Theory: c/d

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"Because for me, theory contaminates the way I break down a text and also the in the composition of a paper" - going back to the original question, who seemed to have a definite definition of what Theory actually was (and this is the THEORY vs theory argument I refer to above). Can this be merely reduced to "the reader contaminates a text and everything they do". Is the reader with their bundle of possibly contradictory ideas consistent with a theory. Possibly not, so perhaps what we should be doing, when undergoing the process of examining a work of art is to actually examine how we are doing it (and why). I suggest that what will be left won't be a theory - and certainly not a consistent one - but a jumble of mini-theories (cultural lemmas?) which could well be contradictory - leading to our disillusionment in this thing called Theory in the first place.

I'm not sure theory = politics in the Connor article.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:30 (twenty years ago) link

I wasn't claiming any equivalence. I was just making the point that when you say "of course, everything is [x]", [x] ceases to be a useful term.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:33 (twenty years ago) link

Jerry saying that politics / the world of affairs marches on without cultural studies would map on to saying that the world of literature would march on without eng lit as a discipline. PF's objection to calling new crit a theory is more of a semantic one, no?

[x] is always useful for marking a spot.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:38 (twenty years ago) link

No, fair enough. I suppose the point being made is though that when someone says I am anti-theory, and you point out that that too is a theory - then they are forced to say "I am anti that particular theory" which makes a lot more sense.

However if we go to a more rigid faux scentific line that theories are great touchstones which have been established and one can use, as opposed to our internal personal ever changing theories then you might be getting somewhere. The latter is more important especially if you give it a chance to migrate to become the former (how to turn my opinion into a theory - with rigour).

Yes Tim, but since eng lit is so tied intot he world of literature (merely in authors, book deals and reasons why people buy things) that it would be a significantly different world of literature, as opposed to the potentially very similar world of politics without cultural studies.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:40 (twenty years ago) link

i.e. Alext is saying "'theory' = a way of reading / thinking" , PF is saying "hold on not necessarily 'theory' means something else".

Pete, tell that to Michael Crichton.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:42 (twenty years ago) link

Cor, The Andromed Strain was on TV the other night. That film rocks.

Tim, I told it to David Lodge, Malcolm Bradbury et al.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:47 (twenty years ago) link

Isn't theory, etymologically, derived from notions of taking a step back and surveying a territory? Viewed in that light, I suppose, most people aren't theorists (in as much as the common sense that we all use to go about things day to day may be an inherited sediment of old theories, but doesn't involve much actual theorising).

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:48 (twenty years ago) link

don't forget form = sedimented content, ppl

also don't forget, soylent green = ppl

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:48 (twenty years ago) link

my new theory will combine both these facts

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:49 (twenty years ago) link

Can you call it : Man Will Eat Itself

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:50 (twenty years ago) link

"et al"

Lodge and the boys are the equivalent of pressure groups.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 22 May 2003 15:55 (twenty years ago) link

I think "politics is everywhere" is so over-rated that it's in danger of becoming under-rated.

(with apologies to N. Dastoor)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 22 May 2003 17:14 (twenty years ago) link

who seemed to have a definite definition of what Theory actually was

yes I'm talking about poststructuralism, postcolonialism, psychoanalytic theory, formalism, etc.

Can this be merely reduced to "the reader contaminates a text and everything they do".

Well philosophically I feel that the text isn't a text till it symbioses with a reader -- splitting hairs re: "contamination"/breathes (new) life into text. Though what I meant with "contamination" was more insidious, insomuch re: formal composition of a paper. In my experience, my personal nuances precede any formally theoretical modes while in the act of reading and extemporaneous analysis, and the contamination occurs while in the act of writing the paper (possibly i.e. concrete, methodical analysis).

Is the reader with their bundle of possibly contradictory ideas consistent with a theory. Possibly not [...] I suggest that what will be left won't be a theory - and certainly not a consistent one - but a jumble of mini-theories [...] which could well be contradictory - leading to our disillusionment in this thing called Theory in the first place.

Pete is OTM, AFAIC. I notice in myself a distinct and consistent set (though officially it may be tangled) of analytical tendencies, though it seems to have encroached on reader response criticism without having been exposed to much of it. I don't notice the contradictions, though I'm sure they're there, though I feel that my disillusionment with Theory is that it filters a text in a way that I don't like, and now it's lunch time.

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 22 May 2003 18:12 (twenty years ago) link

Isn't it funny that the 'theory' people feel most affronted by is 'post' theory, eg deconstruction etc. That 'theory' as I understand it, was the most un-theoretical of all - it tries never to take a position, sometimes openly stating that this is from fear of what happened under the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. So perhaps what these anti-theory people really want IS a theory, a morality, not a bunch of 'interpretations' that can be twisted to mean anything.

― m-ry-nn (m-ry-nn), Thursday, 22 May 2003 20:17 (twenty years ago) link

Wait, so the theories which self-identify as Theory aren't theoretical while the theory which denies its status as Theory is more theoretical?

m-ry-nn I see your point but the way you're using "theory" seems similar to a homosexual accusing a homophobe of being secretly gay.

― chester (synkro), Thursday, 22 May 2003 20:50 (twenty years ago) link

Meaning, what's at stake in the use of the word "theory"?

― chester (synkro), Thursday, 22 May 2003 20:55 (twenty years ago) link

(that is also a question for Leee, btw)

― chester (synkro), Thursday, 22 May 2003 22:07 (twenty years ago) link

The Connor point -- that to say politics is everywhere is useless -- is true, but also pretty obvious. Yet it is still worth saying. The combination of identity politics and cheap versions of Foucault (although it's possibly inherent in Foucault too) in literary and cultural studies has tended to reduce everything to power, and equated power with politics, and therefore analysis of power with resistance to power and thus a form of political action. Wrong wrong wrong. Of course lots of people have been saying something else. I see a dissatisfaction with this kind-of-sub-Foucauldian approach lying at the heart of all the interesting work on politics since the turn of the 1980s (Lacoue-labarthe and Nancy, however wrong-headedly; the Arendt revival; Lefort; Ranciere; the Actor-network theory stuff deriving from Latour; Derrida's work in the late eighties natch; the pluralist turn in liberal political theory; Habermas's move from legitimation to deliberative democracy; critical political theory a la Connolly, Honig etc). But since this work is actually about politics by and large, it doesn't really register in literary studies, which I guess is where most people on this thread are coming from if they still see 'Theory' as some alien invader. Maybe.

― alext (alext), Friday, 23 May 2003 09:24 (twenty years ago) link

also it's completely missing the point of foucault, which wd be to elaborate and examine ALL the varied and conflicting ways power operates (cf the traci lords thread maybe at some point!!)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 23 May 2003 09:32 (twenty years ago) link

Who's missing the point?

Maybe points are there to be missed (as well as... taken?).

Probably Foucault had many.

Interesting thread; aspects of it have run away from my ken a little. But I think it has succeeded in digging up around 'theory' a bit. I would say 'problematized' but Rorty has this week persuaded me not to use that word.

― the pinefox, Friday, 23 May 2003 19:00 (twenty years ago) link

Also, 'all' is a tall order. Assuming a multiplicity, then 'Some of the ones that seem interesting at the moment' is possibly as much as one writer can manage. But not necessarily.

(I am reminded of the Nipper's suggestion that a critic should show '*infinite*' sensitivity: an even taller order.)

(Foucault + Nipper surely = Cozen to thread)

― the pinefox, Friday, 23 May 2003 19:19 (twenty years ago) link

theory: dud
praxis: classic

― arch Ibog (arch Ibog), Friday, 23 May 2003 19:35 (twenty years ago) link

John Donne + Critical Analysis = A Holiday in Hell

Well, maybe more so if you're dealing with the Holy Sonnets

― The Man they call Dan (The Man they call Dan), Friday, 23 May 2003 19:37 (twenty years ago) link

eighteen years pass...

absolutely seen off mate pic.twitter.com/jA6pi6qxB4
— Douglas Murphy (@entschwindet) May 10, 2022

― mark s, Tuesday, 10 May 2022 20:55 (one year ago) link

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