Historicizing Theory

Trenchju

Description

Historicizing Theory provides the first serious examination of contemporary theory in relation to the various twentieth-century historical and political contexts out of which it emerged. Theory—a broad category that is often used to encompass theoretical approaches as varied as deconstruction, New Historicism, and postcolonialism—has often been derided as a mere "relic" of the 1960s. In order to move beyond such a simplistic assessment, the essays in this volume examine such important figures as Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Stephen Greenblatt, and Edward Said, situating their work in a variety of contexts inside and outside of the 1960s, including World War II, the Holocaust, the Algerian civil war, and the canon wars of the 1980s. In bringing us face-to-face with the history of theory, Historicizing Theory recuperates history for theory and asks us to confront some of the central issues and problems in literary studies today.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Resistance to Historicizing Theory
Peter C. Herman

1. The Holocaust, French Poststructuralism, the American Literary Academy, and Jewish Identity Poetics
Evan Carton

2. Michel Foucault and the Specter of War
Karen Raber

3. Historicizing Paul de Man's Master Trope Prosopopeia: Belgium's Trauma of 1940, the Nazi Volkskörper, and Versions of the Allegorical Body Politic
James J. Paxson

4. "Nostalgeria" and "Structure, Sign, Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"
Lee Morrissey

5. Jean Baudrillard and May '68: An Acoustic Archaeology
Andrea Loselle

6. Stephen Greenblatt's "X"-Files: The Rhetoric of Containment and Invasive Disease in "Invisible Bullets" and "The Sources of Soviet Conduct"
Jonathan Gil Harris

7. New Historicizing the New Historicism; or, Did Stephen Greenblatt Watch the Evening News in Early 1968?
Ivo Kamps

8. The End of Culture
Loren Glass

9. Literature, Incorporated: Harold Bloom, Theory, and the Canon
Marc Redfield

10. The Sixties, the New Left, and the Emergence of Cultural Studies in the United States
David R. Shumway

11. The Postcolonial Godfather
H. Aram Veeser

12. The Spectrality of the Sixties
Benjamin Bertram

13. Afterword: Historicism and Its Limits
Morris Dickstein

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie du langage
• Philosophie de la langue
• Literary theory

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791485682
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

historicizing theory

edited by peter c. herman

Historicizing Theory

This page intentionally left blank.

Historicizing Theory



edited by

Peter C. Herman

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2004 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Christine L. Hamel Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Historicizing theory / edited by Peter C. Herman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0791459616 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0791459624 (alk. paper : pbk.) 1. Criticism—History—20th century. I. Herman, Peter C., 1958–

PN94.H58 2003 801'.95'0904—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2003052817

Acknowledgments

C O N T E N T S

Introduction: The Resistance to Historicizing Theory Peter C. Herman

1. The Holocaust, French Poststructuralism, the American Literary Academy, and Jewish Identity Poetics Evan Carton

2. Michel Foucault and the Specter of War Karen Raber

3. Historicizing Paul de Man’s Master Trope Prosopopeia: Belgium’s Trauma of 1940, the NaziVolkskörper, and Versions of the Allegorical Body Politic James J. Paxson

4. “Nostalgeria” and “Structure, Sign, Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” Lee Morrissey

5. Jean Baudrillard and May ’68: An Acoustic Archaeology Andrea Loselle

6. Stephen Greenblatt’s “X”Files: The Rhetoric of Containment and Invasive Disease in “Invisible Bullets” and “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” Jonathan Gil Harris

7. New Historicizing the New Historicism; or, Did Stephen Greenblatt Watch the Evening News in Early 1968? Ivo Kamps

v

vii

1

17

49

69

99

113

137

159

vi

8. The End of Culture Loren Glass

Historicizing Theory

9. Literature, Incorporated: Harold Bloom, Theory, and the Canon Marc Redfield

10. The Sixties, the New Left, and the Emergence of Cultural Studies in the United States David R. Shumway

11. The Postcolonial Godfather H. Aram Veeser

12. The Spectrality of the Sixties Benjamin Bertram

13. Afterword: Historicism and Its Limits Morris Dickstein

Contributors

Index

191

209

235

255

277

301

315

319

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

This book could not have happened without the essential help and encour agement from a small army of people upon whose kindness I rely. First and foremost, I am happy to publicly acknowledge my debt to Jeff Williams, with out whose knowledge and insights I could not have edited this volume. James Peltz is, as always, the editor par excellence, and we all owe a debt to Chris tine Hamel, who presided over the book’s publication. I am also very grateful to Bernard Gotfryd for allowing us to use his photo of Harold Bloom. Finally, I dedicate this book to my wife, Meryl, and my children, Alison and Jon, with out whom nothing would mean anything at all.

vii

This page intentionally left blank.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

The Resistance to Historicizing Theory

PETER C. HERMAN

“Always historicize!” commanded Fredric Jameson at the start ofThe Political 1 Unconsciouscuriously, this imperative, which I take to mean the(1981). Yet investigation of the complex, reciprocal relations between texts and sociolog ical, political, and/or economic events, has largely bypassed theory itself. Even though the last thirty years or so have witnessed a resurgence of historical studies, a resurgence largely predicated upon rejecting the New Critical para digms of the verbal icon and discoverable, transhistorical meaning, the dis cussions surrounding theory and its career in the academy are more often than 2 not surprisingly ahistorical. Ironically, most metatheoretical work uncannily replicates the old History of Ideas approach, which views texts almost exclu sively in relation to previous texts and only rarely in relation to the political or social events surrounding and informing them. Frank Lentricchia’sAfter the New Criticism(1980) exemplifies this phe 3 nomenon. While Lentricchia begins his book by promising an “historical account of what has happened [in the United States] since the American New Critics passed out of favor” and describes his project as a “critique of various forces that have shaped contemporary thought about literature and 4 the criticism of literature,” what he actually gives the reader is something very different. By “historical account,” Lentricchia evidently doesnotmean an account of theory’s intersection with, say, the Sixties, the protests against the Vietnam War, or anything analogous. We are told that Northrop Frye 5 published “his monumental book[The Anatomy of Criticism]in 1957,” but nothing we are told about what outside circumstances surrounded and shaped Frye’s work, how it might have arisen from, or intersected with,

1