"A sobering analysis of the limited political potential of today’s English departments. . . Hines’s interest lies in the political and economic circumstances that have shaped methodologies for literary study. Hines and Guillory agree that the English department has never not been in the midst of an unfolding crisis: for Hines, this is a matter of the ordinary but deepening devastating crisis of racial capitalism."

Public Books

"Hines, the associate director of the Aydelotte Foundation at Swarthmore College, explores in this astute critical work the rarely discussed challenges to the New Criticism movement faced by Black writers and scholars of the mid-20th century. . . . Perfect for scholars and students, this provides invaluable insight into the racial dynamics of mid-century literary criticism."

Publishers Weekly

“Outside Literary Studies deftly weaves literary, cultural, and political history together in a refreshing and provocative reinterpretation of postwar literary criticism. Hines carefully reconstructs the arguments that Black critics, poets, and writers advanced in order to challenge the dominant hold of New Criticism, and he shows how the legacy of those arguments led to the development of alternative pedagogical models for the modern university. The result is a book that is timely, deeply engaged, and illuminating.”

Jesse McCarthy, Harvard University

“This indispensable book beautifully shows that Black left writers developed a critique of the state and of the ruling literary conventions within the academy for how they abetted anti-Black violence. In doing so, Hines demonstrates that the history of the Black literary left must be understood as a critique of disciplinarity rather than a complement to it.”

Roderick A. Ferguson, Yale University

“Outside Literary Studies offers inside knowledge of two warring twentieth-century institutions: the political economy of the New Criticism and the educational agencies of Black radical writing. With blunt, concrete detail, Hines demonstrates how the odd couple of Southern Agrarianism and US federal surveillance showered practical criticism on the likes of Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, and Melvin Tolson—and how such figures pioneered a newer left criticism, both racial and formal, in response.”

William J. Maxwell, Washington University in St. Louis

"Hines’s collection of interrelated essays describes the emergence of a lively, creative, alternative model of class and race conscious education featuring Black literary figures and social critics who thrived in mid-20th century community-based cooperatives. . . Aimed primarily at scholars of education and those interested in literary movements, this book is clearly argued. . . and will prove useful for those exploring the flowering of Black creativity in the mid-20th century."

Choice