The Emperor Redressed: Critiquing Critical Theory - Softcover

9780817357948: The Emperor Redressed: Critiquing Critical Theory

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817357947 ISBN 13: 9780817357948

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 2014

There have been signs now, for some time, that poststructuralist hegemony is declining. This book helps us to understand the theoretical flaws that make this decline inevitable.
The essays in this volume represent a collective questioning of the poststructuralist ascendancy, and of the assumptions involved therin, by a group of our most prominent scholars. These scholars were charged with examining the truth-value, methodology, practice, and humanistic status of poststructuralist theories and with speculating on what their conclusions portend for the future of theory. They provide cogent evidence that the poststructuralist heyday has passed.

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From the Back Cover:

The essays in this volume represent a collective questioning of the poststructuralist ascendancy, and of the assumptions involved therein, by a group of prominent scholars and critics: M. H. Abrams, Nina Baym, Frederick Crews, Ihab Hassan, David Lehman, Richard Levin, Paisley Livingston, Saul Morson, and John Searle. Assembled at The University of Alabama for the 1992 symposium from which this book takes its title, these scholars were charged with the task of examining the truth-value, methodology, practice, and humanistic status of poststructuralist theories and with speculating on what their conclusions portend for the future of theory. Some of the deficiencies "uncovered" in the emperor's apparel include the failure of poststructuralist theory to answer to the complexities of literary experience, its tendency to be self-ratifying, its betrayal of the feminist achievement, its conflation of style and logic, its attempt to impose apocalyptic finalities on history's open-endedness, and its ignorance of much in current language philosophy. The writings of Jacques Derrida, in particular, come in for skeptical scrutiny by Abrams, Livingston, and Searle. The book concludes with a lively panel discussion in which the audience joins the fray.

Review:

"A superb collection of essays, one that is both timely, without being, like white bread, time limited, provocative, without being surly, cantankerous, or precious. As a whole the collection is noteworthy for the consistently high intellectual quality of its contributions and for the general lucidity with which its several arguments are presented."-- James L. Battersby The Ohio State University

A superb collection of essays, one that is both timely, without being, like white bread, time limited, provocative, without being surly, cantankerous, or precious. As a whole the collection is noteworthy for the consistently high intellectual quality of its contributions and for the general lucidity with which its several arguments are presented.
--James L. Battersby, author of "Reason and the Nature of Texts" and "Unorthodox Views: Reflections on Reality, Truth, and Meaning in Current Social, Cultural, and Critical Discourse"
"A uniformly strong group of contributors. All of those involved are prominent voices in the national debate. The theme of the volume is the peculiar combination of social activism and poststructuralism that has come to dominate college literature programs across the country and that its devotees think of simply as literary theory."
--John M. Ellis, author of "Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities"

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