Frederick C. Crews
| Frederick Crews | |
|---|---|
(2005)
|
|
| Born | 1933 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Residence | Berkeley, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | American literature |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley |
| Known for |
The Pooh Perplex |
The Pooh Perplex
Critique of Sigmund Freud
Frederick Campbell Crews (born 1933) is an American essayist and literary critic. Professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, Crews is 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 (1966), a discussion of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He received popular attention for The Pooh Perplex (1963), a book of satirical essays parodying contemporary casebooks. 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 the founder of psychoanalysis.
Crews has 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 which were published in The Memory Wars (1995). Crews has also published successful handbooks for college writers, such as The Random House Handbook.
Crews was born in suburban Philadelphia in 1933. 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.” In high school, Crews was co-captain of the tennis team, and for decades he remained an avid skier, hiker, swimmer, and runner. Crews lives in Berkeley with his wife of 57 years, Elizabeth Crews, a photographer who was born and raised in Berkeley, California. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.
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