There's a somewhat stiff Arts and Letters booth at TPM Cafe, but good luck finding it—there's no link to it (or any other categories, as far as I can tell) anywhere on the home page, which, in turn, is exactly where you end up if you enter artsandletters.tpmcafe.com. But by the power of RSS I came upon Brad DeLong's thoughts about Theory's Empire: An Anthology of Dissent. The book would appear to be a tour of the vast ruins wrought by Theory, that notorious match with which Derrida (or Foucault or Fish or Fried), playing Nero, burned down the academy.
Of the book DeLong says:
There is a certain bloodlessness here: the dry bones hop about and clatter, but there is too little flesh on them: much too little is said about how High Theory changed—for good and for ill—how we read books.From browsing the series of entries in the book symposium on Theory's Empire hosted by The Valve (a great literary blog, if you're not reading it), I get the impression that a similar consensus emerged there as well. Sean McCann writes, "[t]he problem (to the extent we agree there is one) is not any ideas particular to Theory, in other words, but the academic celebrity system, the tenure review process, and/or the guild process of professional training." Jeffrey Wallen (a contributor to Theory's Empire) writes that one item of consensus among his colleagues is that "that theory died, or rather was asphyxiated, some time shortly after the death of Paul de Man. The sorts of concerns and practices that seemed to be at the center of literary criticism in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s were now largely viewed as obsolete and tainted."
So that should serve as some comfort if you are, like me, skeptical whenever a book emerges that has set in its crosshairs all of Theory. I don't mean by my suspicion that I can't appreciate or tolerate a minority report; but if Roger Kimball's Rape of the Masters or Hilton Kramer's work can be taken as representative of popular notions of discontent, attacks on Theory's contemporary are usually chased with a rejection of all the political or linguistic critical accomplishments of the twentieth century, in favor of a return to a sequestered version of New Criticism.
Daniel Green, responding to an essay in TE contributed by New Critic Rene Wellek, expands on this hostility:
As the author of Theory of Literature (long considered the primary theoretical pillar supporting the New Criticism), Rene Wellek surely exemplifies the imperative to separate theory from Theory that John Holbo has been discussing. Wellek cleary believed in the efficacy of theory—which he defines as “concerned with the principles, categories, functions, and criteria of literature in general"—but as early as 1982 he feared that literary theory was undermining the very assumptions on which literary study had been based. Were his fears (at least about the kind of theory then being promulgated) well-founded? I think not.A restatement of the fundamental disagreement about the relative centrality of the object and the reader that didn't involve casting aspersions on the situation of the academy sounds like good hunting for a traditionalist out to slay some dragons. Perhaps that's not to be found in this volume, according to DeLong et al. It sounds to me like an extraordinary introduction to some writers with whom I'm not familiar, so I'll add it to the wishlist. At the very least, I know what I'm getting James for Christmas.His essay,"Destroying Literary Studies,” reprinted in Theory’s Empire, contends that Theory (primarily deconstruction and reader-response theory, but also extending as far back as Northrop Frye) was threatening “the whole edifice of literary study” in an “attempt to destroy literary studies from the inside.” In retrospect, this seems an absurd charge to have leveled against the likes of Derrida, Frye, Stanley Fish, and (!) Harold Bloom, and seems to vindicate the counter-charge that New Criticism was an especially narrow and insular movement. If even Frye and Bloom couldn’t be countenanced as serious-minded rivals, wasn’t it New Criticism that was doomed to destroy itself “from the inside”?
[. . .]
The “theories” of both Derrida and Fish could have co-existed comfortably with New Critical formalism if everyone concerned had not regarded the differences between them as so considerable that they justified critical and curricular warfare. Judging from Rene Wellek’s essay (and many of the others included in Theory’s Empire), the New Critics and other traditionalists were just as responsible for initiating hostilities as the Theorists who ultimately defeated them.
Also note that, according to Amazon, "readers who viewed this book also viewed Saved by the Bell: Seasons 1 & 2 by Elizabeth Berkley"—do with that information what you will.
Posted by Kriston at July 19, 2005 11:50 AMThere's a somewhat stiff Arts and Letters booth at TPM Cafe, but good luck finding it
If I may ignore the substance of your post and only address the opening, I'm not sure the "Arts and Letters" heading is meant so much as a separate page but as a way of classifying posts made to the main page. Like setting catagories. It's confusing, of course, and without much practical difference (aside from that same confusion), as posts from the subsidary pages ("America Abroad" and so on) get put on the main page, too, but that's how I read it.
I'm warming up a bit to TMP Cafe, which isn't surprising, I suppose, since I read most of those who are involved already. But yeah, even knowing a little about the site doesn't make it less disappointing to realize that "Arts and Letters" simply turns out to be another designation for politics.
As for Theory's Empire . . . I find it hard to care. I don't mean that as a reflection on your post, I'm just weary.
Posted by: JL at July 19, 2005 2:01 PMI was pleased to see the Theory's Empire roundup at the Valve. I was schooled in Theory, have had some doubts along the way, and am eager to see serious methodological discussion that avoids the glibness that Theoreticians sometimes take on. That, we in the humanities could use more of.
At the same time, I have some doubts about The Valve's project. In wishing to have an impact on a discipline (and Holbo comes from outside; I don't know much about the other participants, but they seem to relish outsider status), they are trying to sidestep the whole way an academic field works, through peer-reviewed journals, conferences and the like. I can sense the frustration in the discipline that would lead them to launching a blog-based attack, but they shouldn't be so surprised when literary scholars react with retrenchment, stubbornness or apathy.
Also, I would be more in thrall of their anti-Theory stances if the scholarship on the Valve seemed more scholastic, less belletristic. Beneath their cool-headedness I can't help but read a fundamental resentment that literary critics aren't treating literature with the proper veneration as Art.
Posted by: Chris at July 19, 2005 2:27 PMI think TPM Cafe's set-up is a bit more elaborate than categories. For example, go to http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/ and you'll not only have all the posts designated under the "House of Labor" category a page with a title and masthead that say "House of Labor." Functionally, I bet you're right—the Cafe authors probably just designate a category.
The problem is that there isn't a categories index on the main page. No way to get to the Arts and Letters section but also no indication there is an Arts and Letters section unless Brad DeLong's post is staring at you. And beyond DeLong's contribution, the Arts and Letters section has all the . . . open threads about readers' favorite politicohistorical books. TPM A&L: nice idea, but wonks aren't off-task enough to keep it going.
As for Theory's Empire . . . I find it hard to care. I don't mean that as a reflection on your post, I'm just weary.
If this stuff doesn't pique your interest, JL, I'm afraid this post may be doomed.
Posted by: Kriston at July 19, 2005 2:33 PMI'm just waiting expectantly for installment two of Theory Tuesdays at Prof. Bérubé's House.
Posted by: Dan at July 19, 2005 2:53 PMI think TPM Cafe's set-up is a bit more elaborate than categories.
I imagine it is - needlessly complex, I'm sure. The problem is, to put it another way, the different elements of the set-up don't map cleanly. So there are designated subpages (House of Labor, etc.) with links on the front page and some of their posts there as well; categories distinct from these that can allow all of the posts so classified to be read on the same page, but that don't have a sidebar link; and the "tables" listed on the drop-down menu, which have reader-posted material that overlaps, and at times duplicates, some of the above. Crystal clear.
If this stuff doesn't pique your interest, JL, I'm afraid this post may be doomed.
More Harry Potter blogging!
Posted by: JL at July 19, 2005 3:00 PMFor what it's worth, what bothers me most at TPM Cafe are the comment threads. When they're actually worth reading, I'm always absolutely befuddled by the posting order. I can't get a handle on it.
Posted by: Dan at July 19, 2005 3:55 PMFor what it's worth, what bothers me most at TPM Cafe are the comment threads.
Them too. Though as a result, I can't vouch that I find them worth reading.
Posted by: JL at July 19, 2005 4:13 PMAnd Theory Tuesday arrives:
OK, so I’m a few hours late with today’s Theory Tuesday. That’s because I left my copy of Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays on top of the refrigerator last night, and spent way too much time this morning running around looking for it.
Today's topic looks to be "defamiliarization":
...if there was one thing that feminist critics, psychoanalytic critics, Marxist critics, and deconstructionists wanted to do to me, it was to make me see things anew, to make the familiar strange. Whether they sought to reveal the workings of patriarchy, of ideology, of the unconscious, or of language itself, they were engaged in the Shklovskian task of laying bare the device.Posted by: Dan at July 19, 2005 4:58 PM
Wow, I looked at the title of the post on RSS and I thought it was about the nomination of Judge Roberts.
Posted by: Rob W at July 19, 2005 10:36 PMI experience defamiliarization every morning, until the coffee kicks in.
Posted by: David at July 20, 2005 12:59 PMSchlotzskian? Sounds delicious.
Posted by: matty at July 20, 2005 5:11 PMOh man, I could go for a Schlotzsky's Wednesday. You know they don't have them up here, right? That and Jason's Deli . . . mmm.
Posted by: Kriston at July 20, 2005 5:23 PM"Also note that, according to Amazon, "readers who viewed this book also viewed Saved by the Bell: Seasons 1 & 2 by Elizabeth Berkley"—do with that information what you will."
The Amazon Sage has spoken clearly. Don't knock SBB until you have basked in its teen-angst, existential glory.
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls..."
--AK
Posted by: Ashby at July 27, 2005 12:41 PM