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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.
“A splendid set of studies from a consummate critical theorist. Leading us into theoretical discourse with disparate threads, John Mowitt offers here a singular textual labyrinth, woven in the exemplary spirit of sustained scholarly engagement and enjoyment.” —Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Duke University, USA
“Thanks to countless conversations that he animates vividly, John Mowitt demonstrates with rigor and intelligence that Theory is here and now, not as a series of concepts to be applied, but as a way of reading life and texts, thus offering an indispensable propaedeutic for our critical humanities.” —Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania, USA, and Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
“Separating theory and practice has done higher education in the human sciences considerable harm. John Mowitt is among the very few who have been working on a productive and persistent undoing of this polarization. We now have a chance to learn from this sustained work in Offering Theory.” —Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Author of An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization
John Mowitt is Professor and Leadership Chair in the Critical Humanities at the University of Leeds. He is also a senior editor of Cultural Critique.
Acknowledgments; The Pretext; Introduction: Theory in Limbo; 1. Queer Resistance: Foucault and the Unnamable; 2. Stumbling on Analysis: Psychoanalysis and Everyday Life; 3. Strangers in Analysis: Nationalism and the Talking Cure; 4. “Jamming”; 5. WWJD?; 6. What Said Said; 7. Apart from Theory; 8. Conclusion: Theory Is Out There; References; Index.