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Theory ndsVINCENT B. UITCH

The theory renaissance of the late twentieth century in North Americawas marked by an unprecedented proliferation of schools and movements,ranging from the maturing of formalism, myth criticism, and the socialcriticism of the New York inte11ectuals to new developments in Marxism,psychoanalysis, and hermeneutics to the rise and spread of reader-responsecriticism, structuralism and semiotics, poststructuralism, feminism, andcritical race theory to the emergence of postcolonial theory, new historicism, cultural studies, queer theory, and personal criticismo At the turnof the twenty-first century many branches of the newer movements andschools have gathered together, more or less wi11ingly under the capaciousbanner of cultural studies, displacing the previously dominant banner ofpoststructuralism and taking the form of an increasingly disaggregatedfront characterized by several dozen recognized subfields: body studies,disability studies, whiteness studies, media studies, indigenous studies,narrative studies, porn studies, performance studies, working-c1ass s tudies, popular culture studies, trauma studies, and so on.

As a consequence, theory in the current framework has at least a halfdozen different meanings, each of which has a distinct reception historyand set of effects. First, the term refers loosely to the gamut of contemporary schools and movements, plus their roo ts and also their offshoots incultural studies. That is to say it names the broad field and is synonymouswith criticismo Starting in the 1980s and persisting to the present, conservative scholars dedicated to mid-century moral and formalist analysisThe author is Paul and arol Daube Sutton hair in English at the University ofOklahoma

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of canonicalliterary works have waged a campaign against such theory(Bloom; Ellis). Second, theory designates general principies and procedures-methods-as we11 as the self-reflection employed in a areas ofliterary and cultural studies. A sma11 but vigorous skirmish against suchtheory has been enjoined by neopragmatists who oppose foundationalprincipies, with the result that few nowadays defend theory in its mostambitious methodological or scientific pretensions (Knapp and Michaels;Fish). Third theory is widely considered a toolbox of flexible, useful, andcontingent devices, judged for their productivity and innovation. Thecritique of such pragmatic theory, sma11 in scale, has come from variousdefenders of objective interpretation, ranging from curmudgeons committed to the old days before such theory to defenders ofNew Criticismto more cha11enging hermeneuticists (Harris; Mohanty). Fourth theorydenotes professional common sense-what goes without saying and whatevery specialist knows-so that everyone in the fie1d has a theory, although sorne people don t realize it. In this view theory is a sociohistorical construction complete with contradictions and blind spots yet shoredup by the current status quo. But the equating of theory with professiona11y configured common sense paradoxicalIy ends up diluting itsspecificity, its conflicts, and its counterhegemonic agendas. Fifth, theorysignifies more narrowly structuralism and poststructuralism, the worksof Lvi-Strauss, Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Kristeva, and company, plus their fo11owers and imitators. This is today frequently ca11edhigh or grand theory, with low (or vernacular) theory and posttheoryarriving after structuralism and poststructuralism (Williams). Opposition has come t such briefly triumphant high theory from not onlyconservative scholars but also a broad array of contending liberal andleft theorists, indicting it (particularly deconstruction) for philosophicalidealism, obscurantism, nominalism, and quietism, charges early madefamous by certain Marxists, feminists, critical race theorists, and culturalstudies scholars (Said; Scholes; Ch risti an; and Gilbert and Gubar).I Thelatter-day persistence of poststructuralism has appeared in two forms: itscontinued widespread use past its two-decade-Iong hegemony; its belatedturn to ethics and politics, occurring after the revelations in 1987 of Paulde Man s World War II anti-Semitic writings, the symbolic moment that,neverthe1ess, marks both the waning of poststructuralism as dominanttheory and the broad spread of talk about new historicism, cultural studies, and posttheory. Sixth, theory names a historica11y new, postmodernmode of discourse that broaches long-standing borders, fusing literarycriticism, philosophy, history, sociology, psychoanalysis, and politics.This cross-disciplinary pastiche is, not surprisingly, subject also to the

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broad critique of postmodernism, notably for its undermining the hardwon autonomy gained during modern times for the university and theacademic disciplines, particularly literary criticism and aesthetics.Starting in the early 1990s, we have regularly heard announcements

of the end, death, or day after theory McQuillan et al.; Butler, Guillory, and Thomas; Payne and Schad; Eagleton). But to mourn theory isto assume a certain stance toward as well as a definition of it. theorymeans poststructuralism(s) or all contemporary movements and schoolsor postmodern discourse, then we can project a historical passing, an end.Yet certain features of such theory will no doubt live on, as for instancethe deconstruction of binary concepts, as interdisciplinary writing, andas the critique of discriminatory gender and race conventions. Such talkabout the passing of theory contains a disguised wish among sorne forits demise and, among others, a nostalgic lament about heady, intoxicating earlier days. End-of-theory sentiments arose, in fact, very early inthe contemporary period: when the classical Enlightenment project oftheory culminated in Frye's Anatomy Criticism; when a bit later an array of new schools and movements were ascendant over formalism; thenwhen French poststructuralism overwhelmed United States formalism;again when poststructuralism was displaced by cultural studies; and nowwhen cultural studies, in its exemplary 1970s British form as opposed toits later, disaggregated North American version, projects in retrospect acomparatively coherent politics and project. Mourning theory expressesboth a defense of certain earlier instantiations of it and, given currentanxieties about an uncertai n future, a longing for better times.

It is worth considering for a moment the notion of ends The word has numerous connotations: withering, eclipse; fullness; closure, termination, catastrophe, death; turning or stopping points; goals and targets. It summonsan array of phenomena: finitude, beginnings and middles, expected change,nostalgia, mourning. It suggests remains, revenants, immortality. When endsdesignates regulated or calculated passing, it evokes cyclical patterns as wellas shelf life, fusing historiography and fashion. Fashion itself brings to mindboredom, opponunism, mutability, superficiality. Ends, like origins, appearmultiple and complex, which is the situation with theory ends.

The past of theory demonstrates that theory has a future. Its long history, in its current telling, extends from the pre-Socratics through thelengthy Middle Ages; from the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Romantic epochs to the Victorian, modern, and postmodern eras. Of course, historical periods are reconfigured regularly in the light of new findings andpressing concerns. But neither the inheritance of theoretical concepts,problems, and debates nor the search for effective methods and pragmatic

protocols nor the influence of perennial theory texts nor the borrowingfrom neighboring fields nor the critique of the status quo seems likely todisappear. Like a riverbed, theory changes ye t abides.

In its most colloquial sense, everyone has a theory, even if unconsciously held. Defined in this way there can be no passing of theory toutcourt only a loss of separate identity, an eclipse of certain functions, areconfiguration or renaming. That is what is occurring at present, as cultural studies annexes various segments and tasks of theory.Perhaps the main question today is, Where in the colleges and universities of the future willliterary and cultural theory be housed and studied? Under what conditions? How much? How widely? In most or a fewliterature departments? In general education, introductory, or advancedtheory courses? All these questions raise the broader question of the future of the university. Will corporatization, with its addiction to casualized labor and its disinterest in humanities education, effectively reducetheory teaching, along with tenured full-time faculty, to a mere shell ofits former self (Leitch)? Could expanding service teaching of the arts andhumanities fully subordinate the research mission and its commitment totheory? Conversely, is it possible that emerging interdisciplinary formations might further disseminate theory? Even if passed and mourned,wouldn't theory return like a ghost in unexpected forms?

The theory market plays a role in this account. Such a thing hardlyexisted in North America before the 1970s. But the job market for theory expanded very dramatically from the early 1980s to the early 1990s,with many academic jobs going to theoris ts (labeled as such), especially inEnglish and comparative literature programs. After that, the demand fortheory diminished compared with that for other specialties in literature,language, and rhetoric. t appears to have remained steadily at the level ofsuch premodern historical periods as eighteenth-century English literature. However, a large number of jobs during recent years list theory asa second or preferred strength. That need provides openings to employmento More telling still is the role theory has come to play in research andpublication. In most fields, it is difficult to publish without sorne sort ofinformed theoretical orientation in use and on display. As a result, thereare innumerable scholars not labeled theorists who know and use theoryin their published work and in their teaching. So the market for theory isa matter not simply of designated specialis ts and specia1ty jobs but moreor less of the whole profession. Publication and also hiring are linkedwith theory across many fields, and it has been this way for a quartercentury. The institutionalization of theory explains why it is sometimesregarded as a new orthodoxy, although there are so many different kinds

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and contentious factions that it is difficult to picture theory convincinglyas one unified or unifying, not to say stifling, force. The consecration oftheory on the job market has helped ensure a future.

As is well known, fin de siecle moments prompt retrospection. Gainsand losses are reckoned, futures solicited. For example, theory anthologies of recent years like the Norton Anthology ofTheory and Criticism 2001)exhibit a retrospective tenor, displaying in bulky form and apparatus afulllineage for theory. All this r eckoning entails the work of consolidation, defense, monumentalization. It puts on display Theory Incorporated, a holding company but a company with an eye toward the future.Fashion and market models have sprung to the fore from the anxious unconscious of late-capitalist times, and theory appears a niche market withfashions coming and going. Graduate students, in particular, wonder andfrequently ask, Who is in? Who is out? What are the latest trends?

Causerie. Sorne theory brokers declare new historicism; others proclaim cultural studies to be running out of energy. Yet other observers saythe high times ofNorth American theory-that is, the 1970s and 1980sand their legacies-are passing away. Belletrism is returning. Queertheory has now gone mainstream. Postcolonial theory is past its prime.Critical race theory definitely has legs.

Such speculations, reductions, preludes to calculated investments and disinvestments reify and commodify theory-not surprisingly. It is how academicbusiness is handled nowadays. In this cantext, there will be and must be discussions of passing, mourning, the dayafter, the end, finitude. Indeed, therewill be talk of shelf life, marketability, boom-bust cycles, new developments,the latest wave; the consumerist episteme of the times calls forth such talk.

Theory is part of its time. The New Criticism of the middle thirdof the twentieth century harmonized with the emergence of expandedhigher education during its Keynesian era of big business big laborbig government, mass media, the incorporation of avant-garde modernism, large powerful political parties, and the coheren t nuclear family. Thepoststructuralism of the later twentieth century was consonant with thespread of the disaggregated multiversity form and the rise of neoliberalcapitalism, with its programs of minimal government deregulationdeunionization, media proliferation, numerous reformist new socialmovements, and the flexibilization of monogamy. The United States cultural studies of recent years suits the stepped-up disorganization ofhighereducation and growing globalization, characterized by dismantling governments, temped and insecure labor, mobile transnational businesses,the vulnerable single-headed family, proliferating yet conglomerated media, ubiquitous popular culture disseminated on a 24-7 basis, and litera-

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tures globalized (Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, Sinophone,etc,),3 Theory reflects its time and, while criticizing or sometimes ignoring or not analyzing, responds to the forces at play. The recent replacement of the vanguardist schools-and-movements paradigm of modern andcontemporary theory by the rhizomatous studies model of the post-coldwar era foregrounds simultaneously three such forces: (1) the rapid dedepartmentalization of knowledge and research (versus teaching); (2) thecollapse of the Enlightenment goal of maximum autonomy of spheres;and (3) the niche marketization of all research areas now scrambling forpublicity, funding, and legitimacy in neo-Darw inian struggles for survivaland a piece of the future. Yet the shifts from high theory to posttheoryto vernacular theory show theory not as moribund but, on the contrary,in a new viral form responsive to its time and place, materially engaged,socially symptomatic, critical, opportunistic, a changeling.

NOTES1. See also Gorman, who helpfu11y distinguishes three modes of antitheory fromcountertheory, which is a movement skeptical and critical of poststructuralism and

amenable to alternatives such as hermeneutics and speech-act theory. Note that forGorman the root theor y means poststructur alism. AIso see Patai and Corral, whogather four dozen anti- and countertheory statements.2. According to Cu11er, today works of literary theory are closely and vita11yrelated to other writings within a domain as yet unnamed but often ca11ed theoryfor short Many of its most interesting works do not explicitiy address literature .t is not philosophy in the current sense of the term, since it includes Saussure,Marx, Freud, Erving Goffman, andJacques Lacan as well as Hegel, Nietzsche, and

Hans-Georg Gadamer This new genre is certainly heterogeneous (8). Jamesonsimilarly notes: A generation ago there was sti11 a technical discourse of professionalphilosop hy alongside which one could still distinguish that quite different discourse of the other academic disciplines-ofpolitical science, for example, or sociology or literary criticismo Today, increasingly, we have a kind of writing simply ca11edtheory which is a or none of those things at once (14).

Insofar as contemporary theory and postmodernism are often linked with socialconstructivism, standpoint epistemology, cultural relativism, and popular culture(versus the literary canon), they constitute threats and often targets for conservativethinkers, left- and right-wing.

3. Globalization today has also meant the devolution of nationalliteratures towardloose assemblages composed of different regions, languages, and ethnic and minority groups. Not surprisingly, the number of recognized genres has increased andthe hierarchy has changed, expanding the definition of literature For the exampleof United States literature, see Lauter and also Shell and Sol1ors. She11 and Sol1orsprovide original texts and translations into English from twenty languages, rangingfrom Lenape, Massachusett, Navajo, French, Spanish, and Arabic to Chinese, German, Italian, Polish, Welsh, and Yiddish.

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128111 THEORY ENDS

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