence". Frank Report. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
- "Docket No. 1059 MDA 203 and 1060 MDA 203" (PDF). www.pacourts.us/. June 11, 2024. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 5, 2024. Retrieved July 5, 2024.
- Crews, Frederick (January 3, 2018). "Trial by Therapy: The Jerry Sandusky Case Revisited". Skeptic. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
- "1 John interviews Frederick Crews". SoundCloud. October 13, 2019. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
- Kramer, M. (2001). "Imagining Authorship in America: "Whose American Renaissance?" Revisited." American Literary History, 13 (1), 108–125.
- Crews, FC (1998). "The Mindsnatchers". The New York Review of Books. 45 (11). Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Crews, FC; Dumm TL; Hopkins B; Jacobs DM; Maier DF (1998). "'When Words Collide': An Exchange". The New York Review of Books. 45 (15). Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Crews, FC (2001). "Saving us from Darwin". The New York Review of Books. 48 (15). Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Crews, FC; Gross C; Kissin B; Plantinga A; Shattuck R (2001). "'Saving us from Darwin': An Exchange". The New York Review of Books. 48 (19). Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Crews, FC (2007). "Talking Back to Prozac". The New York Review of Books. 54 (19). Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Riemer, Andrew (March 3, 2001). "Reading between the dots". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 8.
- Boynton, Robert S. (November 11, 2000). "Hoping Web Success Strikes Twice". New York Times. New York. Archived from the original on May 18, 2017. Retrieved November 22, 2017.
- "Frederick Crews". casbs.stanford.edu. Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
- "The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation list of All Fellows". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Archived from the original on June 3, 2011. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- "Frederick Crews – Distinguished Teaching Award: 1985, English". 1985. Archived from the original on February 13, 2009. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- "Alphabetical Index of Active Members" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 2, 2009. Retrieved April 27, 2009.
- "Faculty Research Lecturers 1990–Present". academic-senate.berkeley.edu. Academic Senate, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
- "1992 Winners & Finalists. The National Book Critics Circle Awards". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
- "University of California, Berkeley Citation: Historical list of recipients as of 12/16/2008" (PDF). December 16, 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 9, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- ^ "Online Index to The Best American Science and Nature Writing". bachlab.balbach.net. Retrieved June 29, 2024.
- "The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health: Coordinating Committee & Fellows". Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health. Archived from the original on September 25, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
- Getlin, Josh (January 21, 2007). "Book Critics Circle nominees declared". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
External links
- Book reviews by Crews at The New York Review of Books magazine
- Frederick C. Crews at the Open Library
Articles
- "Analysis Terminable" (archived 2019), Commentary magazine, July 1980
Interviews
- 1999 Interview (Video) with Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley (Part of the Institute's "Conversations with History" series)
- Online NewsHour: Sigmund Freud — January 6, 1999: Interview with Prof. Frederick Crews (archived 2008) from A NewsHour with Jim Lehrer transcripts
Criticism of postmodernism | |
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- 1933 births
- 2024 deaths
- American literary critics
- American skeptics
- American critics of postmodernism
- Germantown Academy alumni
- PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award winners
- Princeton University alumni
- University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
- Writers from Philadelphia
- Yale University alumni