The Ends of Theory: The Beijing Symposium on Critical Inquiry

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June is the month for academic conferences in China. In just one week (7–15 June 2004): a conference on globalization and indigenous cultures in Zhengzhou; in Beijing, a conference on literary theory and on “Fred Jameson in China” at RenminUniversity; and a four-day conference atTsinghua University on critical inquiry (both the journal and the practice for which it is named), organized by Wang Ning with the cosponsorship of the University of Chicago. The critical inquiry conference was subtitled “the ends of theory,” with a pun on the goals or purposes of theory and the oft-reported death of theory. In these two ways, the conference was a continuation of the 2003 gathering of the CI editorial board in Chicago to discuss the future of criticism and theory (see the winter 2004 issue for the proceedings of that conference). Convened during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in April 2003, the Chicago conference was haunted by questions about the seeming impotence of theory and criticism in the face of folly and ignorance driven by fanaticism, greed, and hubris. Critical theory seemed outmatched in 2003 by a superior form of ideological theory hitched to the power of the U.S. military, the crusading sense ofmission in themisbegotten“WaronTerror,” and the active compliance of mass-media institutions in leading a reluctant American populace into the war. Neoconservative theorists, notably Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, were riding high, triumphantly announcing the dawn of a newMiddle East led by the democratization of Iraq. TheU.S. occupation was heralded as a liberation on every side, except for a few critical theory diehards—and the vastmajority of theworld’s population,which looked on in horror as the world’s only superpower plunged into a disastrous strategic mistake. As theNew York Times pronounced the invasion of