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Thursday, August 04, 2005
Theory Friday: In Which Our Hero Discusses the Merits of His Heroism and Finds Them Wanting
What can I say? I want to be like Mike.
On to the show! I can’t contest Matt‘s claim that the introduction to Theory’s Empire declares the timeliness, nay! necessity of an anti-Norton anthology with a bombast the articles it introduces can’t support. But what about the introduction to The Norton? Are its sins of inflation as grievous as Theory’s Empire‘s?
On the first page, students learn:
[Theory] entails a mode of questioning and analysis that goes beyond the earlier New Critical research into the “literariness” of literature. Because of the effects of post-structuralism, cultural studies, and the new social movements, especially the women’s and civil rights movements, theory now entails skepticism toward systems, institutions, and norms; a readiness to take critical stands and to engage in resistance; an interest in blind spots, contradictions, and distortions (often discovered to be ineradicable); and a habit of linking local and personal practices to the larger economic, political, historical, and ethical forces of culture.
Observe how the uncredited author (I’ll call him/her “Andy") of the preface forces the students to make a distinction: on the one hand, there are the limited claims of the New Critics who focus solely on the “literariness of literature.” Apparently Andy never read I’ll Take My Stand, the New Critical/Agrarian manifesto whose authors aren’t interested in the literariness of literature so much as attacking “apologists of industrialism.” Denude the early anti-capitalist dimension to early New Critical thought and the rationale behind their theories concerning coherent aesthetic experiences seem awful small-minded. That said, I won’t claim the agrarian movement imagined itself to be progressive; then again, many of their complaints about the excesses of capitalism can still circulate in theoretical debates today:
The word science has acquired a certain sanctitude. It is out of order to quarrel with science in the abstract, or even with the applied sciences when their applications are made subject to criticism and intelligence. The capitalization of the applied sciences has now become extravagant and uncritical; it has enslaved our human energies to a degree now clearly felt to be burdensome. The apologists of industrialism do not like to meet this charge directly; so they often take refuge in saying that they are devoted simply to science! They are really devoted to the applied sciences and to practical production. Therefore, it is necessary to employ a certain skepticism even at the expense of the Cult of Science, and to say, it is an Americanism, which look innocent and disinterested, but really is not either.
As a younger lad I fought to connect this strain of agrarian anti-industrialism to the contemporary critiques of capitalism. Although I never quite accomplished that feat, to this day I wonder what those who oppose capitalism on theoretical grounds imagine will happen were they their opposition magically transformed into something, I don’t know, remotely efficacious. Would their vision of unalienated labor resemble that of the New Critics Andy casually dismisses in a clause? In other words: if forced to articulate a positive program, what would it look like?
It bothers me that literary critics can establish careers on an oppositional position without ever having to think through the implications of their arguments. It reminds me too much of Socialists, Communists and Stalinists in the 1920s who, unlike the anti-Stalinist Socialists, chose to ignore evidence of the purges so that they might continue to fight the good fight in the hallways of Harvard and Columbia. That’s unfair. (And also intrudes on David Horowitz’s lunatic territory. However, I have a point; he has a jeremiad.) My point is simply that much of what passes for “Theory” in literature departments stake a wholly oppositional claim, one which never demands a positive platform, because for more than 25 years they haven’t been forced to think through what their position entails. They should be.
I’ve been on the verge of an “other hand” for some time now. Here it is:
On the other hand, after aligning contemporary “theory” with the women’s and civil rights movements that everyone with a smattering of history (i.e. sadly not our students) knows preceded it by at least a decade, Andy announces theory’s sole ownership of “skepticism towards systems, institutions, and norms.” It’s also cornered the market on critical stands and engagements in resistance. What Andy’s done is deny the New Critics their day in the oppositional sun and trumpeted the power of theory. But wait! I’m a liar! I havent’ even reached the introduction yet: all of this information and obfuscation’s actually in the Preface!
Tomorrow I will stop lying and discuss the introduction, which merits its own discussion. My point here, as I think will become increasingly clear on the morrow, is that Matt’s correct: there’s a real problem with the introduction to Theory’s Empire. But though I agree, I will expand his argument to encompass the genre of introductions, and I’ll demand he read the essays in Theory’s Empire instead of the terrible introduction. I will insist that he carefully read my contribution to the event (linked to above, around, and all over the place), and ask him whether he thinks I’m being unfair to the claims of theorists.
(I will then apologize to Matt for forcing him to read a really long essay and a longer book by demanding he do so in a public venue. Then I’ll concede that my tactics were cheap but that I really think he should see whether I’m attacking Theory qua, um, theory? Theory? Anyhow, a preview of tomorrow night’s followup: I think Matt’s made a legitimate critique of Theory’s Empire‘s introduction, and tomorrow I’m going to put some of its claims side-by-side The Norton‘s to demonstrate how both anthologies, by having to orient themselves not only intellectually but also to the market, force themselves to argue in bad faith.)
Comments
I think that there’s something wrong with this extended argument, and have ever since Michael first introduced it. (If you look at Matt’s first post on it, I’m pretty sure that he references Michael.) What’s wrong with it in a nutshell: if you believe this (that the essays in an anthology are in some way contaminated by the introduction) then the introduction is the single most important piece of text within an anthology to read.
I mean, you might as well go through and detail the corresponding rhetorical demands and pitches towards the market that I’m sure exist in The Norton. Everyone knows that the best counter to a bad argument of a certain type is a mirroring bad one. And I do think that the part about how the New Criticism was misrepresented, and how Theory hasn’t developed a positive platform, is interesting in that it applies to real issues. But for the rest I am tempted to repeat that old saw from general semantics, “the map is not the territory”, the introduction is not the anthology, the anthology is not the body of theory, the body of theory is not the field. Matt’s claim of a “jealous fury at The Norton” (which Matt says is somewhat tongue in cheek, but which I like to keep referring to because it is such a perfect phrase) collapses down the whole chain. While people may review a particular anthology, the arguments about theory are not about any particular anthology, much less their introductions.
I have one short comment on this, which goes back to that long long discussion thread (it took me a while to discover that there was all sorts of yelling and cussin’ going on there after I thought everyone had nodded off to sleep after we’d all said, ‘Night, John-Boy’ to each other). It may not be germane to what Scott is saying here.
There was a point where someone said in that comments thread that it was evident that some of the Valve contributors, as well as much of Theory’s Empire was clearly “not progressive”. Sticking with my autobiographical bent on TE, I can tell you that six years ago I would have come back at that by insisting that the people I was defending were indeed progressive, no fear, no worries, all on the same side. I might even have flipped the accusation and said, “No, you’re the one who’s not progressive. This is pretty much what happened in the exchanges between postmodern critical theorists and the so-called “left conservatives” like Rorty a few years back.
Now I’m struck instead at two things: first, what is this progressive that various people are not? It’s said in various conversations that things are or are not progressive as if the content of that term is well understood, even by many of the critics collected in Theory’s Empire. But the more I think on it, the less I’m sure what exactly is being described in that word. Second, I’m struck at the dichotomy that accusation, often made in some form, proposes: are or are not, and at the starkness of the moral division that rides unspoken alongside it. Are or are not; good or bad. Say no more. And how odd it is to see such a dichotomy proposed in the context of talking about Theory; surely one of the general contributions of deconstructive or postmodern thinking was to free us from the need to divide any room in such a way?
If you believe this (that the essays in an anthology are in some way contaminated by the introduction) then the introduction is the single most important piece of text within an anthology to read.
That’s where I’m headed: a critique of the cheap polemics intended to make a new anthology appear essential to the intellectual development of the field. For all its faults, The Norton ain’t half bad as anthologies go. When I received my exam copy a couple of years back, I hadn’t read about half of the essays; however, 99% of the essays I hadn’t read were ancient/medieval works. Now, it’s wonderful that The Norton‘s able to introduce students in an introductory theory seminar to a wider swath of thought than previous theory anthologies--"On Wednesday we’ll be reading Macrobius, Moses Maimonides and Geoffrey of Vinsauf"--but the expansion of the ancient/medieval critical canon doesn’t ameliorate its monolithic approach to contemporary Theory. And that’s what the introduction’s pitched to. No one will take a stand and declare the revolutionary potential of Joachim du Bellay’s The Defence and Illustration of the French Language.
Again I lie! The intro. to du Bellay begins:
Joachim du Bellay is known for having written one of the first theoretical defenses of a vernacular language against an imperial language. Contemporary postcolonial writers often attack the prestige of European languages, but those same Euopean languages were once considered by Renaissance authors to be inferior to Latin and Greek.
Alright, so maybe I don’t lie per se, only peccadillo. My point is that even though the intro. to du Bellay tries to justify his place in The Norton by granting him a privileged place in the lineage of postcolonial critique, Theory’s Empire doesn’t answer du Bellay’s defense of illumination, or Giacopo Mazzoni’s On the Defense of the Comedy of Dante, &c. and everyone knows why: because Theory’s Empire‘s an anti-capital-T-Theoretical anthology, not an anti-lower-case-t-theoretical anthology. What the introductions demonstrate is that everyone‘s arguing in bad faith and no one wants to admit it.
Timothy, you’re right that “progressive” has become one of those nebulous terms that idealists throw at other idealists in order to prove that their ideals aren’t as ideal as theirs. (Pronoun reference ambiguitiy intended.) I believe this to be the result of what I could’ve called the “platformlessness” of literary theorists. They never have to make the kinds of compromises real political actors have to make; but they’re free to criticize all of such actions, and do, and in so doing feel very progressive about themselves (despite the fact that they’ve done nothing except, maybe, impede the progress of the Progress they imagine they support).
And another contribution was the observation that such thinking may not only be intractable but necessary. In dark moments, I end up thinking that social/cultural differentiation (the dynamic of the discussion in moral terms) is necessary for the group cohesion that makes other knowledges/conversations possible.
At any rate, like many who do their intellectual work on college campuses, and in conversation with texts such as TE, I’ve given up using words like “progressive"--the term is wielded like a baseball bat in my neck of the woods, and it says nothing about any given person’s analysis of a problem. It certainly doesn’t indicate that I will agree with the speaker’s position. For example: Political “progressives” on the Iraq war often say nothing, or having nothing to say, about that region’s theocracies and, say, sexual minorities. The world unfolds in uneven ways; my progressivism may be exactly what is needed for your cultural conservativism (witness ending the draft in the US in the 1970s).
The strong point of Fish/Michaels/Knapp pragmatism was always the insistence that no necessary political position followed from an apparatus of interpretation--and it’s a good thing, too.
"And another contribution was the observation that such thinking may not only be intractable but necessary” was what I meant to write!
[And so you shall!]
I had to return my copy of *Theory’s Empire* to the library, but from what I remember, I certainly wouldn’t characterize it as “an anti-capital-T-Theoretical anthology, not an anti-lower-case-t-theoretical anthology,” as Scott does above.
The major thinkers of the theoretical turn—Barthes, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Lacan and Derrida—get scant close, critical attention. Searle’s piece deals with Derrida’s ideas about language, but I don’t recall a single critique of semiotics, structuralism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, or Foucaultian historicism in the collection.
Nor do its contents take on “secondary” figures like Jakobson, Bakhtin, Propp, Benedict Anderson, Benjamin, Adorno, or other often cited thinkers central to the Theory enterprise. In fact, the main objects of critique here are, in the older essays, the Yale Critics, and in the newer essays, people like Butler, Bhabha, and Spivak (i.e., the School of Obfuscation).
So a better title for the collection would have been *Bad-Applications-of-Theory’s Empire*. Notice how the collection doesn’t have much of interest to say about strong “theoretical thinkers” like Peter Brooks, Stanley Cavell, David Harvey, Stuart Hall, Laclau & Mouffe, and so on. The weakest piece in *Theory’s Empire* are those that try to take down an entire, heterogeneous theoretical school by criticizing a single figure or a single essay: the piece on feminism and the genetic fallacy gets a whole lot wrong, while O’Connor’s essay on po-poco tries to set Spivak’s single essay up as a foundation of work that largely predates Spivak or couldn’t care less about her work.
This isn’t to say that a good anthology couldn’t be assembled that *would* provide necessary critiques of all these thinkers. But that would be a far different—and far stronger—collection than *Theory’s Empire*. Such an anthology of critique (much like the series of—is it Blackwells or Cambridge?—*The Rorty Critical Reader* and *The Cavell Critical Reader* and so on) would also include those critiques that Berube mentioned that are posed by one theorist or critic against another: Derrida on Levi-Strauss or Foucault, Chris Norris on Baudrillard, Laura Chrisman on Paul Gilroy, etc.
It is in this spirit that the anthology’s introduction *is* important. In setting up Theory as a monolithic House of Cards that can be brought down by a group of right-thinking but marginalized writers, the Theory’s Empire crowd ironically set themselves up in the same romantic, rebellious costume as the Theorists they sneer at.
Amen, Tyler. Amen.
LB, exactly. But not quite. I’d prefer The Critical ReadeR model as well, but part of the point of Theory’s Empire is to create so many cracks in the dikes it’d take an army of little Dutch fingers to stop ‘em all. In other words, the point is to start the kind of basic arguments that the notion of Theory qua Theory avoids. Skim through the essays included in The Norton and you’ll find one after another in which no argument occurs, or what does occur is by means of selective citation, i.e. what theories aren’t addressed are the one with which a critic has problems. But omission isn’t argument. Combine your notion that the collection may have been better named Bad Applications of Theory’s Empire with a dash of Derrida criticizing Levi-Strauss and my point will be clear: Theory’s Empire should’ve been named Recent Bad Applications of Theory’s Empire. The reason I again linked to my contribution to the event is that I clearly make the point that the problem isn’t with Theory but with a generation of unthinking and unargumentative theorists. Scan the last 700 pages of The Norton and examine the logic of citation contained therein. It falls into one of two categories: 1) attack on acceptable targets (Freud, Bloom, &c.) and 2) citation of unchallengeable Truth. Since no one will doubt the evidence supporting my first claim, I’ll focus on the second:
First, there’s one of the most infuriating quotations I’ve ever run across. It’s in Monique Wittig’s “One Is Not Born a Woman.” Speaking of early 20th century feminists, Wittig notes “They went so far as to adopt the Darwinist theory of evolution. They did not believe like Darwin, however, ‘that women were less evolved than men, but they did believe that male and female natures had diverged in the course of evolutionary development and that society at large reflected this polarization’” (2017). I can’t believe Darwin said that! What an ass! But wait, the rest of the sentence doesn’t track, and what’s this footnote at the bottom say? That this quotation’s actually from Rosalind Rosenberg’s “In Search of Woman’s Nature”? Instead of consulting Darwin’s work, she dismisses Darwinian theory out-of-hand based on a quotation from a work which itself presupposes Darwinian misogyny?
Alright, that fit pitched, on to the more mundane details:
Annette Kolodny:
“as Geertz astutely observes” (2164)
Laura Mulvey:
“psychoanalytic theory is thus appropriated here as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form” (2182, also note the monolith she calls “psychoanalytic theory")
“in his Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud isolated scopophilia” (2184)
“Jacques Lacan has described” (2185)
Houston Baker (whose essay’s damn attractive but in that way that’s damnably called “interesting,” i.e. he selects the texts that allow him to generate an “interesting” reading at the price of philosophical incoherence, a practice I’m still somewhat on the fence about):
“they are what Jacques Derrida might describe as the ‘always already’” (2230)
“Hegel speaks of a flux” (2232)
“the absence of a content plane noted by Eco” (2234)
Donna Haraway:
“Jameson points out” (2274)
“Sandoval emphasizes the lack” (2276)
“Kate King has emphasized the limits” (2277)
props accorded where due: she confronts MacKinnon (2279-80)
“the French theorist Julie Kristeva claimed” (2281)
Susan Bordo:
“the body, as anthropologist Mary Douglas has argued” (2362)
“it is also, as anthropologist Pierre Bordieu and philosopher Michel Foucault (among others) have argued” (2362)
“Foucault constantly reminds us” (2362)
“in the manner described by Erving Goffman” (2366)
“agoraphobia, as I.G. Fodor has put it” (2367)
“Helen Cixous speaks” (2369)
All of these come from the research for my original essay, but they all go to make the point I’m making now: the principle of selection is “what do I want to say and who will let me say it.” Contemporary literary theorists need not confront arguments that 1) aren’t convenient or 2) refute their position because the citational logic among them is “use what you need, ignore what you don’t.” But this highly personal principle of selection means that they’re no longer talking about anything except the world they sincerely want to believe they live in. But they can’t muster, and feel no desire to muster, proof that their world bears any relation to the one the rest of us (and the theorists themselves) live in. In truth, what they’re producing are aesthetic objects, personal interpretations of the world based on trendy thought and idiosyncratic citation. They can speak of what “Foucault constantly reminds us” without presenting any evidence that Foucault’s the sort of person whose reminders we ought to value. (Again: I’m not speaking about Derrida, Foucault et. al. but the logic behind citations which treat their thought as nuggets of unarguable truth.) There’s a surplus of second-order theorizing in literary studies that is an affront to the philosophers, anthropologists, and, well, authorities whose works are mashed by literary scholars creating unattractive aesthetic objects.
Alright, I was going to muster up a defense for a goodly number of the essays in Theory’s Empire, but my “lunch break” has now long intruded into my dissertation time, so that will have to wait until later. (Or at least the next block on the road to filing.)
Luther: “It is in this spirit that the anthology’s introduction *is* important. In setting up Theory as a monolithic House of Cards that can be brought down by a group of right-thinking but marginalized writers, the Theory’s Empire crowd ironically set themselves up in the same romantic, rebellious costume as the Theorists they sneer at.”
There seems to be a tendency to treat the introduction as if it were a manifesto, and the essayists as if they were members of an artistic or critical school that followed that manifesto. I don’t think that this is the case. I would doubt that any of the essayists read the introduction before submitting their work, and I doubt that many of them read it after publication. And I really doubt that there is any such thing as a “Theory’s Empire crowd”.
Scott: “What the introductions demonstrate is that everyone‘s arguing in bad faith and no one wants to admit it.”
As long as it is understood that “everyone” means “the people who write introductions for anthologies of literary theory”, then I guess that this might be true.
"There’s a surplus of second-order theorizing in literary studies that is an affront to the philosophers, anthropologists, and, well, authorities whose works are mashed by literary scholars creating unattractive aesthetic objects”
This sort of thing (ie: literary name-dropping, whereby the writer hangs all sorts of unsubstantiated claims from a self-assured, passing refernce to a lit crit superstar—in other words, what Scott does a better job of explaining above) is so prevalent in academic writing, intellectual news magazines, op ed pieces, and literary anthologies that it makes one wonder how and when the hallowed standards of scholarly writing were first relaxed or swept aside altogether.
Scott implies, in his references to numerous contributors to the Norton, a certain laziness or disregard for professionalism. Therefore, he goes on to conclude, what results from this sort of indiscretion is an aesthetic object, a piece of writing replete with references to Derrida, Foucault, and their ilk, but shamefully devoid of any *actual textual citations” from these writers.
My question(s): Would you, Scott, as a Norton editor, remove any essays/articles/excerpts of larger works that are guilty of this scholarly no-no?--including those written by reputed scholars like Kolodny and Mulvey? Is there *ever* a case when audacious, irresponsible phrases like, “Lacan tends to imply” or “Hegel’s writings all seem to indicate,” are acceptable or warranted?
Rich, I think there’s a reason--not a good one, but a very common one--that introductions are treated as manifestos. On which more, um, probably not tonight but tomorrow. As for arguing in bad faith, I’d actually say that most of the people in this debate, myself included, consistently argue in bad faith because the alternative is a departmental or professional bellum omnium contra omnes. I’ve damn never bitten my tongue off countless times in the past five years because I’ve opened my mental rolodex and matched the name of the person in before me to the unchallengeable assumptions under which he or she labors and realized that the words I’d arranged egress from my mouth would slam into their precious preconceptions with uncivil force. That’s arguing in bad faith, and I do it all the time.
Mike, it’s more than name-dropping: it’s the transformation of theoretical debates into little nuggets of fact. “As Foucault says, knowledge is power” is only a factual claim on a superficial level: Yes, Foucault did say that. But that doesn’t mean the truth content of the claim he made is sound; it merely means he said it. However, standards of argument have dropped so low in some portions of discipline that the two statements--the fact that he said it and the truth content of his claim--often as not collapse into each other. To offer that Foucault said something is to verify the truth content of what he said. The person who cites Foucault in this manner’s under no obligation to defend his or her reading of Foucault; and so the argumentative strategy of alluding to fact-nuggets is perpetuated. I commented on this more extensively a little earlier this afternoon.
That said, I understand that every single essay can’t reinvent the wheel. If psychoanalytic critics were compelled to defend the legitimacy of their pseudo-scientific scientific claims, they’d never get around to writing literary criticism. (Which, now that I think about it, isn’t a bad...nevermind.) I wouldn’t want to preface every claim I make with an elaborate defense of the legitimacy of my critical approach; but if I had to, I could. More times than I can count--when I’m feeling uncivil and/or think violent thoughts about my tongue--I’ve backed psychoanalytic critics into the same corner:
They know that psychoanalysis is able to generate “interesting” readings of texts, but no, they’re not familiar with non-psychoanalytic models of cognition--scientific or “turn-of-the-century” scientific or what-not--so they don’t know if others can also generate interesting readings of texts; plus, they’re so busy learning increasingly more about psychoanalytic thinking that they don’t have time to explore other options, because psychoanalysis demands infinite elaboration, &c.
In other words, what bothers me about that mode of response is 1) small-mindedness, 2) lack of intellectual curiosity, and 3) the fact that it’s essentially an anti-intellectual position...which, when opposed, accuses its critics of anti-intellectualism.
You go, Scott.
I assumed you had said that on the other thread, the one where I jammed words into your mouth, but I hope the same applies over there too. Or, at the very least, some approximation.
Scott writes: “That said, I understand that every single essay can’t reinvent the wheel. If psychoanalytic critics were compelled to defend the legitimacy of their pseudo-scientific scientific claims, they’d never get around to writing literary criticism.”
Isn’t that exactly the problem, though? The point of citation *is* to argue from authority. Now, I constantly see “arguing from authority” as a critique of someone’s work, when the only possible alternative is “arguing from only *my* authority.” Arguing from authority is only a problem if you don’t believe that any scholarship can have authority—and isn’t that a poststructural argument? Otherwise, we read work that seems to get a situation right, and we cite it as a sort of “standing on the shoulders on giants.” Does citation get us where our argument was already going? Sure. But that’s more a sign of the coherence of an essay. It’s no test of to what extent the research process changed and shaped that scholar’s ideas in the first place. Which is to say, it might seem like X quotes Freud just to get from a to b in the essay; but b may only have been suggested from a when the scholar was confronted with Freud’s ideas. I don’t know how many scholars actually begin writing with their ideas all worked out in their heads. I know I don’t. As Frost wrote, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”
When we cite, we have to be able to assume that what we’re citing is either: (a) true, or (b) an assumption our readers are willing to accept. Medical papers constantly argue from authority—and if they cite previously published scholarship, it’s because that scholarship, in passing peer review, has withstood the test of medical-scientific rigor.
This gets us to the humanities. There *is* a dire peer review problem; I won’t argue otherwise. But ultimately, we are forced to accept certain “theories” as workable assumptions. Even Scott’s example of psychoanalytic critics who neglect the scholarship of cognitive science faces the same problem (as do the works of the philosophers of consciousness who don’t even refer to Freud): an article—or even a book—cannot review every piece of scholarship on an issue. Especially issues that are so complex ("the workings of the mind/brain") that no single theory will probably *ever* explain what the hell’s going on.
I know my own scholarship constantly faces the need to propose “if-then” style arguments: “If we accept Bakhtin’s claim that genre is intimately tied up in socio-cultural frameworks that define our experience of space and time, then we can argue x, y, and z.” Of course, no one has to accept Bakhtin’s claim. Other theories of genre work well as well. But no single theory of genre works in all cases. (And why is it that popular genres are treated in terms of the experience of popular audiences, while experience-based readings of high literature are written off as, well, experience-based? Is it because, Bruce-Springsteen-style, we value the experience of Joe Public while suspecting the experience of Joseph Latte?)
Ultimately, it all depends on *what* claim is being based on *what* authority. There’s not a single authority in literature, philosophy, or history whose work is uncontested by very smart people in very smart ways. Just compare *1776* with *The Other American Revolution*: two very well-received works, but reading them, you might think they were written about two different revolutions in two different times and places.
Of course, I’m arguing myself into a corner here. We can’t just let scholarship become a free for all (i.e., “Either you accept my assumptions or you don’t, and there’s no way of proving them right or wrong"), but we also can’t force every scholar to argue as if the world is some sort of blank slate needing proving from the ground up.
We also can’t imagine that the audience of academic prose is a bunch of passive cretins: “Uh, duh, Judith Butler, uh, says that Freud says, duh, that all sheep are yellow, so it must be so. Uh, duh.” I sometimes don’t know what academic world some of us are living in, but at the reading group meetings at my university, everyone is more than ready to go after the assumptions, elisions, bad evidence, and questionable claims of the work presented, whether it’s published or in progress. Fer chrissake, Sean just posted about pulp readers *not* being passive receivers of pulp fiction. Why would we assume that’s the case with academic readers? Is it, again, because we glorify the experience of the non-academic as some pure, lost world of reading pleasure, while treating the reading experience of our fellow academics with the cynicism of all of our built up grad-school or pre-tenure or stupid conference frustrations?
Finally, I sort of don’t care about the Norton Anthology of Theory. Who thinks *any* anthology is “right”? I’ve taught *once* out of a lit anthology, and I hated every second of it. I’m always glad when there’s no anthology out there for the course I’m running. It’s a good sign that the course I’m running is paying close attention to the literature, and not to some institutional construction of the literature. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. The way to challenge an anthology is to produce a better anthology, not to produce a supplementary anthology. (Which reminds me: Anyone wanna put together an anthology of black American poetry with me?) How about an anthology of literary criticism that gets things right, no matter what perspective the pieces are from? Peter Brooks’ use of Lacan in *Reading for the Plot* can live happily next to Abrams’ on romanticism, Zizek on Hitchcock and Cavell on comedy can live next to Leo Marx on American pastoral. But of course, such an anthology wouldn’t be polemical, wouldn’t get the attention that *Theory’s Empire* hopes to get (especially from more popular voices that might be happy to write a review about a text that trashes all that theoretical gobbledigook).
On the name-dropping, here I’d say let’s bring back in some of the work-process of academic publishing. Getting anything through peer review until you become a truly Big Name means that you might as well put in all those “As Foucault says,” and “Cixous reminds us” because you’re almost certainly going to draw a peer reviewer who insists you insert such markers. These are ways of indicating that you did your homework and a way of prophylaxis against accusation of plagiarism; also ways of signposting your tribal affinities so that other members of the same tribe may recognize you and affirm your work in various ways. At some point for many of us, what peer reviewers demand becomes the second-nature of your prose: you write it without thinking or knowing that you do.