What's Left of Theory? New Work on the Politics of Literary Theory - Book Review

Style, Summer, 2001 by Mark Bauerlein

That three high-profile professors should take credit for having composed this preface and edited the volume is cause for either laughter or dismay. They have presented bad writing and bad argumentation as cutting-edge critical work. But a phrase in the Acknowledgments implies a different assessment: "we thank the English Institute for the chance to come together, to write for one another, and for posing for us some of the more vexed questions in literary studies to think about." The syntactical blunder (faulty parallellism) reveals how carelessly the volume was executed, and the phrase "write for one another" proves that this is not a disciplinary document. It is an insider gathering. The dreadful style, self-involvement, and tendentious reasoning pass muster because the participants have a captive, congenial audience--themselves. It is ironic that these apostles of politics, difference, and worldliness form an institutional clique whose political diversity and identity formation narrow with every passing y ear.

Mark Bauerlein (engmb@emory.edu) is professor of English at Emory University. His recent books are Literary Criticism: An Autopsy and The Pragmatic Mind: Explorations in the Psychology of Belief.