Not too long ago, literary theorists were writing about the death of the novel and the death of the author; today many are talking about the death of Theory. Theory, as the many theoretical ism's (among them postcolonialism, postmodernism, and New Historicism) are now known, once seemed so exciting but has become ossified and insular. This iconoclastic collection is an excellent companion to current anthologies of literary theory, which have embraced an uncritical stance toward Theory and its practitioners. Written by nearly fifty prominent scholars, the essays in Theory's Empire question the ideas, catchphrases, and excesses that have let Theory congeal into a predictable orthodoxy. More than just a critique, however, this collection provides readers with effective tools to redeem the study of literature, restore reason to our intellectual life, and redefine the role and place of Theory in the academy.
- Table of Contents
- introduction
- part i. theory rising
- 1. Theory,What Theory?
- 2. Destroying Literary Studies
- 3. Traveling Through American Criticism
- 4. The Rise and Fall of “Practical” Criticism: From I. A. Richards to Barthes and Derrida
- 5. The Power and Limits of Literary Theory
- 6. Is Theory to Blame?
- 7. Theory, Theories, and Principles
- part ii. linguistic turns
- 8. The Linguistic Unconscious:Saussure and the Post-Saussureans
- 9. Literary Theory and Its Discontents
- 10. The Quandaries of the Referent
- 11. The Great Dichotomy
- 12. The Deconstructive Angel
- part iii. empire building
- 13. The Grand Academy of Theory
- 14. Theorrhea and Kulturkritik
- 15. Masters and Demons
- 16. The Debate Over the Wartime Writings of Paul de Man: The Language of Setting the Record Straight
- 17. Presentism: Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism
- 18. Preface for a Post-Postcolonial Criticism
- part iv. theory as a profession
- 19. Author! Author! Reconstructing Roland Barthes
- 20. The French Intellectual Habitus and Literary Culture
- 21. Social Constructionism: Philosophy for theAcademic Workplace
- 22. Bad Writing
- 23. Everyman an Übermensch: The Culture ofCultural Studies
- 24. The End of Theory, the Rise of the Profession:A Rant in Search of Responses
- part v. identities
- 25. The Cant of Identity
- 26. The Gender Fallacy
- 27. Feminism’s Perverse Effects
- 28. Queer Theory, Literature, and the Sexualization ofEverything: The Gay Science
- 29. Battle of the Bien-Pensant
- part vi. theory as surrogate politics
- 30. Oppositional Opposition
- 31. Silence Is Consent, or Curse Ye Meroz!
- 32. Criticism as Displacement
- 33. Thick Aestheticism and Thin Nativism
- 34. Casualties of the Culture Wars
- part vii. restoring reason
- 35. Rationality/Science
- 36. The Furor Over Impostures Intellectuelles:What Is All theFuss About?
- 37. The Sleep of Reason
- 38. Staying for an Answer: The Untidy Process of Groping forTruth
- 39. What Is Social Construction?
- 40. Postcolonial Science Studies: Ending “Epistemic Violence”
- part viii. still reading after all
these theories . . .
- 41. Literature and Theory: Notes on the Research Programsof the 1980s
- 42. Changing Epochs
- 43. Making Knowledge: Bioepistemology and theFoundations of Literary Theory
- 44. Literature and Fiction
- 45. Literary Aesthetics and the Aims of Criticism
- 46. Crisis in the Humanities? Reconfiguring Literary Study forthe Twenty-first Century
- coda
- 47. A Hippocratic Oath for the Pluralist
- List of Contributors
- Index
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