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The New Hegemony in Literary Studies : Contradictions in Theory, by Tony Hilfer
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In a trenchant critique of the full range of theoretical discourses that have come into favor in literary studies since the 1960s, Tony Hilfer demonstrates that none of the practitioners of these forms of criticism subject their own claims to the kind of suspicious scrutiny that they devote to their own objects of study. Assimilating the critiques that have been made of almost all of the major recent modes of criticism-Marxism, feminism, deconstruction, New Historicism, Foucaultian-Hilfer brings them acutely to bear on his central argument: that these methods systematically fail to live up to their own methodological scruples.
The problem Hilfer identifies is one of logical consistency, but also of moral and psychological implications, and it can be found operating across the whole spectrum of literary Theory. It is, however, as this book makes blindingly clear, not immune from scrutiny. With quiet erudition and consistent incisiveness, Hilfer shows how the various methods, while ostensibly at odds, actually fit together, all sharing the same peculiar structure and logic, and all wearing an identical set of ideological blinders. He offers examples of theorists-and assumptions-hard at work on particular texts, and again and again (often letting these theorists refute themselves) pinpoints the blindspots that have become endemic in the practice of Theory.
Written with great care and a deep commitment to the value and integrity of literary criticism and theory, this tonic work stands as a corrective to the misuse of theory, and a bracing reminder of how a critical approach works when it is well and judiciously applied.
- Sales Rank: #6125772 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Northwestern University Press
- Published on: 2003-02-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .40" w x 6.00" l, .39 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 120 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
From the Back Cover
A critique reveals the logical flaws that joins--and compromises--all the major recent modes of criticism that operate udner the rubric of Theory.
About the Author
Tony Hilfer is a professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin. His recent works include American Fiction Since 1940 (Longman, 1992) and The Crime Novel: A Deviant Genre (University of Texas Press, 1990).
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A Lovely and Encouraging Book
By Richard B. Schwartz
This lovely, brief book by the late Tony Hilfer is one of the major titles in the Northwestern University Press’s Rethinking Theory series. Its strategy is straightforward; it subjects the shibboleths of Theory to its own deconstructive strategies. It takes on Theory’s titans (noting that it is a posture which abhors authority but simultaneously clings to a small pantheon of its own) and, e.g., explores the manner in which Derrida and Foucault contradict themselves and the ways in which Foucault falsifies historical evidence, practicing, in the words of the Russian historian Richard Stites, ‘history without facts’.
Theory has erected protective barriers by valorizing relativism, highlighting language’s alleged undecidability and by, in a multiplicity of ways, demonizing logic and empirical argument. Of course, Theory has also depended upon language, logic and experience when it suits its purposes, then denying its critics the use of the same tools when Theory is under challenge. Hilfer breaches these barriers with hard facts and common sense. In general he is not searching for incremental qualifications; he is arguing that Theory directly contradicts itself or exemplifies the precise failings which it finds in its opponents.
As we read his discussions of Marxist utopianism, discourse radicalism and hard feminist ideology we continually ask ourselves, ‘how could anyone actually believe this?’ ‘How could ideas such as these dominate literary study to a considerable degree for three decades?’
The answer is one that has been suggested from time to time but is here explored at length—the notion that Theory is, at base, an alternative religion. Its beliefs and dogmas strike us as curious for the precise reason articulated by Hume; faith is, by definition, not rational. It asks that we believe things that are not capable of apodictic proof. (Nevertheless, Theory attempts to compel belief through various forms of professional manipulation, intimidation, namecalling and coercion.)
Theory is (p. 76) a secular theodicy, offering a coherent explanation of evil and suffering. Its Marxism offers a total salvation, “but not to individuals, only to mankind as a totality. It has virtually nothing to say to an individual in personal anguish or in some kind of life crisis.” It follows Marxism in its “interest not in selves and their suffering or joy but in categorical groups, whose oppression it appropriates.” It “has no language for suffering or any other feeling that is not related to its prescribed categories.” And so on.
While written for literary and social science colleagues, the book is accessible and not jargon-ridden. It is a brave book, a very nice individual companion to Daphne Patai and Wilfrido Corral’s indispensable anthology, Theory’s Empire: An Anthology of Dissent (2005).
Highly recommended.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
social scientists take note
By David Weiner
The New Hegemony in Literary Studies: contradictions in Theory, is Professor Tony Hilfer's analysis of postmodernist epistemology -- of Theory. He is an eminent professor of English interested primarily in addressing his own colleagues. His analysis, however, will be of great interest to social scientists as well. Practitioners of Theory -- which is not a theory but a methodology -- claim that not only literature, but all existing theory in social science is so polluted by the kinds of imperialist hegemonic effects described by Antonio Gramsci and modernist sociologists-of-knowledge, as to be epistemologically worthless. The construction of genuine (liberated) theory in social science is not simply difficult as a result of this deep corruption, they assert; it is impossible. Thus, Theorists have not only deconstructed false-knowledge in social science, which perhaps a majority of social scientists degreed since the early 1950s applaud; they have erased the very possibility of social science theory.
If Professor Hilfer's critique of Theory is valid, he has contributed significantly to salvaging the social sciences, in particular sociology, from academic mediocrity. Over simply (you must read the book), Hilfer has not claimed that Theory's deconstructive methodology lacks rigor, or that its exposure of positivism's flaws is invalid, but that its own sweeping epistemological generalizations do not rest upon its own or any other rigorous methodology. He finds, in fact, that they amount to little more than crude conjecture - and he wonders why. Applying Occam's razor, he observes that the consequence of Theorists' brazen, in fact arrogant, intellectual anarchism, is to have transformed Theory from an analytical approach into an academic fashion.
Since Theorists have failed to deconstruct their own theory of knowledge, Professor Hilfer does it for them. Thomas Kuhn showed that the development of theory in physics is governed not only by scientific criteria but also by academic-political criteria -- such as how a prestigious professor in a department can discourage the development of other scholarly approaches than his own for reasons having little to do with their merit. Professor Hilfer suggests that the sloppiness with which Theorists arrive at some of their most shocking conclusions indicates that being shocking may take priority over being accurate -- and may influence the hiring and promotion processes of an increasing number of academic departments more than considerations of scholarly merit.
For social scientists, Professor Hilfer's findings mean that the search for an adequate methodology of theory continues. Theorists have contributed to justifying this enterprise, but it seems unlikely that they will contribute substantively to it until they deconstruct their own inferences as rigorously as they have deconstructed those of others.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Recommended
By Jonathan A. Gottschall
A clear and devastating critique. It is also a very rare thing: a book about literary theory that is short and a pleasure to read.
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