Frederick C. Crews
Encyclopedia
Frederick Campbell Crews (born 1933, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

) is an award-winning American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 essayist, literary critic
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

, author, and Professor Emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

 of English at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. He received popular attention for The Pooh Perplex, a book of satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 essays parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

ing contemporary casebooks. Initially a proponent of psychoanalytic literary criticism
Psychoanalytic literary criticism
Psychoanalytic literary criticism refers to literary criticism or literary theory which, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud....

, Crews later moved away from, and in the early 1980s rejected psychoanalysis, going on to criticize Freud's scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 and ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

 standards. Crews became a prominent critic of Freud during the "Freud wars" of the 1980s and 90s, which debated the Viennese psychoanalyst's reputation, scholarship and impact on the 20th century.

Crews has also published a variety of skeptical
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...

 and rationalist
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

 essays, including book reviews and commentary for The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

, on a variety of topics including Freud's work and recovered memory therapy
Recovered memory therapy
Recovered-memory therapy is a term coined by affiliates of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the early 1990s, to refer what they described as a range of psychotherapy methods based on recalling memories of abuse that had previously been forgotten by the patient...

, both of which were published as separate collections. Crews has also published several successful handbook
Handbook
A handbook is a type of reference work, or other collection of instructions, that is intended to provide ready reference .A handbook is sometimes referred to as a vade mecum or pocket reference that is intended to be carried at all times.Handbooks may deal with any topic, and are generally...

s on the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

Biography

Crews completed his undergraduate education at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, and received his Ph.D
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in 1958. As of 2009, Crews was a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

.

Satire

In 1963, Crews published his first bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...

 The Pooh Perplex: A Student Casebook that satirized
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 the casebooks then assigned to first-year university students in introductory courses to English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

 or rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

. Derived in part from a play put on by Crews's English department in 1958, the book featured a fictitious set of English professors writing exegetical
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...

 essays on A. A. Milne
A. A. Milne
Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...

's classic character Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh , and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner...

, parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

ing Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, Freudian
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

, Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, Leavisite
F. R. Leavis
Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis CH was an influential British literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for nearly his entire career at Downing College, Cambridge.-Early life:...

 and Fiedlerian
Leslie Fiedler
Leslie Aaron Fiedler was a Jewish-American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction. His work also involves application of psychological theories to American literature. He was in practical terms one of the early postmodernist critics working...

 approaches. Though urged by readers to publish a follow-up volume, Crews delayed writing a follow-up until after his retirement in 1994, producing Postmodern Pooh in 2001. The follow-up book repeated the satire of the original with more contemporary critical perspectives such as deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...

, radical feminism
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...

, queer theory
Queer theory
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...

, and recovered memory therapy
Recovered memory therapy
Recovered-memory therapy is a term coined by affiliates of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the early 1990s, to refer what they described as a range of psychotherapy methods based on recalling memories of abuse that had previously been forgotten by the patient...

, in part basing the essay authors and their approaches on actual academics and their work.

A 1968 publication by Crews entitled The Patch Commission was a satirical look at Presidential Commissions
Presidential Commission (United States)
In the United States, a Presidential Commission is a special task force ordained by the President to complete some special research or investigation...

 that emphasized his disapproval of American involvement in the then-ongoing Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. The book is transcription of the fictional Patch Commission, a discussion between three government commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner is in principle the title given to a member of a commission or to an individual who has been given a commission ....

s attempting to save the nation from disaster caused by 'Doc Spock's
Benjamin Spock
Benjamin McLane Spock was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Its message to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do."Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand...

 overly permissive child-rearing guidelines.

Literary criticism

Much of Crews's career has been dedicated to literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

. Crews's first book was The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James, published in 1957, was based on a prize-winning essay written by Crews while an undergraduate
Undergraduate education
Undergraduate education is an education level taken prior to gaining a first degree . Hence, in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is...

 student at Yale University, initially published as part of a series. The book discussed three late novels by Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....

: The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review . This dark comedy, one of the masterpieces of James's final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of Chad, his widowed fiancée's supposedly...

, The Wings of the Dove
The Wings of the Dove
The Wings of the Dove is a 1902 novel by Henry James. This novel tells the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her impact on the people around her...

, and The Golden Bowl
The Golden Bowl
The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James' career...

, analyzing the function and tensions within a system of manners
Manners
In sociology, manners are the unenforced standards of conduct which demonstrate that a person is proper, polite, and refined. They are like laws in that they codify or set a standard for human behavior, but they are unlike laws in that there is no formal system for punishing transgressions, the...

, the interaction between an individual's ethics and their reflection within the values of a community. In 1962, Crews's doctoral dissertation from Princeton University was published as E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism. In 1966, he published a study of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...

, The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes, which examined Hawthorne's entire literary career including unfinished novels; published as a Freudian analysis, it was re-issued in 1989 with Crews's reassessment of his initial position and how literary criticism has dealt with Hawthorne since 1966. In 1970, Crews edited Psychoanalysis and Literary Process, a collection of essays by Crews's students that analyzed a variety of authors from a psychoanalytic perspective. The collection included Crews's essay "Anaesthetic Criticism" that disparaged contemporary schools of literary criticism.

In 1986, Crews published The Critics Bear It Away, which was wholly devoted to literary criticism. The Critics Bear It Away was described as part of a Liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 revival within education after a long period of Conservatism
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 focussing on the revision of the Western canon
Western canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...

, and filled with an internal conflict between Crews's sympathies with and opposition to the revisionist position. The Critics Bear It Away was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....

 for nonfiction and won the Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay Winners Parts of his 1975 collection Out of My System, the 1986 collection Skeptical Engagements, and the 2005 Follies of the Wise were also dedicated to literary criticism.

Criticism of Freud and psychoanalysis

Crews began his career using a psychoanalytic literary criticism
Psychoanalytic literary criticism
Psychoanalytic literary criticism refers to literary criticism or literary theory which, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud....

 position but gradually rejected this approach and psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

 in general. In his article "Reductionism and Its Discontents", published in Out of My System in 1975, Crews stated his belief that psychoanalysis can be usefully applied to literary criticism but expressed growing doubts about its use as a therapeutic
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...

 approach, suggesting that it had a weak, sometimes comical tradition of criticism. Crews rejected psychoanalysis entirely in his article "Analysis Terminable" (first published in Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...

in 1980 and reprinted in his collection Skeptical Engagements in 1986) citing what he considered its faulty methodology, its ineffectiveness as therapy, and the harm it caused to parents. Describing himself as "a one-time Freudian who had decided to help others resist the fallacies to which I had succumbed in the 1960s", his position was summarized in Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

 as "psychoanalysis is a spurious, ineffective pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...

, based on the fudged data of an unscrupulous and calculating founder and perpetuated by followers who mimic his craftiness in a 'shell game whereby critics of Freudianism are always told that new breakthroughs render their strictures obsolete,'" supporting his objections to Freud's personal qualities and theories empirically
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...

 with "extensive and meticulous research".

Crews describes his criticisms of Freud as two-pronged - one aimed at Freud's ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

 and scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 standards, and the other aimed at showing that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience. Two of his essays, "Analysis Terminable" and "The Unknown Freud", published in 1993, have been described as shots fired at the beginning of the "Freud Wars," a long-running debate over Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

's reputation, work and impact. "The Unknown Freud" prompted an unprecedented number of letters to fill the pages of the The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

for several issues. Crews went on to criticize Freud and psychoanalysis extensively, becoming a major figure in the discussions and criticisms of Freud that occurred during the 1980s and '90s. In 1996, Crews credited Henri F. Ellenberger
Henri Ellenberger
Henri F. Ellenberger was a Canadian-Swiss psychiatrist, medical historian, and criminologist, sometimes considered the founding historiographer of psychiatry....

's The Discovery of the Unconscious
The Discovery of the Unconscious
The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry is a classic work of medical history and historiography, written by the Swiss medical historian Henri F. Ellenberger...

with beginning a twenty five year long reevaluation of the position of psychoanalysis within the history of medicine. Crews was one of a number of critics who protested an exhibit presented at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 in 1998, as too positive and favorable to Freud; the protests delayed the exhibit's opening by almost a year, and almost cancelled it outright.

Criticism of recovered memory therapy

In 1993 and 1994, Crews wrote a series of critical essays and reviews of books relating to repressed
Repressed memory
Repressed memory is a hypothetical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life...

 and recovered memories
Recovered memory therapy
Recovered-memory therapy is a term coined by affiliates of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the early 1990s, to refer what they described as a range of psychotherapy methods based on recalling memories of abuse that had previously been forgotten by the patient...

, which also provoked heated debate and letters to the editors of The New York Review of Books. The essays, along with critical and supporting letters and his responses, were published as The Memory Wars in 1995 and Crews's articles alone were republished as Follies of the Wise in 2006. Crews believes the memories and fantasies of childhood seduction reported by Freud were not real memories but were constructs created by him and forced upon his patients. The seduction theory
Freud's seduction theory
Freud's seduction theory was a hypothesis posited in the mid-1890s by Sigmund Freud that he believed provided the solution to the problem of the origins of hysteria and obsessional neurosis...

 that Freud abandoned in the late 1890s is seen by Crews as a precedent and contributing factor to the wave of false allegations of childhood sexual abuse
False allegation of child sexual abuse
A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an accusation that a person committed one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged. Such accusations can be brought by the alleged victim , or by another person on the alleged...

 in the 1980s and 1990s.

Crews is a member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
False Memory Syndrome Foundation
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 by Pamela and Peter Freyd, after being accused by their adult daughter Jennifer Freyd of sexual abuse when she was a child...

's advisory board and has been described as "leading a backlash against recovered memory therapy."

Writing handbooks

In 1974, Crews published a handbook
Handbook
A handbook is a type of reference work, or other collection of instructions, that is intended to provide ready reference .A handbook is sometimes referred to as a vade mecum or pocket reference that is intended to be carried at all times.Handbooks may deal with any topic, and are generally...

 for Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

 on the proper uses of the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. The book was praised for being extremely readable, helpful, and written as if Crews enjoyed writing it and was highly successful, running to nine editions. Crews also produced The Borzoi handbook for writers for McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., is a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial, education, publishing, broadcasting, and business services...

 as well as a variety of supplementary workbooks.

The New York Review of Books

In his capacity as a reviewer for The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

, Crews has used a rational
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

, critical and skeptical
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...

 position to address diverse topics, often using satire to make his points. In addition to his publications on Freud and recovered memory therapy, topics Crews has written on include:
  • A 1998 review of books related to the UFO abduction phenomenon
    Abduction phenomenon
    The terms alien abduction or abduction phenomenon describe "subjectively real memories of being taken secretly against one’s will by apparently nonhuman entities and subjected to complex physical and psychological procedures." People claiming to have been abducted are usually called "abductees" or...

    , stating he believed the use of hypnosis, suggestion
    Suggestion
    Suggestion is the psychological process by which one person guides the thoughts, feelings, or behaviour of another. Nineteenth century writers on psychology such as William James used the words "suggest" and "suggestion" in senses close to those they have in common speech—one idea was said to...

     and demand characteristics
    Demand characteristics
    In research, and particularly psychology, demand characteristics refers to an experimental artifact where participants form an interpretation of the experiment's purpose and unconsciously change their behavior accordingly. Pioneering research was conducted on demand characteristics by Martin Orne...

     by unskilled hypnotherapists
    Hypnotherapy
    Hypnotherapy is a therapy that is undertaken with a subject in hypnosis.The word "hypnosis" is an abbreviation of James Braid's term "neuro-hypnotism", meaning "sleep of the nervous system"....

    , and confabulation
    Confabulation
    Confabulation is the process in which a memory is remembered falsely. Confabulations are indicative of a complicated and intricate process that can be led astray at any given point during encoding, storage, or recall of a memory. Two distinct types of confabulation are often distinguished...

     by the subjects were the primary causes of the phenomenon, and sources of the memories.
  • A 2001 review of books related to the creation–evolution controversy, criticising the question-begging
    Begging the question
    Begging the question is a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise....

     nature of creationism
    Creationism
    Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

     and the lack of scientific merit to its claims.
  • A 2007 review of books relating to major depressive disorder, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
    Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
    Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor are a class of compounds typically used as antidepressants in the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, and some personality disorders. The efficacy of SSRIs is disputed...

    s, discussing in particular fluoxetine
    Fluoxetine
    Fluoxetine is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor class. It is manufactured and marketed by Eli Lilly and Company...

     (Prozac) and paroxetine
    Paroxetine
    Paroxetine is an SSRI antidepressant. Marketing of the drug began in 1992 by the pharmaceutical company SmithKline Beecham, now GlaxoSmithKline...

     (Paxil) as part of a lengthy essay on the relationship between pharmaceutical companies, academic psychiatry
    Psychiatry
    Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

     and psychiatrists and the United States Food and Drug Administration
    Food and Drug Administration
    The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...

    .

Honors and awards

  • Fulbright Lectureship, Turin, Italy, 1961–62
  • Essay Prize, National Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1968
  • Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, 1965–66
  • Guggenheim Fellowship (Literary criticism), 1970
  • Distinguished Teaching Award, University of California, Berkeley, 1985
  • Election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

    , 1991
  • Faculty Research Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, 1991–92
  • Editorial Board, “Rethinking Theory” series, Northwestern University Press
    Northwestern University Press
    Northwestern University Press is the university press of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA.- History :Northwestern University Press was founded in 1893, at first specializing in legal periodicals. Today, the Press publishes scholarly books of fiction, non-fiction, and literary...

    , 1992–present
  • Nomination for National Book Critics Circle Award
    National Book Critics Circle Award
    The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....

     for Nonfiction (The Critics Bear It Away), 1992
  • Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay Winners (The Critics Bear It Away), 1993
  • Berkeley Citation, 1994
  • Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002, ed. Natalie Angier (Houghton Mifflin), 2002
  • Fellow, Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health, 2003–present
  • Berkeley Fellow, 2005–present
  • Inclusion in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2005, ed. Jonathan Weiner (Houghton Mifflin), 2005
  • Nominated for National Book Critics Circle Award (Follies of the Wise), 2006

External links

  • Book reviews by Crews at The New York Review of Books
    The New York Review of Books
    The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

  • Frederick C. Crews at the Open Library
    Open Library
    Open Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...


Interviews

  • Interview with Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley
    University of California, Berkeley
    The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

  • Interview at the Public Broadcasting Service
    Public Broadcasting Service
    The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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