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The interviewees of this volume fall into three groups: the main players who brought about the rise of theory (Fish, Gallop, Spivak, Bhabha); a younger group of post-theorists (Bérubé, Dimock, Nealon, Warren); the anti-critique theorists (Felski); and new order theorists (Puchner, Wolfe). They discuss elemental questions, such as trying to grasp what was logic and what was rhetoric; trying to see down the road while fog and turmoil held visibility to arm’s length; and trying to pick legible meanings out of the cultural blanket of deafening noise. Theorists were not only good thinkers but also pioneers who were seeking profound transformations.
Harold Aram Veeser’s The Rebirth of American Literary Theory and Criticism provides crucial insight into the work that theory has done and continues to do in literary and cultural studies. The astute interviews with leading theorists demonstrate how theory transformed intellectual life for the better and how it continues to be perhaps the most vital force at work in contemporary humanist discourse. In our moment in which both theory and humanistic study are under attack from neoliberalism, renewed calls for the abandonment of theory, and new forms of anti-professional populism, Veeser’s volume demonstrates how important theory remains to the work we do as intellectuals and cultural critics. A necessary—not to mention pleasurable—read. — Christopher Breu, Professor, Department of English, Illinois State University
Acknowledgments; Introduction; The First Wave; 1. Stanley Eugene Fish; 2. Richard Allen Macksey; 3. Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein-Graff; 4. Vincent Barry Leitch; The Second Wave; 5. Walter Benn Michaels; 6. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; 7. Jane Gallop; 8. Homi K. Bhabha; 9. William John Thomas Mitchell; 10. William Germano; 11. Steven Mailloux; The Third Wave; 12. Wai Chee Dimock; 13. Rita Felski; 14. Kenneth W. Warren; 15. Cary Wolfe; 16. Martin Puchner; 17. Michael Bérubé; 18. Jeffrey Nealon; Afterword by Heather Love; Index.