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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Revisiting 'French Theory' « Previous | |Next »
March 9, 2006

I concur with this quote by Sylvere Lotringer in Sylvere Lotringer and Sande Cohen, eds., French Theory in America, (New York/London: Routledge, 2001, p 125).

I knew about French theory before arriving in America in the late 1960s. It wasn't called that, in fact didn't yet exist as a distinct phenomenon, but it really is through America that I discovered theory, or rather realized its full potential...French theory is an American creation anyway. The French themselves never conceived it as such, although French philosophers obviously had something to do with it. In France, French theory was considered philosophy, or psychoanalysis or semiotics, or anthropology, in short any manner of thinking (pensee) but never referred to as theory.

I never really understood the American Theory thing. I always understood it as a construction from within literary departments in the US fashioned to enable a critique of their society; a critique that had little connection to the Frankfurt school 's critique. It really was French theory that galvanized the European side of American philosophy in an influential way--it had far more market penetration in academia than the Frankfurt School ever had. It became a sexy French commodity in the marketplace of ideas.

Why so? Was it all the stuff about the sexual desire and power? Or the need to find ways to navigate through the traps of identity and subjectivity in a world of confusion?

A point that is made is that whilst some academics were doing theory others were trying to figure out the theory from the outside, from their own lives and habits. I was in the latter camp. So I looked for tools to enable me to navigate my way.

What suprises me is that 40 years on we still hear the old criticisms about postructuralism: it continues to be routinely accused of destroying the humanities;t aking the "human" out of the humanities: by reducing everything in the world to texts and signifiers; erasing the subjectivity of the individual; reducing the world to language, to the relativity of linguistic signs--and making the world "meaningless," and so promoting nihilism.These are used as hammers and body blows. This conception of French Theory that laid waste to the humanities is called postmodernism (po mo) in Australia. It represents the 1990s backlash against 'French Theory'.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:58 PM | | Comments (6)
Comments

Comments

Or at least to pretend to enable an critique of their society.

Dr.S.
I'm inclined to agree. A lot of it was directed at the literary institution by those on their way to cultural studies.

However, I did find the way the work of Foucault on biopolitics was picked up and developed useful and influential.

Foucault was definitely taken up by those who wanted out of the formalist mold of most literary studies. But Derrida is a different story. Currently I'm a grad student working under one of the people who was influential in bringing Derrida to literary studies and most of the people here who are interested in Derrida are happy to be described as a sort of formalist in the New Critical mode. In fact, most consciously set their work against cultural studies stuff. This isn't everyone of course -- I would say there's a healthy mix of both camps. Nevertheless, I think it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that the Derrida/de Man/Yale critics nexus of "French theory" or post-structuralism was much closer to the New Criticism than many at the time of the former's arrival in the States would have guessed -- or at least that seems to be the case all these years later.

RM,
I agree.

The American reception of Derrida by the literary institution as deconstruction located it within a formalist/modernist conception of literature as understood by New Criticism.

I understand New Criticism in simple terms: as the close reading of texts, that displaces authorial intention and reader response. The emphasis is on form and the precise attention to "the words themselves" and the formal structures of paradox, ambiguity, irony, and metaphor, among others.

As I understand it "New Criticism" was motivaqted by the conviction that this kind of reading of texts would yield a humanizing influence on readers and thus counter the alienating tendencies of modern, industrial life.

I'm not sure how New Criticism understood the relationship between literature and philosophy. I guess 'Theory' marks that relationship.

Gary -- I actually want to backtrack a little because my version of events is a little cartoonish. For one thing, New Criticism was at least as rich and fissured as "French Theory," although I think your summary of its main tenets is spot on. I would simply add that the "human verities vs. industrialized alienation" stuff is more in the I'll Take My Stand, agrarian Southern New Critics than it is in, say, I.A. Richards or William Empson -- both of whom were very philosophically sophisticated.

Suffice it to say that I think literary studies is better off post-New Criticism, post-High Theory. I get the impression that there are very few truly orthodox cult studs or formalists around. A paper that reads a text as merely formal or merely symptomatic isn't going to get very far, and that's a good thing in my book.

By the way, I very much enjoy your blog.

RM,
yes you are right again with your distinctions of the diverse currents with New Criticism. it is a long time since I read I.A. Richards or William Empson-- a decade ago.

I do remember that I was deeply struck by the philosophical sophistication (aesthetics) especially when compared to FR Leavis in England. I didn't dig too deeply as I found what I was looking for--Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.