Theory: c/d

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.

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!!)

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.

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)

theory: dud
praxis: classic

John Donne + Critical Analysis = A Holiday in Hell

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

absolutely seen off mate pic.twitter.com/jA6pi6qxB4

— Douglas Murphy (@entschwindet) May 10, 2022