"On the contested terrain of cultural studies, the debate has often focused on the blurring of the line between the poetic and the political. The future of the academic profession, the move toward a return to "literary readings," and the function/usefulness of art and poetry today are all tied up in this issue. The real need, however, is to complicate the argument between the two, and this volume addresses that need by using the classroom as the specific site for that critical practice. How does one teach one's students "the tactics of composition"? Or instruct them about the "disavowal of power" in the canonical voices of both poetic and scientific discourses? These are just a few of the questions taken up by the contributors of Poetics/Politics. The essays in this volume attempt to address this debate and ask why the poetic and the political seem at odds in today's society, literature, and current events."--BOOK JACKET.