The dust-jacket of this book reproduces a detail from Raphael's "The School of Athens", in which the great thinkers of the ancient world are anachronistically assembled as though for one great toga-wearing seminar (Marjorie Garber discusses the picture as emblematic of the yearning to cross disciplinary as well as chronological boundaries). In the foreground of the original, Diogenes the Cynic lounges on the steps, leaving a space between himself and the more loftily discoursing Plato and Aristotle. Into this space a digitally enhanced photo of Ms Garber and her two golden retrievers has been deftly inserted. Anyone who thinks the academic world is going to the dogs should read this book—though if you are at all allergic to chutzpah, the jacket should serve as the equivalent to the wain-ing that a product may contain nuts.
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