The fact that the English word mad means both angry and insane has repeatedly seemed to me wonderfully perceptive of it.

—Stanley Cavell, from his most recent book, Little Did I Know.

The Chronicle of Higher Education covered the book-launch and corresponding conference at Harvard, Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies, last fall. Cavell’s work on Thoreau, Emerson and Dewey revitalized these American thinkers and organized them in terms of his interest in ordinary language, American cinema, literature, and other areas. He may also be considered a mid-wife for this piece on jumping the shark.