Postmodern Literary Theory Research Articles

To Be or Not to Be Theoretical:Thatis the Question

Brief systemic therapists have, in great numbers, turned to postmodern theory in general, and postmodern literary theory in particular, to justify their antitheoretical preferences. Does this turn make sense? Given what drives the antitheoretical agenda, the answer is: No!

The products of the imagination: psychoanalytic theory and postmodern literary criticism.

This article considers some of the affinities between postmodern literary theory and the psychoanalytic theories concerned with intersubjective phenomena. Postmodern literary theory is described briefly, and it is argued that one of its major concerns is the nature of, and the political and cultural influences on, subjectivity and identity. Despite that, postmodernism generally, and literary postmodernism in particular, can be said to lack a theory of the psychological and interpersonal dimensions of the experience of self. This article contends that the more relational schools of psychoanalytic theory can provide an example of the construction of selfhood that is of importance to contemporary and postmodern literary criticism. The academy has, to a considerable extent identified 'psychoanalysis' with the work of Jacques Lacan, but since the 1980s the work of such theorists as Jane Flax and Jessica Benjamin, building on the work of Nancy Chodorow, have increasingly opened up the possibilities of relational and object relations theory for literary studies. The relational psychoanalytic theories operate in the same epistemological universe as postmodern literary criticism, congruent with the postmodern idea of 'truth' as constructed and relational, and selfhood as shifting, contingent, and always-in-process. Particular attention is paid to the work of Wilfred Bion, whose understanding of self provides an account both of the failure of meaning, and of the development of mind. Some examples of a relational approach to literary analysis are provided.

Naïve Realism in Philosophy of Literature

The journal Philosophy and Literature is one of leading locations for contemporary discussions of relations between philosophy and literature. Recently journal came out with its 20th Anniversary Issue, a copy of which I received because I had written a book review for issue. For fun of it I decided to read issue from front to back. I was struck by how many of articles were committed to some form of what has traditionally been called realism.1 Much is said positively about science and scientific method, whereas schools of thought that have often criticized realism, for example post-structuralism and Rortyan pragmatism, come under frequent attack. This is not surprising, given that editorial, by Dennis Dutton and Patrick Henry, focuses on Alan Sokal's explanation of his now famous hoax against well-known cultural studies journal Social Text.2 While reading issue it occurred to me that journals are units of cultural production, and that they should be as open to discussion and critique as anything else. Although it would be difficult to read entire production of a journal, a special anniversary issue would surely represent general point of view of editors and contributors.3 Someone might object to criticism of one journal appearing in another, for example in Philosophy Today. It is my view that writing a critique of this sort is not fundamentally different from writing a review of an edited collection of essays. It should also be stressed that I have no intention to denigrate work of editors of Philosophy of Literature, which I consider to be a fine publication. My only desire is to open up new avenues of discussion for issues raised in that journal.4 My general claim then is that anniversary issue of Philosophy and Literature, taken as a whole, is a defense of against various opponents of that position. (I shall call this defense of the new realism.) We certainly need some sort of corrective against recent excesses of postmodern literary theory and philosophy. But pendulum swings have a way of overcorrecting. Nothing is being said by any of authors found in this issue about limits or possible disadvantages of realism, or of metaphysical assumptions behind that position. Part of reason why these assumptions are not addressed is that awfulness of opposition seems so glaring. The new realists frequently and gleefully point to inscrutable jargon, inconsistencies and bad arguments of their opponents. (Editor, Dennis Dutton, runs a well-known annual Bad Writing Contest for ugliest, most stylistically awful single sentence-or string of no more than three sentences-found in a published scholarly book or article.5 Some of winners are simply stunning.) This may lead them to believe that a combination of clarity, logic and scientific method will save literary studies and philosophy from barbarians. These concerns are certainly legitimate, and nothing I will say here is intended to justify poststructuralist outrages. I would simply like us to engage in a bit of hopefully jargon-free and clear-headed questioning about new itself. First, a comment about term Most people would consider themselves realists in some sense. I certainly do. Those who, like myself, are opposed to, or at least critical of version of found in these pages tend to refer to it as naive realism. The true realism, on our account, is not naive. Naive is not truly realist, not realistic enough. It was a sad mistake for critics of to have called themselves anti-realists, since this allowed term realism to remain in hands of their opponents. The most fundamental assumption of is existence, stability, independence and ideal determinability of facts. The realist would not go so far as to say, with Wittgenstein, that world is all that is case. …

Dr. Jacques L. and Martin Hide-A-guerre: the subject of new historicism

Dr. Jacques L. and Martin Hide-a-Guerre: The Subject of New Historicism Stephen Bretzius (bio) Joel Fineman. The Subjectivity Effect in Western Literary Tradition: Essays Toward the Release of Shakespeare’s Will. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991. [SW] Stephen Greenblatt. Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture. New York: Routledge, 1990. Stephen Greenblatt. Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988. The word ‘theory’ stems from the Greek verb theorein. The noun belonging to it is theoria. Peculiar to these words is a lofty and mysterious meaning. The verb theorein grew out of the coalescing of two root words, thea and horao. Thea (cf. theater) is the outward look, the aspect, in which something shows itself. . . . The second root word in theorein, horao, means: to look at something attentively, to look it over, to view it closely. Thus it follows that theorein is thean horan, to look attentively on the outward appearance wherein what presences becomes visible and, through such sight—seeing—to linger with it. —Martin Heidegger, “Science and Reflection” Hamlet: ‘Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. A flourish. Guildenstern: There are the players. —Hamlet 2.2.366–68 1 In setting forth Shakespeare’s unique role within an important institutional appropriation of the early modern theater by the postmodern university, together with a corresponding postmodern theory already shaping the early modern theater, a highly stylized early play like Romeo and Juliet is a good place to begin. For here, and from the beginning, the play unfolds outside (and therefore inside) the “deconstructed” binarisms characteristic of a certain poststructural literary theory generally—womb-tomb, light-dark, female-male, Capulet-Montague, waking-sleeping, all-nothing, lark-nightingale, love-hate, late-early, vice-virtue, poison-remedy, mercy-murder, wedding-funeral, dove-raven, fiend-angel, wolf-lamb, miss-mend, stand-stir, haste-destiny, and so on. 1 Here the nonbinary language [End Page 73] of the theater anticipates the “unlimited semiosis” of postmodern literary and cultural theory precisely by extending that nonbinary language to the opposition theater-theory, which the play also undermines. To cite only one particularly central example, literary criticism’s ongoing concerns with the cultural and ritualistic origins of tragedy are not just explored but explained—theorized—by the play’s self-conscious identification of Juliet as both “dove” (“So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows” [1.5.48]) and “lamb” (“Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she. / Why, lamb! Why, lady!” [4.5.1–2]). The theatrical experience of the play’s “poor sacrifices” [5.3.318] is further related to the Catholic mass, out of which Shakespeare’s own tragic theater significantly evolves, by “Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen” [1.3.17] (Lammas [hlammas] hlaf ‘loaf, bread,’ maesse ‘mass’) and “God’s bread, it makes me mad!” [3.5.176]. 2 Redoubling this Christian context for sacrifice, a seasonal parallel in the myth of Persephone stolen away by Pluto shows through “Death lies on her like an untimely frost / Upon the sweetest flower of all the field” [4.5.28–29] and “O son, the night before thy wedding-day / Hath Death lain with thy wife” [35–36]. Within the same ongoing theorization of the play’s own theater, the “pomegranate tree” in Juliet’s “It was the nightingale, and not the lark . . . / Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree” [3.5.2–4] further joins Juliet to Persephone, Lady Capulet to Ceres, and “love-devouring death” [2.6.7] to Hades. From the play to the theory, then, influential critiques of performative discourse and its ritualistic origins in postsubjective (post-Lacanian) sacrifice are generated not only by the postmodern university, but also, in Romeo and Juliet, by the early modern theater. For the play, and not simply the theory, is already about the play—and autobiographical, from Montague’s “Away from light steals home my heavy son, / And private in his chamber pens himself” [1.1.137–38] through Juliet’s “Was ever book containing such vile matter / So fairly bound” [3.2.83–84] to Romeo’s frantic “get me ink and paper...

Obdurate Brilliance: Exteriority and the Modern Long Poem.

Working from a broad knowledge of modern poetry, Baker proposes an original interpretation of the long poem based on the notion of exteriority. Readers of the 20th-century long poem must discard the traditional idea of a lyric speaker, or Romantic I, he argues. Modern and postmodern poetry turns outward, toward the experience of others, and deliberately de-emphasizes an inner or personal life. His analysis, informed by postmodern literary theory, focuses on both American and French long poems. Obdurate Brilliance is the only major critical study in English of the poetry of Saint-John Perse, whose works are examined in depth throughout each of the major phases of his poetic career. In addition Baker presents significant new readings of Rene Char, Gertrude Stein, Louis Zukofsky, Michael Palmer, Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge, as well as a fresh discussion of Leon-Paul Fargue, Valery Larbaud, Ezra Pound, Charles Olson, and John Ashbery. Baker steers headlong into a number of critical debates on history, subjectivity and politics, and offers one of the few attempts to relate feminism to comparative or genre studies.

Language and Authority: Shifting the Privilege

Although most basic writing faculty select varied and representa- tive reading and writing topics that draw on the richness of their students ' linguistic diversity , they usually conduct classes in which collaboration moves but one way . Most class texts merely nod pleasantly at linguistic diversity rather than embrace it , tolerating rather than engaging difference . The authors de- scribe an assignment that uses Spanish, Chinese , and French texts in addition to the customary English texts , which allows class members to share students' languages , embrace diversity , and shift privilege. They propose that this move foregrounds oppositional discourse for both students and faculty, creating class- rooms in which right thinking is not the possession of one and merely the aspiration of others. Immersed in postmodern literary and cultural theory and committed to educational openness and equity, most basic writ- ing faculty are far less elitist than some of their colleagues in other literature and composition fields. These basic writing faculty members tend to select more varied, representative, and relevant reading and writing topics, to incorporate the richness of their students' experiences, and to be quite open to linguistic

Accounting for Our Accounts: Autoethnographic Approaches To Teacher Voice and Vision

ABSTRACTThe voice and perspective of teachers, the educational majority, have traditionally been obscured and silenced by the purposes of others. In contrast, Weber as an educational biographer reported on the personal practical knowledge of six teacher educators, while Trumbull as an autobiographer told the story of her own teaching development. More ethnographers are adopting postmodern literary theory by seeking to have their representations of teachers' knowledge corroborated by the teachers themselves. However, teachers need not only to have their voices listened to but also to be enabled to speak in them. Conversely, Weber and Trumbull prompt the recovery and reconstruction of the powerful voices of teacher educators who have seldom been studied. Despite clarifying second order concepts and methods of analysis, voice still defies easy categorization, even by its source. Being both embedded and embodied, teacher knowledge needs to be rendered dialogically and collaboratively. Although each teacher's ...

Missing Eco: On Reading "The Name of the Rose" as Library Criticism

While many outside the library community have commented at length on the central role of the library in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose (Milan, 1980; New York, 1983), librarians themselves have been notably silent. This reserve is surprising when one considers the vast and intricate library dystopia which Eco has created for his novel, the casting of a librarian as archvillain, and the use of a library book as this villain's principal murder weapon. Beyond these matters of setting and casting, however, close examination of Eco's imaginary library and its literary antecedents, but also of Eco's yet untranslated essay De Bibliotheca (1981), will reveal the author's use of the library metaphor to be anything but casual. It is instead an image charged with meaning, both within the context of postmodern literary theory and as an element of Eco's own agenda for real-existing libraries.