Advanced study in the humanities and social sciences discloses a deep
ambivalence about Theory. Structurally, of course, the
professionalization of young academics is approaching extinction.
There are fewer and fewer secure jobs in academia, and thus fewer and
fewer students embarking upon advanced study, and, in turn, fewer and
fewer programs educating these students. What is offered the remaining
students is instructive. Notably, students are expected by their
future colleagues to be familiar with, maybe even conversant in
Theory, but the structural logic of austerity prompts educators to
wonder whether instruction in Theory is an efficient use of dwindling
resources, especially now that academic publishing (with important
exceptions) behaves as though this future, like the “last”
wormhole, is collapsing. Given the Faustian articulation of publishing
and promotion can advanced study in the humanities and social sciences
even be justified today? Paradoxically, students are still expected to
know what is less and less on offer. How is Theory to be “handled”
(fingered, worked with, fashioned) under such circumstances? A reading
of Theory that in tracing when and where Theory arises in the event of
reading proposes how Theory might best be handled in the context of
higher education today. Arguing against those who propose to avoid
Theory in the name of its putative obsolescence, this text sets out to
challenge two aspects of this avoidance. On the one hand, Theory has
been set aside in the name of identity politics, that is, the
proposition that its intellectual pertinence has been overshadowed by
a sense of political urgency construed as at odds with Theory. Theory
itself has assumed an identity, a profile. On the other hand, implicit
within the avoidance of Theory is a concept of “context” that
calls for reflection. Resisting the tendency to treat context as
either negligible or obvious, this text sets out to trace, in the when
and where of Theory, the rudiments of a “sociographic” (think
“historiographic”) account of context. In relation to it, the
reading that is Theory can be usefully situated as part of a politics
of higher education in the era of the global crisis of the university.
This argument is advanced through a series of readings that produce
eccentric, sociographic accounts of important (some quite unusual)
texts or performances of Theory. As such they enact an attention to
reading that is advanced as an instance of “offering” as called
for in the title.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781785274077
Publisert
2020
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Anthem Press (NBN)
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter