| This study of sixteen post-1950 academic novels analyzes the professor as main character and posits the argument that the academic novel has become in contemporary times an important and increasingly utilized form and that the professors who are the main characters in post-1950 academic novels are heroic, in the post-modern sense of the term.;Chapter One introduces the argument, reviews the history of the academic novel, sets forth the process of selecting the novels, and summarizes them. Chapter Two begins the three-chapter discussion and analysis of the portrait of the professor in the sixteen novels. It describes and analyzes the characters at work, as seen in three significant activities: teaching, working on their own research, and going to professional meetings. Chapter Three describes the professor in these novels as he is portrayed in his relationships with administrators, colleagues, and family, friends, and lovers. Financial matters and the way outsiders to the academy view the professor are treated in this chapter, too. Chapter Four shows how the professor is caught within his discipline, how it becomes a part of his psyche. Chapter Five examines the endings of the novels and completes the argument that these professors are heroes in the post-modern sense of the term. |
