Books by J. M. Beach

This book examines the idea of educational accountability in higher education.

In Studies in Poetry, J.M. Beach traces the history of poetry and poetic philosophy in the West. This book will give students a generalized, yet relevantly contemporary definition of "poetry," through an in-depth exploration of several poet's major works and themes.

In Studies in Ideology, poet and theorist J.M. Beach delivers a comprehensive analysis of the history and theory of "ideology." The narrow concept of ideology has traditionally been lodged in the domain of Marxist political theory, but Beach reaches past Marxism to focus on the "wide" definition of ideology, which can be basically summarized as "all theory is ideological." Beach strays from the Marxist totalizing and determinist narratives to deliver a discussion of ideology as "process," which takes its lead from Gramsci and analyzes the intricate and complicated mechanisms of individual subject formation in relation to dominant/dominating social modes of meaning productions. Beach offers his theory of ideology in conjunction with an extensive reading of history and contemporary affairs and ends the book with a brief biographical sketch of his own intellectual maturation, which is imbedded within a daring and timely critique of Christianity.

Describes and analyzes the ideological, social, and political motives that led to the creation of community colleges in the US, and that have shaped their subsequent development. This history examines the institutionalization process of the community college in the US, casting light on how this educational institution was formed, for what purposes, and how has it evolved.