Theory: c/d

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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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