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I had a chance to read again some of the infamous 2003 issue of Critical Inquiry devoted to "The Future of Criticism," really the Future of Theory. Here's a description of the originating situation from W.J.T. Mitchell's introduction to the special issue:
On 11–12 April 2003 the editorial board of Critical Inquiry gathered in Chicago to discuss the future of the journal and of the interdisciplinary fields of criticism and theory that it addresses. Academic conferences are, as we all know, a dime a dozen; and the board meetings of academic journals are not usually reported (as this one was) in the New York Times and Boston Globe. There was something different about this meeting, something (if you will forgive a lapse from editorial neutrality) quite special, unique, even extraordinary.
[...]
The symposium was divided into two sessions: a public “town meeting” on Friday, 11 April and a closed meeting of the board and editors on Saturday, 12 April, which was further subdivided into sessions on theory, politics, and technology. Approximately 550 people from the academic communities of Chicago and beyond came to the public session; the Swift Hall auditorium was filled with a standing-room-only crowd, and the overflow space in Swift Commons also filled up with people watching the discussion on closed-circuit TV. The event was covered by major newspapers, dismissively by the New York Times (“Latest Theory Is That Theory Doesn’t Matter”) and with a touch of wit by the Boston Globe (“Crisis Theory”). The question remains: why should the convening of an academic journal’s editorial board muster so much interest? What critical or theoretical “crisis” drew together this critical mass?
I remember feeling incredibly pissed back when this came out. I feel differently now - still not a great feeling, but it is more complicated than simply "pissed." I was disappointed at the time that a mode of thought I had invested myself in heavily as a technique capable of social change, transformation, amelioration, revolt, whatever was being disowned, right at the critical moment, by its inventors and first-generation inheritors themselves.
Later in the piece, Mitchell includes the prompt that he sent out to those who would participate in this conference.
Critical Inquiry in the Twenty-first Century: A Call for Statements
The aim of this meeting is to set an agenda for critical inquiry, both the intellectual practice and the journal for which it is named, in the coming century. We want our diverse and multitalented editorial board to spend two days brainstorming about the possible, probable, and desirable futures of criticism and theory in the human sciences. What are the crucial topics, themes, and issues that will demand special attention and "special issues"of a wide-ranging interdisciplinary journal in the coming decade and beyond? What transformations in research paradigms are on the horizon? How will technology change the transmission and production of knowledge? What will be the fate of the humanities, of literature, the arts, and philosophy, in what is widely heralded as a posthuman age? How will the very notions of criticism and critique change in the epoch and in the current state of perpetual crisis and emergency? What will be the relation of the coming criticism to politics and public life?
The first thirty years of Critical Inquiry witnessed the emergence of structuralism and poststructuralism, cultural studies, feminist theory and identity politics, media and film studies, speech act theory, new historicism, new pragmatism, visual studies and the new art history, new cognitive and psychoanalytic systems, gender studies, new forms of materialist critique, postcolonial theory, and discourse analysis, queer theory and (more recently) "returns"to formalism and aesthetics, and to new forms of public and politically committed intellectual work. These critical and theoretical movements (and this is only a partial and unsystematic list) have spawned whole new schools of thought, new educational and research institutions, new journals and collectivities of knowledge production. Have we now reached a plateau in which the future is likely to be one of consolidation, refinement, and continuity? Or are we at the threshold of new developments, whether reactive rollbacks to earlier paradigms or dimly foreseen revolutions and emergent innovations
Just as crucial as cagey predictions are utopian declarations of purpose. What, in your view, would be the desirable future of critical inquiry in the coming century? If you were able to dictate the agenda for theory and criticism in research and educational institutions, and in the public sphere, what would you imagine as the ideal structure of feeling and thought to inform critical practice? And, above all, what steps do you think need to be taken in the present moment to move toward this desirable future? What, in short, is to be done?
Five Suggestions
1. It has been suggested that the great era of theory is now behind us and that we have now entered a period of timidity, backfilling, and (at best) empirical accumulation. True?
2. It has been suggested that theory now has backed off from its earlier sociopolitical engagements and its sense of revolutionary possibility and has undergone a "therapeutic turn" to concerns with ethics, aesthetics, and care of the self, a turn of which Lacan is the major theoretical symptom. True?
3. It has been suggested that the major challenge for the humanities in the coming century will be to determine the fate of literature and to secure some space for the aesthetic in the face of the overwhelming forces of mass culture and commercial entertainment. True?
4. It has been suggested that the rapid transformations in contemporary media (high-speed computing and the internet; the revolution in biotechnology; the latest mutations of speculative and finance capital) are producing new horizons for theoretical investigations in politics, science, the arts, and religion that go well beyond the resources of structuralism, poststructuralism, and the "theory revolution"of the late twentieth century. True?
5. Following on number 4, it has been suggested that the criticism and theory to come may have to explore other media of dissemination besides those of the printed text, the scholarly article or monograph, or even language as such in its prosaic, discursive forms. What is likely to happen or ought to happen to the "arts of transmission" of knowledge in coming century?
I would be interested in hearing how we here at LS and our commenters would respond to Mitchell's 5 queries today.
My very brief answers are under the fold.
1. In terms of American English departments at least, yes, the game seem to be up, and folks have moved on, for reasons and toward effects both good and bad toward "empirical accumulation" of one stripe or another. In terms of the production of "great theory" itself, well, that's a tougher issue that in part depends on how we answer the next several questions, and others that aren't on the list.
2. Yes, absolutely. Excluding the rise of and continued engagement with the Frankfurt types.
3. I really hope so. I think this would be the right place to go, yes. At least for literature departments - a bit strange to suggest that the humanities in general take up the "fate of literature."
4. Well, isn't this a question for us! On evidence, however, at this point, I'd have to say not so much, but I'm not giving up hope.
5. Inevitably, sure. But I'm not sure this question really has much to do with the others. Or maybe it actually does, distantly. The "language as such in its prosaic, discursive forms" bit is quite interesting. I wonder what Mitchell was thinking about there...
By CR | May 10, 2007 in Journals | Permalink
Comments
I'm surprised to see so many affirmatives, and even more surprised to see that they are given on the basis largely of "emprical" grounds.
At any rate, here's how I'd respond:
1. False
2. False
3. False
4. True, but not in a "post-Theory" sense, but rather in the sense that "Theory" itself (if it is or has an "itself") has argued almost from the ("its"?) beginning.
5. See point 4.
Posted by: rob | May 11, 2007 12:01:24 AM
I know - it is surprising, all of my yeses. But some of them call for empirical responses, don't they?
Care to elaborate on your nos? I mean, mine were short answers, but those were really short.
(It is perfectly fair to ask me to elaborate as well... I may, however, do so via further posts that will take some time to generate...)
Posted by: CR | May 11, 2007 12:11:11 AM
I can elaborate, but only very briefly at this moment. Maybe after the long sunday, I can revisit. At any rate, my elaborations will largely take the forms of iterations of the one point. Thus, I say false to the first question because much of what gets called "theory" proceeds by way of something like an empiricism. E.g. Derrida's various reflections are always as much (if not more) responses to particular texts, within particular contexts as they are the propounding of some general theory. Likewise, even if one accepts that theory has ended up "turning" to ethics, aesthetics and care for the self, such a turn and such concerns ARE a form of political transformation (E.g. for Foucault, "the ethical" IS political; it is "liberatory").
My elaborations are far too schematic. I promise to return if they arearen't sufficiently fleshed out by other commentators.
Posted by: rob | May 11, 2007 2:25:31 AM
Having just finished grad school in this so-called "Theory"...I'd give my two cents like this:
I learned about continental philosophy from one of Ricoeur and Gadamer's students as part of history training. At the time, it felt meaningful, linked me to my european roots, and was the most engaging activity I'd ever done. I did analytic philosophy in a philosophy department, and like Rorty says, it was just boring.
Then, I went to an english department, and learned about "Theory"....(and I read LS and the Valve) and thought, "is this a *ucking joke?"
Not the blogs themselves, which I enjoy, just this whole mish mash that gets called "Theory". I don't mean, like SEK wrote a few months ago, that theory lacks "hegelian seriousness" (wasn't hegel a drunken lout anyway?), I just think "Theory" loses its sense of "modesty" (zizek)
Frankly, most of the time when I read "Theory" or cultural studies, I don't know if I am supposed to take the writing in good faith or if it is a parody.
There is no way universities can ask money to teach this schlock. It can be fun, but often is just embarrasing to read (though I don't deny that being shameless can be liberating).
PS. Just in my opinion, and thanks LS and Valve contributors, like SEK, you all were of great use in my thesis research
Posted by: Jake B | May 11, 2007 9:58:25 PM
Rob,
I understand what you mean about the way that, say, Derrida can be described as using an empiricist approach - at least to texts. I think what Mitchell meant (and what I mean in agreeing with him) is something like "merely empirical." Or "empirically-driven." Or something like that. The fact of the matter - and this is to my mind indisputable - is that the current direction of the field is away from theoretically-organized works toward empirically-driven works - history and the like. No one seems to be looking for a "deconstructive approach to X," but rather a historicization of x, an examination of X's archival entrails, etc etc...
The personal is the political bit is problematic. A big thing to discuss. Personally, I do think that it is part of the problem right now. Or a symptom of the problem (the problem being "theory" finding itself generally impotent and/or unable to find a path toward any sort of effectiveness). But this is a big issue, and one we're not going to solve either by simply pissing on the idea or lining up behind Foucault or Lacan.
Jake B -
I agree with a lot of what you say here. Especially this: "I just think "Theory" loses its sense of "modesty." I think my biggest issue right now is a sense of what we might call automatic, inadvertent engagement or radicality that comes of working on this stuff. It is hard to separate out the causal strains - it is a problem with the work itself, but it might be even more a problem with the insitutions that produce and teach the work.
All of a sudden, I've hit a point in my life where I can't look past the absurdity any longer of the tenured "theorist," known for the radicalism of his thought, who has never caused a single instance of even a whisp of change in the world, never changed a single mind of someone who wasn't his grad student, and, most importantly, really doesn't fucking care that this is the case. In fact, I can safely say that this is the case with every heavily-invested theoretical lit academic I've ever gotten to know.
I am not sure whether it is worse when they simply act like they don't care what happens or when they make the worst-faith little genuflections toward engagement.
There is something wrong with this, terribly wrong. The whole affair is incredibly masturbational, phantasmatic. I think I've hit a point in my career where I'm probably about to make the final real corrections in direction before things start to get truly concretized, and I just want to make sure I'm not living in solipcistic lala land.
Short version of my homily for now: If you fancy yourself an engaged intellectual, you damn well better do some thinking about how, exactly, your work serve to further your cause, your approach, your set of changes you'd like. If the means are your disposal are catastrophically inadequate to your goal (hmm... how can my monograph on avant garde poetry foment world proletarian revolution?) then perhaps its time to scale back to a goal that is a bit more realistic. Think of something that you might actually do with your work in service of that larger goal. But make sure that it is actually feasable.
This consideration, as far as I can tell, almost never comes into play. The thing is, these folks are wonderfully concrete when it comes to figuring out a path to tenure. But a path to progress (or whatever other word is implicit in their work) - what an impertinent question.
Posted by: CR | May 11, 2007 11:49:24 PM
'This consideration, as far as I can tell, almost never comes into play. The thing is, these folks are wonderfully concrete when it comes to figuring out a path to tenure. But a path to progress (or whatever other word is implicit in their work) - what an impertinent question.'
but wouldn't THAT that you just said be the beginnings of changing THIS that you then say?
'4. It has been suggested that the rapid transformations in contemporary media (high-speed computing and the internet; the revolution in biotechnology; the latest mutations of speculative and finance capital) are producing new horizons for theoretical investigations in politics, science, the arts, and religion that go well beyond the resources of structuralism, poststructuralism, and the "theory revolution"of the late twentieth century. True?'
'4. Well, isn't this a question for us! On evidence, however, at this point, I'd have to say not so much, but I'm not giving up hope.'
I thought this was all excellent, but thought that # 4 was one of the places where it had sounded like 'an impertinent question' again. Isn't that an area where a lot of lethargy could be shaken out? not that one is equipped to do all that work expertly, but to be closely linked to such experts enough to use it immediately (and the only way to have enough control over it)--which throwing out of torpor, whatever the result, would be worthwhile. (otherwise, ignore this, if it is completely out in left field, etc.,). It had somehow seemed that # 4 would be one of the prime spots not to hold back if things would be revitalized.
Posted by: patrick j. mullins | May 12, 2007 1:00:13 AM
[but wouldn't THAT that you just said be the beginnings of changing THIS that you then say?]
Of course, this is backwards in chronology of when you wrote it, but I reversed it as necessary for what I was inquiring about.
Posted by: patrick j. mullins | May 12, 2007 1:02:42 AM
Right, sure, Patrick. Hasn't really changed anything so far, but I'm not giving up hope (obviously) yet. (On the other hand, it - this - certainly has changed things for me...)
But you're right, and I should have been more optimistic in my answer to 4 - it's true. I've just been a bit depressed lately about the state of things around our section of the b'sphere. But I think you're right.
Thanks for the kind words in general.
Posted by: CR | May 12, 2007 1:13:52 AM
This is an interesting discussion. I have a couple of points. First, I wonder if point 1 doesn't, in some sense, contradict point 2. That's to say, this anxiety about the bugbear known as "new historicism" should probably engage with the fact that new historicists think of themselves as *more* political than the various post-structural formalisms which they leave behind. I'm pretty sure I don't agree to such notions of political efficacy, but isn't the implicit motto there that historical knowledge can help our sense of the political present more than, say, knowledge of the aporias at the center of any sentence, novel, etc.? Benjamin's Theses as the orientation?
Secondly, isn't this claim about the aesthetic or ethical turn a kind of pre-9/11 anxiety? That's to say, wasn't the ethical/aesthetic turn in philosophy--Derrida, Nancy, etc.--kind of a '90s/early 00's thing, given the lag to publication, translation, epigonization. If we accept that Badiou, Ranciere, Agamben, Negri, Zizek etc., are the "theory" figures that people talk about as "new" now, don't they all style themselves as participating in a more directly political turn in continental theory/philosophy? One, of course, can debate about the efficacy of the politics therein, but they seem much less afraid of the word/concept than previous generations of theorists, whose targets seemed linguistic/cognitive/philosopical, rather than structural per se. Maybe this is just another way of saying that this crisis had already registered for philosophers long before the hand-wringing conference above. I may be wrong here, you know; I'm still getting started figuring all this stuff out, making genealogies and whatnot.
Lastly, about your homily, CR. I, too, share this despair. But I guess my reaction is different, because I don't think that any theory can effect political change *outside of,* and this is key, a political movement willing to engage such theory. I think of theory--from the Greek for "to see a snake," a form of re-seeing--as holding a space for thought, free thought, or somewhat free thought, and for subjunctive political change, in advance of and in the absence of a political movement/moment. Of course, theorists should try to make connections with activists. This is probably, in my limited knowledge, one of the reasons why France and Italy seem to hold the space for the left better than the U.S., where there is very little connection between the academy and on-the-ground activists. I think of myself as training for the moment, postponed, when my reading and theoretical knowledge might turn to and inform praxis.
It's important that I'm honest about the power that my modest book about obscure 20th century poetry and art will have (and yes, this is the book I'm mostly likely to write). It's not going to change anybody, except a few scholars, poets, artists, students, etc, and me. But who knows who these people will change? I'm reading Lukacs right now, and he wants to keep reminding me of the mysterious transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative ones--the backdraft of the dialectic of enlightenment, if you will. You keep adding one cup of water to the bucket, and then another, and then another, and perhaps, some day, it will overflow. . .
Posted by: Jasper B | May 12, 2007 11:31:12 AM
I have to confess after reading Jake B's post that, not only do I not really know what "theory" is, but I have prejudices against what I suspect that it is; it sounds like continental philosophy done by people who don't read the history of philosophy and prefer cleverness over rigor. I think that's a common stereotype, though. I am in a philosophy department, and I've never met anyone who talks about "theory."
So I don't really have anything interesting to say about "theory," but I will make a comment about philosophy. I agree with CR; a lot of academics seem to want to have a radical analysis, but its all really oriented to the telos of their having a niche in academia. That sucks. I'm not personally sure that philosophy can effect changes in the world to any great degree; I don't think it really works like that. But let me explain.I think that philosophy responds to the same situation that ordinary common sense and scientific discourses do, and articulates it to us in a much clearer way than these discourses do, thus informing our praxis. I also think philosophy is a site where we can see things happening; history happens in philosophy. What I don't think is that, with a passionate sense for social justice, a philosopher can bring about changes in society that she would like to see happen. This seems too arbitrary; there is a necessity to genuine thinking that has little to do with something like influence. But this is a big, important question that I'm not claiming to have a final answer to. And of course, philosophy now seems to have less social heft than at any time in history...
Posted by: CBR | May 12, 2007 11:39:09 AM
'What I don't think is that, with a passionate sense for social justice, a philosopher can bring about changes in society that she would like to see happen.'
I doubt that that's impossible or has been impossible, but it may not happen before his eyes always, and certainly it would have been peculiar if it had opened over and over before a few especially popular ones right now (they opened up first, the trends, and he picked up on as many as he had time for).
'there is a necessity to genuine thinking that has little to do with something like influence'
This is very much like art-for-art's-sake, and the artist also tends to think himself as well beyond 'ordinary common sense and science': 'philosophy responds to the same situation that ordinary common sense and scientific discourses do, and articulates it to us in a much clearer way than these discourses do, thus informing our praxis.'
So it informs 'our praxis' by 'articulating more clearly than common sense and scientific discourses do' (it doesn't necessarily), but there is this 'necessity to genuine thinking' which is beyond something else to such a degree that saying the 'passion in a philosopher for social justice can bring about changes...' is 'too arbitrary.' Probably not arbitrary, just not comprehensive enough. Therefore, one might assume that the informed praxes are so refined and probably minute in sweep that they resemble a Chinese garden. An especially rarefied celestial community is formed, with or without academics, according to whether there is danger of total disappearance.
CR--Thanks. I hadn't actually been thinking so much about blogs, but rather new developments in technology and science that may test all thinking, philosophy, all of the Arts as each new one comes up. In the arts, I always keep thinking that, since much technology and, especially, as said 'the latest mutations of speculative and finance capital' change at shockingly increasing speeds the landscape of the surface of business as I've continually harped about the closings of small businesses, retail stores and restaurants this year which is surely 5 times as fast as it was last; but I've not been correct in thinking this always and everywhere has this effect. Biotechnology, among all the other things listed in #4, is bound to cause every aspect of culture to keep accommodating it more and more, but where I've not been correct is in other areas I've been able to observe close up: certain kinds of theater and theater-related operations have been demolished by all these new efficiencies and reformations of capital and business, but others have thrived. At this point, I think what I see is that if a sector of the arts has a big, hugely profitable aspect--as here, with the giant musical productions for the tourists--it even makes possible somehow that a surprising number of smaller, intimate versions within the same field will sprout quite profusely too. This year the B'way theater has been especially peculiar--and in a sense I could have never predicted: There are even serious plays on B'way one would have never imagined, and much money for smaller lighter entertainments than there typically has seemed to be; and work coming from newer composers and writers that was not happening some years back. This must have been possible because the vast tourist bus audience is being well-taken care of by Disney, 'Legally Blonde', etc. (I don't really expect this to last, and think that what's happening in this rich way right now is somewhat anomalous). On the other hand, if the field is essentially intimate, like cabaret, you really can see something dying right before your eyes, as it is only 60 plus people that support the 5-10% of what the field was in its heyday; and the little that's left falls under the category of old or oldish money. In classical music and dance, performers have not got the leisure time to produce works of the sort they used to; they are sweating twice as hard, pianists are doing CD's of 'Complete Works of...' routinely (and to an ultimately dullish effect), museums put up every single painting by a painter (suffocating); in other words, they are working twice as hard as 20 years ago in most cases for half the effect. I think the smaller and more sensitive things are the ones at most risk, so you can and others within the Theory and Philosophy field can decide if those new media mutations, which are going to increase in number as well as influence, can be grasped and used effectively. Isn't the only alternative that the new mutations will do the grasping and grabbing themselves, in direct proportion to how quickly employable they are? Some of that 'genuine thinking' might be well directed toward a huge lot of these media, and NOT only to protect whatever amount of solipsism is considered necessary to make a just society complete (I'm sure any healthy society needs a certain number of purely solipsistic individuals, although they may never become officially accepted. These must be protected, but it not goint to destroy 'genuine thinking' if 'their 'praxis' extends a bit beyond their own doorstep. Nobody can actually even want another Heidegger, even given that it's impossible anyway. I mean maybe people care about where Heidegger cut down his Xmas tree when they're deeply entrenched to such a degree they see him as a celebrity as well, but frankly, it was never really very profound that he hardly ever traveled; and nobody cares about Zizek's or Badiou's Xmas tree, unless they've got serious problems.)
Posted by: patrick j. mullins | May 12, 2007 12:34:20 PM
CBR, Your question about the nature of "Theory" is easier to understand than you imagine. Rorty wrote a manuscript about this nearly 15 years ago, and when I emailed him about it, gave me a tidy and polite answer:
Philosophy departments in the USA and UK are by and large dismayed and turned off by continental philosophy (because, frankly, they have little understanding of it - think of Dennett and the jokes he likes to make, the guy is clearly smart, but is kinda a jerk). Henceforth, English departments and other marginal (comp lit) departments figured the continetal philosophy ought to be their terrain, and went on to deal with it in their own odd, misinformed way. (i.e. sure, Ricoeur talks about novels, but the most exciting departure he takes has rather little to do with novels at all - simply put, his notion of plot is supposed resonate with life and not merely fiction)
This is not the case in Europe where I went to school, British and Anglo ideas are admired, sure, but also have some of the most dire limitations put upon them (pragmatism, etc). As such, they tend to heap praise on their own thinkers (no surprise there)
"Theory" and continental philosophy:
Theory is for someone clever, even an autodidact, and takes little or no guidance to learn, wishes itself to be the highest version of theory in general (but is impotent for the most part).
Contintental philosophy, first and foremost, cannot be learned by oneself. It requires a student to not simply subjugate himself to that peculiar, yet specific line of men (Kant-Hegel-Husserl-Heidegger-Gadamer et al) and their own tutor, but moreover to give up on the know-it-all attitudes that universities give A's for.
The biggest irony of all is the move (by Butler, Hardt/Negri, Badiou etc) to ontology made by "Theory". It is totally inappropriate to what they want to do, and the jibberish that comes out of it is humiliating to read.
CR - Wow, just wow. My sympathies. At least you have a job. I have to work as a bureaucrat for my checks. Here is my cheer-u-up story. My Romanian friend works in a philosophy department there, he had to survive for one year without pay while their department got on its feet, and now gets 200 US dollars per month to teach there. He considers himself a Boyar. So CR, take your salary with a grain of salt, and pratice teaching with a straight face - best of luck.
Have a good weekend all!
Posted by: Jake B | May 12, 2007 2:33:22 PM
I think my post was a bit ill-formulated...what I mean is that I don't think anyone can sit down as if in a labratory and cook up the future. But things happen in and through philosophy, just like they happen in and through everything else. In philosophy, they happen in the most explicit way.
That's my thesis in a nutshell.
>>I doubt that that's impossible or has been impossible, but it may not happen before his eyes always, and certainly it would have been peculiar if it had opened over and over before a few especially popular ones right now (they opened up first, the trends, and he picked up on as many as he had time for).>>
I can't get this one. Could you please rephrase it? Thanks...
Posted by: CBR | May 12, 2007 2:36:21 PM
I wasn't going to comment on this thread -- not only because I distrust some who hold the keys here, but because CR already knows where I stand on this -- but I want to address a few things. First, I wanted to thank Jake B. for the kind words (and the implication of utility).
Second, I notice an absence of people attacking CR for daring to talk about theory -- sure, there are scare-quotes aplenty, but no sense that CR is trying to trivialize theoretical work by calling this odd beast "theory" by its name. I'm not sure if this is an accident of circumstance (Jodi not being around) or a sign that the debate has moved beyond the childish notion that to call a thing the thing it calls itself is an attempt to marginalize it. It never was that, and am glad to not have to have that (endless) conversation again.
Third, a little clarification. Jasper B. is absolutely correct that the new historicists saw themselves as more politically engaged than their post-structural, close-textual compatriots in the early and mid '80s. Their Foucauldian commits of revealing plays of discursive power were considered more politically relevant than the eightieth iteration of the decenteredness of the linguistic universe ... but that's not the kind of historicism currently regnant. Historicists today aren't "new" in the sense they were in new historicism's heyday; they share a methodology but are much more even-keeled about what those methodological commitments entail in the larger political sense.
Finally, the responses to those questions by the participants in the colloquium are interesting and telling. I don't have time to re-read them right now, but I distinctly remember that they were disciplinary in a way you don't often see in conversations about theory. Fish spoke of the efficacy of teaching English; Hillis limited his contribution to the study of English, &c. The notion of an immodest theory appeals to me, since the kind of theory I find useful and which I think has a chance to be efficacious is more modest than, say, a Zizekian declaration about the hidden life of everything. This is why I find Zizek himself more interesting when he limits himself to, for example, film. Expertise is meaningful, is what I mean to say, but in the heyday of theory was denounced by those who wished to be interdisciplinary propheteers. They considered their thought universally applicable -- and if you read Jameson's response, you see why: it's the old since it's all about signs and significations, and since that's our purview, why don't you listen to what I have to say about cognitive development, human rights, technological innovation, &c. I prefer my experts more modest, more considered, and frankly more expert.
Posted by: SEK | May 12, 2007 2:58:58 PM
Thanks, Jake B. Rorty's answer basically confirms my prejudices, and is rather amusing, although it seems a bit tendentious. Badiou certainly thinks he's doing philosophy.
SEK: who are these self-proclaimed "theorists" who do "theory"? I take it, mostly people in English departments? And maybe Judith Butler?
Posted by: CBR | May 12, 2007 4:13:02 PM
>>I doubt that that's impossible or has been impossible, but it may not happen before his eyes always, and certainly it would have been peculiar if it had opened over and over before a few especially popular ones right now (they opened up first, the trends, and he picked up on as many as he had time for).>>
I can't get this one. Could you please rephrase it?
An obvious pop-philosopher was being hinted at.
Posted by: patrick j. mullins | May 12, 2007 5:48:55 PM
CR-
I'm scratching my head at your answer to number 2. Specifically I don't understand why you choose to exclude interest scholars have in the "Frankfurt types". Even freshman undergrads at UChicago have members of the Frankfurt school on their required reading lists; no one on campus would deny Benjamin as a perenial favorite; a musical group inspired by Brecht recently performed for the Renaissance Society; and CI executive editor Arnold Davidson frequently teaches on Adorno and Marcuse. Pair these trends with the equally strong fascination philosophy grads here at UC have with Cavell (empirical evidence, I take it, for a 'theraputic turn') and I'm left thinking that, if one excludes the Frankfurt school from consideration of suggestion 2, one could not provide an answer, given that the sociopolitical engagements essentially are of the Frankfurt type.
Perhaps rather than a death of theory, the problem posed is of a death of Marx within the theory Marxist studies have created, whereby a theraputic turn is needed, lest the theory pass with Marxist experiments (the other half of the coin, too, being that history did not end a la Fukuyama's right-Hegelian expectations).
-Jared D.
Posted by: Jared | May 12, 2007 10:54:43 PM
Jasper:
This is an interesting discussion. I have a couple of points. First, I wonder if point 1 doesn't, in some sense, contradict point 2. That's to say, this anxiety about the bugbear known as "new historicism" should probably engage with the fact that new historicists think of themselves as *more* political than the various post-structural formalisms which they leave behind.
Oh, I think the term "new historicism" is already very much passé. I think, rather, that what is filling the gap left in the aftermath of theory is a new set of "serious" scholars who eschew any political (let alone theoretical) dimension to their work in the first place. Trust me: if you'd like to get a job in English right now, your best bet is serious textual history or serious (and more or less unalligned) historicism...
On the other hand, to dismiss the political claims of a politicized historicism requires an argument, not a shrug of the shoulders...
Secondly, isn't this claim about the aesthetic or ethical turn a kind of pre-9/11 anxiety? That's to say, wasn't the ethical/aesthetic turn in philosophy--Derrida, Nancy, etc.--kind of a '90s/early 00's thing, given the lag to publication, translation, epigonization.
Maybe you're right about this. I still hear a lot of personal = political in my grad seminars, and I'm at one of the few remaining theory intensive programs. And with the figures that you mention, my concern is still that there isn't enough thought given to the dissemination / implementation of ideas, which renders the theory "personal" even if the concepts aren't.
Finally, I think it is the deferred action version of theory / philosophy that I am starting to lose patience with. I am very much familiar with this idea - and, to a certain degree, it has played (up till recently) an important role in my own self-conception. But I think it numbs out our potential effectiveness in English, by allowing us to carry on in the "as if..," by making us feel that we are participating in something even if we can't imagine any actual course it might take... It is an extremely dangerous position, in short...
Patrick,
In a sense, so much of what you're talking about is the direction that I thing we as a discipline should head. More to come.
Scott,
Thanks!
Jared,
I excluded the Frankfurt School (esp. Benjamin) because I see them engaged in a very different project than that of other "theorists" and schools of theoretical thought. For one think, they were absolutely preoccupied with the issue of implementatation, even if they had, at times, a hard time figuring out what that might mean...
Wooo. I'm exhausted Sorry about the half-assed responses, but I am beat...
Posted by: CR | May 13, 2007 1:11:22 AM
There's way too much in the comments for me even to read at the moment, let alone respond to, so I'll limit myself, CR, to what you've had to say subsequent to my inadequate elaboration (and apologies if I merely repeat what others have said and fail to provide due acknowledgement).
A response to the issues raised here can only be insufficiently detailed, complex, etc.. Consequently, I'll give in to the inevitable in the worst possible way by starting with a massive —not to mention unjust and ironic — simplification: there seems to be a great many sweeping generalisations being bandied about here. From Mitchell's original call for statements through the stereotyped depictions of "Theory" to SEK's less inflammatory account of "new historicists". Even the lamentations about "the Theory academic" seem a little too easy for my liking.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to say that there aren't opportunistic careerists out there, and I can sympathise with the existential crisis, as it were, that you seem to have hit, CR. My sincere apologies if I come across as too insensitive or patronising here, but I do wonder, nevertheless, whether you're not overly generalising from personal experience. My uneasiness isn't completely alleviated, moreover, by the fact that a few other people might relate similar feelings or experiences. Call me an unreconstructed Theorist, if you like, but I can't help but see underlying such testimonies certain "discursive conditions", shall we say — the CI Call for Statements being simply the most "official statement" from such conditions.
Let me put it another way: if there were more than a modicum of truth to Mitchell's account of the turn towards more "empirical" investigations (for instance), I for one would have thought that someone would have followed that account up with an empirical investigation into the extent of that turn. E.g. where are the studies showing or challenging the apparently international and trans-disciplinary consistency of this turn? And if there isn't an abundance of such investigations, isn't it possible that Mitchell's overview amounts to not much more than a utopian(?) declaration about "The End of Theory"? that Mitchell's is the high-water mark of "the Era of Theory"?
By contrast, I see "Theory" going on all around me. Undoubtedly, the activity is hardly uniform — e.g. I see in some places a rising "Deleuzianism" and a waning "deconstructionism [sic]" — nor invariably celebrated: the misinformed attacks on "Theory" remain as ever; and it's possible that in North American English departments, as only one very specific institutional site, theory is "on the way out". But what I see at the moment (and this possibly applies only in my national context) is less a turn away from theory than a general abandoning of (funding, administrative, etc.) support for the Humanities generally, which is having a varied impact on the research interests (hence possibilities) of many humanities academics.
With regard to your more specific questions on the politics of intellectual work, and especially on intellectual work as (a) politics, I again think that things are a little more complex. It's true that if you ever thought that writing your book on avant-garde poetics was somehow going to bring on the Revolution, you would probably be feeling a little deflated now that so little, in world-historical terms, seems to have changed. But again, I don't know that that ethos (let's say) was ever much more than a stereotype set up by a particular form of theory that sort to distance itself from that ethos. Of course, stereotypes are effective, in more ways than one, and so some academics may have settled into it from time to time for some reason or other. Perhaps what's at issue in the CI piece, then, is the fact that fewer intellectuals are settling into (or for) the stereotype?
At any rate, I'll add my two cents on the question of the politics of intellectual work by engaging a little more closely with your two responses to my initial points:
Derrida can be described as using an empiricist approach - at least to texts. I think what Mitchell meant (and what I mean in agreeing with him) is something like "merely empirical." Or "empirically-driven." Or something like that. The fact of the matter - and this is to my mind indisputable - is that the current direction of the field is away from theoretically-organized works toward empirically-driven works - history and the like. No one seems to be looking for a "deconstructive approach to X," but rather a historicization of x, an examination of X's archival entrails, etc etc
I guess my problem with this diagnosis is that first of all I see no inconsistency between a "deconstructive approach to X" and a "historicisation of X". Not only do I see no inconsistency between the two, but I think that the former is something like the latter, and that the latter certainly goes a long way towards the former. Perhaps in "the field" in which you're most at home, the direction you mention is quite noticeable, but this again begs the question of the extent to which one can generalise from the specific context in play. More significantly, though — to return to my first objection — I can't see any reason why the "empirical" turn should be seen as marking "the End of Theory", rather than as a continuation of that "era". Just think about what kinds of analyses go under the name of "empirical" in your field: exactly how "empirical" are they? what does it mean to describe a study as empirical in that field? how removed are such studies from the concerns and procedures of what gets called "Theory"?
To put it bluntly and without further elaboration, I think (1) that the "theory"/"empirics" opposition being drawn on in Mitchell's account is thoroughly problematic in this context; (2) that it's certainly a distinction that someone of Mitchell's standing should have recognised long ago as warranting some suspicion at the very least; and (3) that the invocation of that distinction in the CI piece (and more generally) entails a politics whose effects any good anti-formalist (read: "anti-deconstructionist"), politically-engaged post-Theory scholar would want to historicise and investigate.
The other thing to note regarding your first response is that I don't think it's adequate to say that Derrida's approach is empiricist towards "texts". I would argue that Derrida's work intervenes not just within particular, material texts, but within specific institutions — a fortiori the institution(s) of philosophy and of the university. And this amounts to one part of a response to the question of the politics of intellectual work. I'm running out of time, and probably testing your patience, so I won't elaborate, but suffice to say that the point connects (1) partly with what Foucault calls the work of the "specific intellectual"; (2) partly with a more complicated argument about the permeable limits to the university and therefore about the irreducible possibilities for intellectual transformation to be accompanied by transformations outside the university; and (3) partly with the idea that the "Theory revolution" itself amounts to a fairly significant political transformation — both "inside" and "outside" the university.
The personal is the political bit is problematic. A big thing to discuss. Personally, I do think that it is part of the problem right now. Or a symptom of the problem (the problem being "theory" finding itself generally impotent and/or unable to find a path toward any sort of effectiveness). But this is a big issue, and one we're not going to solve either by simply pissing on the idea or lining up behind Foucault or Lacan.
The thing is, I didn't say that "the personal is the political". What I said was that "the ethical" is political. What's the difference? Well there's another complex argument here that I don't have time to get into right now, but it has to do with a certain substitution of terms, or series of substitutions, which therefore amount to a certain conflation, that I've see more than once in these kinds of debates. A related conflation can be found in the argument that Foucault turns to the question of "agency" only in his later work. (This is the sort of facile reasoning that Said shows, for example.) Basically, I think it's wrong to make the following equation: "the self" (or subject) = "the individual" = "agency" = "the personal". Now no one, I know, would make that equation when put that directly, but that's effectively what's going on in arguments that Foucault's later work, which looks not at the self as such but rather the self's relation to the self, turns explicitly to the issue of "agency". I think the same thing is happening when you shift from my formulation of "the ethical IS political" to the more commonplace idea that "the personal IS political".
Again, the argument's complex, but one way to indicate it is to say that I think ALL of Foucault's work, not just his later stuff on "care for the self", engages "the ethical", by which I mean a particular mode of analysis. The "ethical turn" is not (simply) a turn to "the self" but an attempt to "ground" intellectual work — a fortiori politico-intellectual work — in questions of "ethics" rather than in "scientific" principles or ontological truth-claims. I'll have to leave that one there, and come back to it only in response to specific questions.
So, in a nutshell, I reckon the CI piece is premised on a facile historicism, a naive empiricism, and an interested objectivism — and it's "Theory" that's enabled me both to diagnose those problems and to engage in the kind of "historical", "empirical", ethico-political work that some might say "Theory" was never able to do.
Just finally, apologies again, CR, if I seem to give short shrift to your concerns over the state of intellectual work today. My intention in writing the above is not to belittle or delegitimise your concern, but rather to re-invigorate your passion. Unfortunately, the constraints of time and space, along with my possibly brisk reception of the claims made by Mitchell et al., mean that I've probably failed to achieve my intentions. But, in any case, thanks for raising the questions and thereby giving me a chance to think a little more about the issues.
Cheers
Posted by: rob | May 13, 2007 10:18:04 PM
Rob,
Wow! That was Holbonically-long! But very interesting and well argued all the way through. I can't get to all of this right now - grading night! - but let me just make a few quick comments and I'll get back to it in depth later (and perhaps after others chime in).
1) Sorry about the "personal" / "ethical" slide. You're right, I abbreviated you in a way that was unjust.
2) Let me put it another way: if there were more than a modicum of truth to Mitchell's account of the turn towards more "empirical" investigations (for instance), I for one would have thought that someone would have followed that account up with an empirical investigation into the extent of that turn. E.g. where are the studies showing or challenging the apparently international and trans-disciplinary consistency of this turn? And if there isn't an abundance of such investigations, isn't it possible that Mitchell's overview amounts to not much more than a utopian(?) declaration about "The End of Theory"? that Mitchell's is the high-water mark of "the Era of Theory"?
OK - this is a little bit frustrating. They didn't do an empirical study, no. And neither have I, no. But seriously: the tide has turned in English departments. There is no easy way for me to do this, but I'd love to send you (and a lot of people starting out in the field) a copy of the ADE job-listings for last year, the last 3 years. Do you know how many good jobs were listed in theory? Close to zero. I am not kidding. There might have been a few stragglers in "new media theory," and a few people still calling it "postcolonial theory" when they really wanted someone to do the lit, but nearly none. Fewer and fewer listings mention "theory" as a secondary qualification. Would that be empircal enough for you?
Of course most of my information, job lists aside, is anecdotal, "contextual." An amazing thing happens when you shift from grad student to assistant professorsdom in terms of your understanding of how the business works and where things are headed nationwide. The situation is largely hidden from undergraduates and even graduate students, as they take courses with and are advised by those who were hired during a previous generation, who don't always do a good job of communicating the relationship between their own work and the larger field.
But to a large degree, yes, the sense that I am describing is a bit too ambient to materialize for you (other than with the list) but it is so thickly palpable for a young junior professor that you could cut it with a knife. The writing is on the wall.
I'll just say this, which definitely is all bluster, no proof, but whatever: if you'd like to do yourself some serious damage, enter the MLA fray with a dissertation whose title references, even subtly, Derrida or Deleuze. Or Lacan or Foucault or any of the other French superstars. Even better: write your dissertation on these figures. I am not saying that you won't get a job - but I nearly guaranteeing that that job will be in backwater shitsville where the telegraph wires fell down in the storm of '97 and they haven't had a bulletin from the Home Office since. You would, in short, be taking your life in your hands, at least if your goal is to work and work at a relatively good school.
(Lest this sound all very, very careerist of me: well, in a way, it is. I am not saying that this situation is, to my eyes, good. I think it is a mixture of good and bad, hence my post. The short version of what I think, overall: it's good to purge the field of some of the shit theoretical work of the previous generation, but it's a baby with the bathwater situation: any residual sense of engagement that informed that largely shitty work has been chucked away too, so that we're left with strong, pointless scholarship now as the ideal.)
You can take my word for it or not. Poke around some strong department's rosters, try to figure out who's been hired at the junior level in the past 2 or 3 years, and then report back. You'll see what I mean. (Senior level hires are more complicated. Don't really want to get into it, but they are in a way less representatitve of the direction of the field, as you're dealing with a limited, preselected group to hire from who made it through under the previous dispensation... So, if everyone was doing theory in 1995, which they for the most part were, when you make senior hire 2007, that's who you get to pick from...)
and it's possible that in North American English departments, as only one very specific institutional site, theory is "on the way out"
Well, that's the site I'm talking about here. If you'd like to argue that the struggle has found a path of continuation, that's fine. But that's not what I'm talking about here.
My uneasiness isn't completely alleviated, moreover, by the fact that a few other people might relate similar feelings or experiences. Call me an unreconstructed Theorist, if you like, but I can't help but see underlying such testimonies certain "discursive conditions", shall we say — the CI Call for Statements being simply the most "official statement" from such conditions.
This sort of thing is even more frustrating. Yes, discursive conditions. Do you want to know what they are? Do you want me to be blunt? They are the discursive conditions of someone who has successfully joined the club, and now has a vote on who gets to join the club in the future. I am totally with you in sniffing at the reasons why this has happened. Does the fact that my speech is positionally inflected mean that somehow the discipline's direction is moving in a different direction than I say? Those conditions that you reference actually determine the movement of the field - which is exactly what we are trying to assess.
Do you have any evidence that what I am saying is not true? I'd really rather not play meta-games with this right now.
Posted by: CR | May 13, 2007 11:56:00 PM
This is a great discussion. To my mind, I think the idea that being an academic is a political thing - in a way that other ways of earning a living are not - is really weird and is a preoccupation that I've run into repeatedly since going back to school. The impulse to make one's work meaningful to others beyond one's self and fellow hobbyists is understandable but claims to have actually achieved such meaningful work strikes me as more than a bit immodest. Is theory - defined as the reading and writing done by academics for a living - political? I guess so, in the same (always uniquely instantiated) way that health care and construction is political. But not more so. I think the "my job is political" thing for academics is partly a self-serving thing for well-paid professionals (the ones CR rightly disses in his excellent 'homily') and partly a way that people lower on the food chain try to make what is at the best of times only a pretty good job into something more than merely pretty good and merely a job. I mean "something more" in a political sense, rather than an ethical sense. I think there's a way in which the 'being an academic as viable implementation of radical political perspective' idea involves a confusion between political and ethical from the outset. Do academics make a difference? Sure. Like nurses and social workers and firefighters do. An ethical difference, "you changed my life." That difference is totally compatible with the systemic logic of society (which isn't to say it doesn't matter). That's why it's not a political difference, which is a matter of collective organization and power.
On that, I'd echo Jasper's remark about theory in the context of political movements being different from theory in relatively normal university curricula. Theory in the former, though, is I think not so much a use of the latter in another environment but is more of another body of thought entirely -- for instance, Marx's dissertation on Epicurus et al vs his intra-movement works like the criticisms of the Gotha program.
Lastly, I feel a bit rude and egotistical doing this, but I recently wrote a bit on the idea of professional intellectual work as politics here - http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/05/09/do-you-mean-irrelevance/, in case anyone might be interested.
Sorry to on so long, it's an index of how much I liked this thread.
take care,
Nate
Posted by: Nate | May 14, 2007 12:19:05 AM
CR — I think I might have struck a raw nerve, and if so, I apologise. I completely sympathise (not least of all since I've been there myself) with the situation you describe of post-PhDs trying to get an entry-level position, and I don't intend to make light of that situation. It sucks, and if my saying so can help invert that situation, such that new graduates will start getting jobs, then I'm more than happy to say so repeatedly.
While I wait and hope for my condemnation to start taking effect, let me try to clarify what I was/am getting at:
Theory is not the preserve specifically of North American English departments. Looking back at your original post, I see that you did specify that "In terms of American English departments at least, yes, the game [of theory] seem to be up", so I deserve any ire or frustration you may express in response to my attempt to re-historicise or re-define the situation, and especially to my failure to be more explicit. The fact is that I'm not in the US; I'm in Australia. My disciplinary "home" at the moment is communications, not English, and despite producing a thesis that engages mostly with continental philosophy, my early training was in cultural studies. So, when someone — i.e. Mitchell, spokesperson for a very influential, international, trans-disciplinary journal — starts throwing around claims about "the End of Theory" in a completely unspecified way, with no regard for the principles of difference, singularity, etc. that the journal has played a part in formulating and affirming over the last 40 years or more, and without a moment's pause to consider what the implications of making such a claim might have outside the rather insular question of the future of the journal — and no one even thinks to challenge him on this sweeping claim! — I stop and wonder. I wonder whether it might be possible to think differently and whether it might help to think differently, which is why I tried to work through the question of the theory/empirics distinction.
I admit to not knowing any direct way in which noting the above will improve the lot for junior theorists, and for that I am (sincerely; I mean it) sorry. I wish I had more to offer in that respect.
To cut a long story short (too late?), I'm simply wary about the discursive power (in the sense of "practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak") of the "End of Theory" move; that is, of the perpetuation of the end of theory via a confirmation of the end of theory. I'm not trying to pretend that it's business as usual in universities and humanities scholarship today — to pretend that a certain event, called "The End of Theory", isn't currently taking place. Rather I'm trying to generate strategies for intervening within that event, for finding ways "saving" theory from attempts to talk it out of existence, to talk it into death. And it's that motivation, which informed my original answers to the five questions. I also happen to think — or hope rather — that this kind of response might play a small part in transforming the situation that graduates are now facing. I think, in other words, that what we say ("we theorists", that is) can have political effects. They may be modest in scope, and they may not be guaranteed to arrive in the forms one had hoped for, but I don't find in those qualifications any reason to abandon any hope for transformation.
Posted by: rob | May 14, 2007 2:09:27 AM
Thanks, CR, for your comment over at faucets and pipes.
I've read this discussion with interest, concluding in the end that it doesn't apply to me. Political theory hasn't thought of itself in terms of one big moment and then a crisis. On the academic side, we have conflicts with the rest of our discipline, conflicts linked to their desire to be a science and to think of that science in terms of formal modeling. You might call it economics envy. On the political side, leftists continue to lament what is to be done, but that creates all sorts of openings and possibilities for political theory.
Before I read Mitchell's five queries, I considered his preceding questions in terms of what kind of research I would fund if a donor gave me a couple of million dollars for an institute/research project. That's pretty easy: understanding, criticizing, a formulating a viable, powerful response to neoliberalism.
Posted by: Jodi | May 15, 2007 1:35:18 PM
Jodi,
Thanks for your comment. I do think the situation is different in other disciplines, and, I could imagine, especially in Political Science.
But in the long run, I think I'm trying to push all of this toward a place where even the engagé sectors of English could, yes, start to "formulat[e] a viable, powerful response to neoliberalism"... or anything at all. And it starts by positioning yourself (disciplining yourself) vis a vis the constraints of the field of literary studies. What is it that we are good at? What can we do.
Because the thing is, we all, ultimately operate in tune with disciplinary constraints anyway. It is simply a question of figuring out the best way to be in tune with them...
Perhaps we should start the LS Endowment for Neoliberal Alternatives. I like the sound of your idea though...
Posted by: CR | May 15, 2007 11:57:29 PM
I'm pro-Nate. We should just listen to the gospel according to Nate...
Posted by: NotOften | May 16, 2007 5:54:35 AM
Umm. Thanks? Or is that irony? I'm not good at subtlety, in case you hadn't noticed.
(For what it's worth, the gospel according to me is very fragmentary because it's been a long time since I've read any of the gospel[s]. I did once have an idea for a two part comic book which would tell the gospel stories in the style of the Kung Fu movies I watched as a kid. [Part I: Jesus Christ - Tougher Than Nails. Part II: Jesus Christ - Fists Of Salvation.] I packed that idea up when I realized I can't draw nor can I write scripts.)
Posted by: Nate | May 17, 2007 12:13:38 AM
I post as somewhat of an outsider; I'm merely a casual reader of LS and a few other blogs. Though I'm not an academic (yet), I think I have a vested interest in all this, as Philosophy is central to my life and way of thinking, and I hope to practice it one day.
I wish to only add two points. The first is that, as many in the said issue of CI explained, if there were ever a time for theory, it would be now. Admitting my fondness for platitudes, our world needs philosophy...now. This is not a time for the "personal, ethical" turn of the placid 90s. Unless one subscribes to Baudrillardian post-nihilism, there is more out there to be analyzed each day; I need not elaborate, as others have done this for me (9/11, war on terror, cybernetics, the internet, globalization, etc). Have all the intellectuals been struck by a case of mutual writer's block?
The second is an extension of Mitchell's fourth point. My greatest influences are the likes of Benjamin and Adorno, Baudrillard and McLuhan. How can one deny the plain fact that our epoch is wholly different from those past [while keeping McLuhan's prescient advice in mind: "It is the business of the future to be dangerous"]? One need only take a quick flip through Wired magazine or lose oneself for hours online to realize that there is a great bulk of 'splainin to do. Media studies, greatly indebted to Mitchell himself, has only gone so far in this process.
Perhaps this is the great irony beneath threads like this one, issues of Critical Inquiry like the one in question, and books like Eagleton's "After Theory"- has philosophy lost every reference point to the world except self-referentiality? Does philosophy have nothing to say except a) to comment on meaningless analytic investigations or b) describing the color and shape of its own exposed innards, a dying organism focusing its last efforts on its own impending demise?
Posted by: Ardevan | May 20, 2007 11:08:57 PM
I think the "theory revolution" used literary studies as a location to sort of democratize philosophy/theory, and let theory be developed and maintained in outside of "professional theorists," and I think largely that's happened.
In contrast I see no reason for literary professionals want to refocus their work on projects that don't specifically focus on generating new theory. But I think someone needs to... There will always be new experiences to theorize, and new ideas to be had. Theroy isn't dead, it's just moving else where and doing other things.
Posted by: tycho | May 22, 2007 3:08:05 PM
I post as an outsider as well, although to a certain extent I feel as if this perspective is a necessity in contemporary academia.
The only point I wish to make is this: If we truly believe that 'theory' is a site on which we can manifest and articulate political goals and provide revelatory insight spurring social change, then theory needs to be reborn in a different way. While I am sympathetic to some of the posters' insistence on intellectual engagement by means of academic efforts (writing books on avant-garde poetry that aim to provide knowledge for the limited few, adding a cup of water to what seems to be a draining bucket), I think that a new tactic is a structural necessity. The problem of dispassionate detachment is not symptomatic of only critical theory; it's a problem that any academic discipline faces. The only apparent solution is an intellectual engagement that utilizes all the rapidly proliferating mediums of communication and interaction populating the contemporary landscape; a new and revolutionary interaction with theory entails utilizing the intellectuals (somewhat priveleged) knowledge and infusing it into mediums or projects that have been analyzed but not genuinely engaged.
Theory must become practice if we are to ever to affect actual change outside of the comforting halls of academic institutions; we must insist on 'doing something' with our work.
Posted by: Eric | May 23, 2007 11:10:51 PM
Jake B. (who will never read this b/c I’ve way missed the boat here on May 24th now)
First of all, I know quite a few autodidacts, mostly working-class people I grew up with who didn’t or couldn’t go to university, and while many of them are brilliant, only a couple have read anything that could fall into the category of “theory”, and none of them understand it very deeply. It is most certainly not the province of the untrained, but “natural” thinker. What I think you are getting at though (and I may well be wrong), is that what is generally and dismissively referred to as theory-theory as epithet, as you seem to be using it here-is distinct from philosophy in that it is more concerned with creativity-engaging ideas and originality-than it is with rigorous, “subjugation” to a “specific line of men”. I’d never thought of philosophy as such a religious discipline before (religious in Kierkagaard’s sense of true belief being not something one comes to on the basis of sound theological argument but rather something one must accept in advance) but this is an interesting differentiation you are implicity formulating. Even though I disagree with it, it illuminates something of the nature of hostility to theory. Maybe its no accident that “theory” -zizek, benjamin, butler, and especially Lacan- ends up finding its most enthusiastic readers in literature departments, where perhaps the authority of disciplinary subjugation and confinement is least respected; where creativity and imagination become almost as important as rigor or the dictates of traditional scholarship; where the pretense (and function) of professionalism is most likely to be questioned. Although the freedom from rigor, when abused in bad faith (by laziness or those interested primarily in shock value), results in the atrocious embarrassments of thought and scholarship that have, I must admit, contributed to theory’s bad rep, does it not also relieve us of the “subjugation” you’re speaking of, which must, at least to some degree, result in a religio-ideological faith in the ideas that one must first bow before as to idols in order to gain admittance to their secrets? Of course your point would be stronger if “theory” was in fact as undisciplined and flighty as you imply, but what I think is actually the case is that it is -as all interdisciplinarity must be- a meeting ground for methodologies borrowed form traditional areas. Because of this, it doesn’t depend on the type of strict adherence to the authority of these methods a traditional discipline like philosophy does; it can afford to build its own methodological constellations, giving more or less importance to any particular tool than the originary disciplines did. In a sense, it puts itself together much like sociology did, which appropriated categories from the natural sciences and the humanities in a way appropriate to its purpose. Which brings me to its purpose and therefore, its future. I have no idea of course, but it seems to me that theory’s strength is in its boundarilessness (in comparison with traditional disciplines, I mean. Already, it is quite reified, but not comparatively). Its ability to reinvent itself and shapeshift in response to the necessities of political or social engagement, where the disciplines are bogged down in tradition, is the result of its relative newness and its kinship “creative literature” (and yes, I’m speaking specifically about N. American comparative lit departments, english depts, etc. here). When you say: “when I read "Theory" or cultural studies, I don't know if I am supposed to take the writing in good faith or if it is a parody” I think what you “don’t know” is precisely the point at which theory shows its true strength . AT ITS BEST, theory is sort of a parody of academia; its laughing at its stuffiness. This isn’t a failure to be engaged or to take politics, the world, or whatever, seriously, its the remedy for the blind faith in forms and methods that bog down professional intellectualism. If ALL it amounted to was a parody, that would probably be bad.
best
D. S
Posted by: | May 25, 2007 2:52:41 AM
Well I’m a latecomer to this discussion and certainly an outsider in terms of academia – but I think the important point here is Jodi’s instinct to fashion an alternative to neoliberalism. So I’m going to respond to that and not to the body of the questions above. (And Jodi – its an instinct I have everyday, so the following is my own thoughts to myself as much as a response to your point.)
I think this instinct is precisely the issue insofar as it is the apparent failure of leftist alternatives in the dominant politics that often seems to provide the most telling evidence of Theory’s failure or exhaustion. I could be wrong here, but somehow, subconsciously or otherwise, I feel a great many of us who were/are invested in the project that is/was theory take the ascendancy of neo-liberalism in general and GWB in particular as evidence of some sort of failure on the part of theory, or at the very least our problem to fix. I think on a certain level, we understand that this sensation is not logically consistent, but that doesn’t stop us from feeling the need to answer somehow, and immediately and right away, as it were. Thus, Theory is accused of not being the place for ‘properly’ political work, of being an insulated product of an irrelevant institution - a professional discourse without a profession, etc. etc. I have three things to say to this.
1. Theory cannot provide an alternative to neo-liberalism. There is a formal distinction between the two. Thus Theory can render visible the conditions of possibility for ideology, the advanced form of false consciousness of which neoliberalism is a particularly virulent strain, but it cannot take its place at the level of ideology itself. I think that many people realize this but have not thought through its implications. Theory will never be ideology, it may act ideologically in certain places – different issue, but it will never function as smoothly, wield influence so spectacularly, or circulate so effectively. This is what makes it different, and, as a result of this difference, many good people engaged in its practice suffer from ideology-envy, a lusting after the sort of influence whose ultimate bankruptcy they would quickly demonstrate elsewhere.
2. And following – Neoliberalism is not the enemy of Theory any more than Stalinism was its ally. Both are fictions of power engaged in managing the flow of resources in a specific way. Either we believe this, (or something rendered similalrly) or we don’t. If you don’t want to speak of these things in this way, if doing so does not satisfy your need for action – than do something else. But lets not kid ourselves, the privilege of thinking along with Theory is its concurrent investment in explanatory consistency, the approach of a vocabulary capable of describing our current situation with something approaching intellectual honesty – and this comes at the expense of the indulgent Manichaeism and vulgar satisfactions of an activist politics. I’m not saying there are not people have space for both moments in their lives, but lets not confuse the two.
3. Thirdly, and conversely, simply because Theory itself will never be satisfied in that way, that does not mean it is wholly without influence. Judith Butler has waned in importance, we laugh at her writing style, and some of us just think that she is, in some sense, simply wrong. That said, when I was born, gay marriage was illegal in my home state. Now, it is not. The comparison between Butler and the culture that legalized gay marriage is difficult and frustrating – we certainly would not argue that Judith Butler is responsible for legalizing gay marriage – or even that the two have anything, practically, to do with each other. Hell, chances are, we wouldn’t even agree on whether or not legalizing gay marriage was an altogether good thing. But nor would we argue that activist men and women who worked tirelessly day after day for shit pay in the non-for-profits who created the necessary climate for this to take place were altogether isolated from her ideas. Or from people whose thinking she influenced. Or – one step further – that Butler is not an iconic figure for the progressive movement that provoked the rightist backlash we are now suffering through. Which is to say, I think I understand the frustrations of working in a university and reading the headlines and thinking that nothings getting done, and certainly not to the impossibly high standards (read: abstract) of something like theory, but I think its only part of the story. There is a disparity between the great abstract heights that theory reaches for, and the concrete, slow, and often frustrating process of its praxis and dissemination. And this disparity helps provoke the feelings of frustration and uselessness that lie beneath assertions as to theory’s demise. But this is a mourning for a straw man – theory never worked the way it thinks it should, it works the way it has to, in fits and starts, and this is what makes it different, and in my mind, preferable to what I have been calling, roughly, ideology.
This is not to say anyone should be satisfied or happy with the current state of affairs. It is to say that Theory would do well to remember what it is, and how it works. It is not to say that all is well with Theory, there are major issues, specifically, I think, with regards the focus on race and gender at the expense of class. But we must be wary of making a category mistake in taking mere ideology (or mere Eagleton) as the evidence of the failure of theoretical thought; if anything, in the violence of its reassertion, in its paranoid behavior and crudity of expression – the reappearance on the political scene of a reactionary, archaic, unthinking neoliberalism testifies to how far we’d really gotten, and how much is left to be done.
Posted by: Squibb | May 25, 2007 12:50:46 PM
Squibb (and everyone),
Such excellent comments, and I'm sorry that I haven't had the chance to respond to them adequately. (I'm on vacation, with limited access and time... Easier for me to read them as they chime in on my cellphone than to respond...)
Let me say one thing in response to Squibb's comment: I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I still think it's haunted by a sort of defeatist attitude about the possibility of literary intellectuals and engagement. If "theory" can't really do the engagement thing, fine. But I'm not wedded to theory. But on the other hand it seems to me clear that all sorts of intellectuals of one stripe or another do intervene meaningfully in public culture all the time (newspaper columnists, writers of popular if heady books, etc...)
Of course there are serious problems with these interventions, but I guess I am starting to wonder if theory not only makes it difficult for us to intervene, but actually convinces us that it's not really important / right to do so. Do you see my point? The distinction?
Posted by: CR | May 25, 2007 3:12:35 PM
CR-
Briefly. And thanks for the quick reply.
I do see the point. I guess the distinction I am holding out for is one of locale. Thinking of the kind we are discussing (I think we share a dislike for the term ‘Theory’) does not do its work in the public square, to my mind. It does it in the university, over a period of many years, (or on one’s own, or in reading groups…etc. but slowly) In this sense, I do think it engages, but its engagement doesn’t necessarily register on the popular radar of engagement, the way, say, Dinesh D’souza does. So I guess my point would not be that theory doesn’t engage, only that it engages in its own way, as a transformative pedagogy that takes place over time.
I think we run into trouble when we assess this sort of pedagogical engagement on a rubric designed for other types of interactions, be that political activism, or media interventions, or what have you. And no doubt the Times article exaggerates what went on at that conference, but even granting that, I’m shocked at the lack of leadership displayed by the people on that panel.
I mean really, for my money – the presidency before us goes to a great length to confirm a number of the more radical things certain thinkers have been saying for a while now. If there is any constituency that shouldn’t be surprised by the Iraq war, and the rest of this administration’s shenanigans, shouldn’t it be the critical theorists? The people who have been telling us for years about that this is how power functions? Am I crazy here? I mean these people got handed a golden opportunity to say – see, this is what we were talking about – and instead they bitch about their own inability to stop what, to a certain extent, they themselves predicated? I’m not saying they should celebrate this period as a glorious confirmation but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a little self-respect.
I digress – I only mean to suggest that Theory does have an impact, but it’s a certain kind of impact. – and its not one that should preclude us from protesting, from writing letters to the editor, from interacting in ways we feel compelled too, because quite honestly, its not going to do that work for us. And to think it will or damn it for not doing so – or worse, for not telling us what exactly what to do in the first place - denigrates the work that it does do. And if this means giving up some of our pretensions to a certain revolutionary radicalism, so much the better.
It occurs to me I may have missed your point, if so, please let me know.
Posted by: Squibb | May 25, 2007 6:44:08 PM
“Theory will never be ideology, it may act ideologically in certain places – different issue, but it will never function as smoothly, wield influence so spectacularly, or circulate so effectively. This is what makes it different, and, as a result of this difference, many good people engaged in its practice suffer from ideology-envy, a lusting after the sort of influence whose ultimate bankruptcy they would quickly demonstrate elsewhere.”
I think this hits on something really crucial here: No matter how well a well dressed, well-educated, bespectacled progressive can argue in the face of someone about to mug her/him, those years of erudition are valueless in the face of brute force, which has no interest in playing by the rules of the silly, civilized game that only people with a lifetime investment in these things seem beholden to. The rule of logic and reason are a closed universe and those of us who practice it-who are surrounded by others who practice it- tend to forget this. Something about the left-even the politically engaged left-that has always frustrated me is its obsessive dependence on critical, reasonable, logical thought to do anything. Take this new Bill Moyers documentary on the failure of the news media to call the Bush administration on its bullshit . Everyone’s been talking about it as if it’s a revelation and yet the left was disclosing all of this information years ago: the plagiarized Colin Powell speech, the firing of Phil Donahue, etc. Everyday the journalistic left-Amy Goodman, Patrick Cockburn, F.A.I.R.,-all of these people and groups and many more flooded the world with sound arguments that , for those who play the game of reason, destroyed the foundations for Bush’s invasion. But who besides self-referential intellectuals are playing this game in which reasoned argument scores the most points? Ideology, GWB. D’Souza, etc. are that ideology standing on a street corner with a baseball bat, playing a different game all together, dismissive of the cumbersome, un-pragmatic hold of reason. Any attempt to directly engage critical, reasoning, discourse in a political battle with the face of brute stupidity is a lost cause; like standing outside the gates of city wielding a book and a pen as an army of horses prepares to trample you. To directly engage in political struggle with these forces is not only foolish but impossible. Maybe before we ask the question : where is theory going , we ought to ask: what the hell did it think it was doing in the face of all of these thoughtless giants that unthinkingly trample anything in their path? Does anyone expect a good argument to fend off a stampede of buffalo? It seems absurd to me that the end of theory or whatever is the result of disappointment or unexpected bewilderment in the face of neo-liberal hegemony . Did theorists actually think -actually BELIEVE what they were doing had any direct impact on politics BEFORE? Did anyone expect that some incomprehensible books would win more adherents -even in a popularized form(like maybe zizek‘s Lacan/Hitchcock book or something)-than the stupid satisfactions of patriotism and the like? I mean, holy shit, Al Gore was too much of a “high-fallutin” intellectual for a lot of people. If this is really the case, then the ivory tower is a thicker fortress of ideology in its own right than anything the right has been able to steer into the minds of “the public”. If there was anyone who had given up more public political engagements with the assumption that theory was where direct political energies could be placed-if that is the sort of thinking theory perpetuates-than it is certainly an obstacle to any sort of response to neo-liberal ideology.
But I’m not so sure it has this effect on its practitioners. Though few theorists are otherwise meaningfully politically engaged, would these people be engaged if they weren’t theorists? Wouldn’t they find some other excuse not to commit themselves? Theory is a strange thing in that it is discursively political, yet not publicly engaged. It is like a well-spoken, well thought out prayer , prayed in bed alone at night in the dark to someone who is listening from the distant future. I think its value lies in how it will be received well into the future, not in its usefulness-which is nil- to the present. Even the most pragmatic politics are founded on some sort of theory that has somehow managed after centuries to filter into collective consciousness, and I think this is the only sense in which theory can be political-in its possible effects on and reception in, the future. Look at how Freud’s ideas have made their most marked influence. They are everywhere today, yet they had no effect whatsoever on the crises of WWII.
chris
Posted by: | May 25, 2007 8:15:20 PM
Oh yeah, one more thing. As I wrote earlier (as D.S.), I think a core strength of theory is its creativity; its ability to propose beautiful ideas. Isn’t what makes Walter Benjamin so vital isn’t the logical or reasonableness of his ideas, but their beauty, passion, originality, etc. His political beliefs would be almost laughable today if they weren’t so heart-wrenchingly beautiful. In the face of brute neo-liberal illogic, the intellectual Left needn’t, for the millionth, futile time, try and out reason the Right, but rather, focus more on its passionate and beautiful engagment with Utopian human possibilities. And not even in a dogmatically political way, but in a way that attracts minds that are frustrated with the banality of Right-wing survivalist ideology. Theory should be formulating the other worlds that are possible. Like the political left, the intellectual left tends to pay the defensive role-arguing AGAINST the stupidity of the Right and refusing to supply alternatives. Even Benjamin didn’t propose to show us what a redeemed communist utopia would look like. Maybe people actually WANT to hear about what it would be like. Even if what theorists say about other worlds never comes to pass, at least putting out ideas about these possibilities will engage people to begin imagining again. Its no accidnt that the 19th century was full of utopian dreamers-Fourier, Bahkunin and the like, while it was also full of politically active revolutions. thanks forproviding a forum for me to think some of this out.
chris
Posted by: | May 25, 2007 8:34:23 PM
Some fabulous late comments here.
squibb: So I guess my point would not be that theory doesn’t engage, only that it engages in its own way, as a transformative pedagogy that takes place over time.
Yes, yes! This is kind of what I've been getting at in a discussion with Nate over at his blog. While we kind of reached an agreement at this point, I would want to go one step further by saying that there's no guarantee that the transformative effects of that pedagogy will remain limited to the site of its application. Insofar as theory operates on ideas and intellectual practices, in other words, the "political" (i.e. transformative) effects of its operations would most likely be felt first and foremost in that sphere which is defined or constituted by ideas and intellectual practices. However, forms of thought and forms of practice (etc.) defy all attempts — whether deliberately political, or imperceptible and institutional — to restrict the sites of their application or operation. Put simply, the limit between the "inside" and the "outside" of the university is porous, and no amount of policing or management can utterly contain academic practice (e.g. "theory") within walls of the university. Consequently, it remains possible that the transformative effects of "theory" may exceed its primary site or context of operation, such that "it" may have some (albeit, largely unpredictable) impact on "the world outside".
chris (aka D.S.): Theory is a strange thing in that it is discursively political, yet not publicly engaged.... I think its value lies in how it will be received well into the future, not in its usefulness-which is nil- to the present.
I would argue (or at least hope) that theory's value lies precisely in opening a relation to the future — perhaps to futurity as such — precisely through its uneven, somewhat unpredictable, affirmation of "the political". Or that "theory" plays a part in keeping that relation open.
CR: I guess I am starting to wonder if theory not only makes it difficult for us to intervene, but actually convinces us that it's not really important / right to do so.
This is when the question of what exactly is meant by "theory" becomes unavoidable. I've already said why I don't buy the idea that "theory" is (or needs to be) somehow opposed to the other forms of academic practice, supposedly more "empirical" and "historical" than theory, that Mitchell names. Certainly, I don't see "theory" as necessarily drawing back from political intervention or as denying the importance of such intervention.
Even if we accept the idea of "theory" as some utterly formal, a-historical exercise, however, I still think that theory's commitment (as it were) to political intervention is much more powerful, or at least potentially so, than many would otherwise think. This is because the formalisation of theory brings with it, surprisingly perhaps, the concretisation of a particular kind of political practice: the questioning/challenging of (certain forms of) authority. Undoubtedly, we could debate for months about the importance or extent of such forms of authority and about the political value or effects of their questioning, or even about whether the questioning of such forms of authority can be owed to theory alone. Even so, I think most of us would agree that the rise of theory amounts in the first instance to a challenge to certain traditional (hence authoritative) ways of thinking and acting.
The formalisation of theory amounts to the simplification, in the sense of elementalisation, of a certain kind of intellectual practice, making it more amenable to dissemination (hence, institutionalisation) via the apparatus of the education system (and other related networks). I wouldn't want at this stage to go any further in speculating on the possible extent or effects of that dissemination. But I do think that it provides a point of focus for pursuing a more materially grounded conception of the political (i.e. transformative) possibilities of "theory".
Posted by: rob | May 27, 2007 9:35:23 PM
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