Offering (Up) Theory

Abstract

Offering (Up) Theory John Mowitt (bio) Although Adorno's feelings about Nietzsche are hard to pin down, his approach to die Liebhaber in "Bach Defended Against his Devotees," seems clearly to channel the sentiment found in Nietzsche's stinging aphorism (number 298) from the first volume of Human All Too Human: "In every party there is someone whose far too credulous expression of the party's principles provokes others to defect" (Nietzsche 2000, 198). Regardless of whether Nietzsche is his source, Adorno's "devotee" is arguably the Doppelgänger of the thinker who knows how to assimilate tradition by "hating it properly." Frankly, I am not especially concerned here to sort the matter of influence. Instead, the point will be to situate Theory in the context of a thinking—as my title clearly suggests—about how its offering participates in the logic of devotion challenged by Adorno. More particularly, in a straightforwardly pedagogical mood, my discussion explores within the semantic resonances of "offering," how one might work with Theory so as to, as it were, sacrifice it properly. Drawing initially on Terry Eagleton and Giorgio Agamben I consider here how Theory is exposed, even risked through its offering, and examine what grasp of Theory emerges from thinking its offering as an act of sacrifice. Theory not as on offer, but Theory as offering, or as I will propose, Theory as "giving a reading." How does one handle that? When and where does that handling take place? Not long ago the medievalist Andrew Cole told us everything we do not need to know about the "birth" of Theory. A more emphatic and thus persuasive account of why Theory ought not be profiled, that is, handled as having an identity would be hard to imagine. And, so as not to be misunderstood, Cole's text is a very good one. However, as with any sort of achievement it exacts a price and here this takes the form of the text's seduction. His text is properly seductive in that it leads one astray—thinking here of Freud's Verführung, whether actual or not. More directly, what concerns me in Cole's approach is its devotional tone, a tone that manifests not only in his historicism, but in his conviction that Theory is best grasped as exhibiting an identity. So as to cut to the proverbial chase, in order to sacrifice theory properly, it must not be profiled, it must not be given an identity that one can "historicize" or not. This is especially important when thinking about handling theory in the gray era of "the peace," that is, in the moment that [End Page 243] has survived the Theory Wars, a moment, I will argue, during which Theory obliges us to be thoughtful about when and where we handle it, especially now that Theory has been reduced to a cinder glowing with the ardour of a Cole. Perhaps then a more immediate interlocutor here is the late Wolfgang Iser whose, How To Do Theory, with its explicitly pedagogical orientation, falls more directly in the path of these reflections. What Iser and Cole share—and Cole makes only a passing reference to him—is the inclination to treat Theory as a type, a genre of academic discourse. Iser's text is textbook-like in its effort to demonstrate not how various theoretical traditions ought be applied to objects of scholarly attention (although a bit of this occurs), but how theoretical traditions might be taken in their own right as objects of scholarly attention and, decisively, presented in the context of the graduate or undergraduate classroom. The organization of his study says it all. Chapter two, Phenomenological Theory, chapter three, Hermeneutical Theory, chapter five, Reception Theory (no surprise), and so on culminating in a postscript dedicated to "Postcolonial Discourse" (not theory) represented by Edward Said. In his preface Iser somewhat nervously separates himself from his text by stressing its commissioned status and, by noting the more or less persistent coaxing of his editor to do this or that. Anyone who has published a book will know that Iser is not making this up. Editors do behave this way. But the issue here is...