Deleuze in the Age of Posttheory

Abstract

Deleuze in the Age of Posttheory Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio) At no other time have there been so many literary and critical theorists on university faculties. Furthermore, the number of theory courses offered to undergraduate and graduate students seems to be only increasing. Yet despite these institutional trends, there are a number of indications that the contemporary scene in literary and critical theory is undergoing a radical transformation. One senses a noticeable change in attitude in academia regarding the use of theory and its general value. What then is the impetus for this change? Why now after theory and theorists have finally come of age in the academy is the term “posttheory” appearing with greater frequency in the very communities that struggled so hard to establish a place for theory within the academy? Moreover, how does this alleged “posttheoretical turn” alter the role and significance of postwar French theorists like Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze? Does the coming of posttheory signal a diminishing role in scholarship for “theorists” like Deleuze? Paradoxical as it might sound, the coming of an age of posttheory need not necessarily entail the dwindling significance of traditionally theoretical writers. One finds, for example, that the work of Deleuze only increases in value and relevancy in the age of posttheory. We see this very clearly when we look at just what brought us into the “age of posttheory,” and what exactly is meant by this enigmatic phrase. The road to posttheory begins in the ‘70s, when doubts about the usefulness of theory began to give way to the practice of rich, theoretical readings of literary artifacts. Elegant and close structuralist, deconstructive, Marxist, and psychoanalytic interpretations began to seriously compete with older, more traditional ways of reading like the New Criticism; competing not just for credibility among academics, but also for limited institutional space. The practice of theory in the academic curriculum as well as [End Page 174] the hiring and tenuring of theorists would serve to both legitimate and promote theory as well as the varying political and social agendas of the theorists. Increasingly, emphasis on the libidinal, political and/or social nature of signification would come to challenge the very profession of literary studies by laying the groundwork for cultural studies. In retrospect, the death of the literary in departments which focus on the teaching of literature was hastened by the birth of theory. Through the ‘80s, theory came to encompass a widening field of perspectives. Race, class, and gender studies began to eclipse the more formalist theories of the literary which dominated the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Structuralism and deconstruction were becoming traditional and even reactionary in comparison to the progressive, emerging discourses of cultural studies. More and more, emphasis was being placed by theorists on the personal, social and political dimensions of interpretation. After the institutionalization of deconstruction and structuralism in the United States lost sight of the social and political dimensions of interpretation (e.g., the Yale school), a growing generation of critics sought to contextualize criticism. The high theory of the ‘70s which was coming to acquire a timeless, ahistorical, permanence in the ‘80s through its codification in method was giving way to the low theory of cultural studies which re-emphasized the contingent, local, historical, and contextual character of all cultural artifacts. By the ‘90s, cultural studies had broadened to include postcolonial, queer, and media studies, while theory was showing only the faintest signs of development. Not only did theory no longer give the appearance of a unitary body of work—an appearance which it had held for some time—but it had also come to be regarded by many similarly to the way that the New Criticism was regarded twenty years earlier. High theories like deconstruction and structuralism had become antiquated, and were at best seen only as flawed predecessors to the low theories of cultural studies. It might be argued that the low theory of the ‘80s which eclipsed the high theory of the ‘70s in turn had given way to the studies of the late ‘90s. Forward-looking members of our field now focus their attention on cultural studies, not cultural theory, postcolonial studies...