Introducing Critical Theory

INTRODUCING

Critical Theory Stuart Sim • Borin Van Loon Edited by Richard Appignanesi

Icon Books UK

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Totem Books USA

This edition published in the UK . in 2004 by Icon Books Ltd., The Old Dairy, Brook Road, Thriplow.i.~oyston: SG8 7RG email: - info~@ iconb6oks.coJik wWw.iconbooks.co.uk .

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Text copyright © 2001 Stuart Sim Illustrations copyright © 2001 Borin Van Loon The author and artist have asserted their moral rights. Origin~ting editor: Ricbard Appignanesi

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~ The Theory of Everything Theory has become one of the great growth areas in cultural analysis and academic life over the last few decades. It is now taken for granted that theoretical tools can be applied to the study of, for example, texts, societies, or gender relations.

The phenomenon of "cultural studies" in general, one of the major success stories of interdisciplinary enquiry, is based on just that assumption.

The further assumption is being made that the application of such theories will lead to a significant increase in understanding of how our culture works.

~ The Grand Narrative of Marxism The motivation for this development can be traced backto the rise of Marxism. ·Ka rl Marx (1818-83) and his followers bequeathed us an allembracing theory, or "grand narrative" as it is morecommonly referred to nowadays. ~

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Entire cultures can be put under the microscope of Marxist theory. It forms a paradigm of the way in which any critical theory in general works. Cultural artefacts are tested against the given projection of the world as it is, or should be, constructed.

The Politics of Criticism One criticism levelled against critical theory says that it is an "alternative metaphysics", promoting a particular world view, and, at least implicitly, a particular politics. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with such a procedure, as long as it is made clear what that metaphysics entails. What is it trying to achieve? One can then accept or reject its programme.

A great deal of its value stems from its ability to remain politically engaged. Being critical is being political: it represents an intervention into a much wider debate than the aesthetic alone, and that is surely something to be encouraged. We live in politically interesting times, after all.

The Synthetic or Magpie Approach The 20th century saw the development of a wide range of analytical theories

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The cultural analyst can pick or mix from the catalogue of theories to put together synthetic models for whatever the task may happen to be.

Except for the most committed enthusiasts of particular movements, most critics tend to operate in magpie fashion these days, selecting a bit of this theory and a bit of that for their own personalized approach.

~-----------

~ Bringing Theory to the Surface

To be a critic now, especially in academic life, is also to be a theorist- as any studentin the humanities and socialsciences will be only too painfully One I aware.

no anger sfudies "literature", but literature plus the full range of cri~cal fheories used to comtrud"readingsof narratives. .

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pi for.~ history,

media studies,.sO$iology - and so on HVough the humanities and·social sciences.

How we arrive at value judgements, and, indeed, whetherwe can arrive at valuejudgements, are now at least as important considerations as what the actual valuejudgements themselves are.

8

Hidden Agendas and Ideologies Of course, theories have alwaysoperated "underthe surface", prior to the development of the term "critical theory" itself, butthey were generally implicit rather than explicit. It f

was acase 0 assumptions that were taken for granted rather than used in a self·conscious way.

~ Theoretical Reflexivity

Self-consciousness, or -reflexivity" as we now call it, in the ~application of ~ theory is what defines the currentstate-of PlaY In the variousdisciplines of the humanities and social sciences. A student preparing a dissertation or thesis will nonnaIly be advised to outlinethe theoretical modelbeing used, first of all, beforegoingon to undertake the actual task of analysis itself.

The last thing one wants-tobe accusedof in such situationsis-being "undertheorlzed" -that way, low marks lie. The successful studentin higher education reaches theoretically-informed conclusions in and exams, and can show precisely how the theory informed those conclusions. 10

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Science Studies: the Paradigm Model But it is not only in-the humanities and social sciences that criticaltheory is deployed. Even the hard scienceshave been infiltrated to some extent. Scienceas a social phenomenon is most certainly a target for criticaltheory. One well-known founder of "science studies" is the historianand philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn (b. 1922).

Postmodernism and Sciencf Postmodemism and poststructuralism, for example, hav drawnfreelyon recent developments in physics to reinforc their world-view, with its emphasison undecidability, gap in our knowledge, the pervasive factorof difference and the Ii~itations of our :understanding.

Science and critical theoryseem, this case to be mutuallysupportive but all is not well in this relationshi

he Sokal Scandal 1996, an article by Alan 50kal (b. 1955), a professor physics at New York University, appeared in the respected itical theory journal Social Text. This article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", arguing for a postmode m 'iberatory" science,

)kal at once revealed ) hoax to the press and e scandal became international front-page news. hat was Sokal trying to do?

In Defence of Big Science Sokal tells us in a book publishedwith Jean Bricmont, Intellectual Impostures: Postmodem Philosophers' Abuse of Science (1997). The hoax served to expose ~.~ the pretentious and amateurish misuse of recent physics \~ by leading French theorists, Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard . }.~\ ~A , /Jl and Kristeva. Sokal provided deadly ammunition to the ~ -?' fundamentalists of "Big Science" who reject any hint that ~~ science might be "socially constructed". ..~

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Science cannot

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relativist views of critical .

theory. The issue remains - is

science purely autonomous or constructed" like everything else cultural? \1

Misappropriations " of scientific concepts have H occurred in critical theory, thafs _ \. tru,e;but is it also true, as Big Science defenders argue, that postmodem theorists are deeplyhostileto ~ genuinescientific methods ') and progress itself?

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· 0)~ ~~~~ How did we arrive ,at this situationwhere theory plays such a critical role? And what theories do we need to be most aware of in our approach to cultural stUdy nowadays? Let's start with the "grand narrative" known as Marxism, which has always aspired to be a universal explanatory theory. 14

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We might think of Marxism as a "theory for all seasons", prepared to comment on anything and everything, at all times and in all places.

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~---------LsgJ Origins of Marxism The immediate source of Marxian dialectical materialism is found in the idealistphilosophy of G.W.F. Hegel (1no-1831). Hegel enriched theory with the crucial term, alienation, which explains the interrelation of logic to history. In logic, it specifies the contradiction latent in all thinking, meaning that one idea will inevitably provoke its opposite. Hegel'saim was to resolve this in and by consciousness itself ...

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• Alienation in this scheme is dialectical, that is, the inadequacy of one form of consciousness turns into another, again and again, untila "proper science" is achieved. 16

Absolute Spirit: the Logic of History Alienation is a process by which mind - as the consciousness of a subject (thesis) - becomesan object of thoughtfor itself (antithesis). And therebythe human mind constantly progresses to the next higherstage of synthesis and self-consciousness.

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Historyis the journey of the 'World Spirit' in its progress through a seriesof stagesuntil it reaches the highestform of self-realization, Absolute Spirit. That form had been attained in Hegel's view by the Prussian state in which he served as a public official (i.e. as professorof philosophy at the University of Berlin.) 17

~ The Communist Manifesto o

o Hegel'sdialectic is idealist. Marx gave it a materialist foundation, that is, he shifted alienation away from "mindcontemplating itself" to the class ----struggle as the real historyof consciousness in progress.

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Our task is to contemplate the process of consciousness from the vantage point that itwiII attain only atthe end of its journey - but not to interfere ...

quote from Marx, "11th Thesis on Feuerbach" (1845)

The realization of philosophy - literallyits end- is for Marxthe defeat of bourgeois capitalism by the.industrial working class, and the establishment of a Communist societywhichfinally abolishes the "latentcontradiction" of exploiter and exploited.

And this is the programme that Marx sets out in The Communist Manifesto (1848). 18

The struggle is reduced to the private ownership of the meansof production versusthe workers who sell their labourto this capitalist system of production. 19

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Infra- and Super-structures Thereis a third hiddenstructure which is general and fundamental to all societies, including the capitalist. Societyalwaysconsists of an economic baseor Infrastructure, and a superstructure. The superstructure comprises everything cultural- religion, politics, law,education, the arts, etc. - which is determined by a specificeconomy(slave-based, feudal, mercantile, capitalist etc.). -'- .~ _-- ~:. "C""-

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Understand the superstrudur~. .~ ... <. ~ as ideology..- ways of ,7 ;- -' thinking charaderistiC . ..t.,,;;,'" J~ of class behaviour (what we "take for ~ . granted" as natural).

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Onceagain, we noticeMarx'scritical insistence on the hidden: religion, politics, law, etc. - everything culturalthat we "live by" - disguisesand renders perfectly natural an economic meansof production that is unnatural.

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Economic Determinism In the strict, or what is often called the "crude",view of Marxism, the ideologies of culture (like art) are by-products ~----..... determined by the economic base.

How m.u.cb, to what dlglD, is culture eco mically determined?

This has been a considerable source of debate in Marxist circles. Some theoristsconjecturethat certain activitiesin the superstructure - most notably the arts - might have a "relative autonomy" from the base.

, Not quite so simply.lt·is only \tin the last instance" ,that the economy

didates superstructural

activity.. .

But what exactly does "relative autonomy" or "in the last instance" mean? Such debates in critical theory are important in deciding whether or not we can simply "read off" events in the superstructure from events in the economic infrastructure.

22

The Hidden Text

alienation (as conscious process)

alienation (as unconscious, hiddenor estranged process)

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idealism ("in your head")

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the site of both

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"Text" does not simply mean "paper with writing on it", but an encoded produdion". \I

Note, first, that Marx gave a new meaning to alienation - not as the Hegelian .process of self-consciousness but as an unconscious estrangement from oneselfdetermined by one's class condition (= false consciousness). The inheritances of Marxism in critical theoryare: 1. Tension of idealism versusmaterialism (the autonomy versussocial construction of a text). 2. A hiddenor camouflaged unconscious. 3. Interventionism: a sensethat critical theory can makea difference.

·Mapping the Origins of Critical.}Theory

The Enlightenment ·

(1640 - 1789)

French Revolution (1789 - 99) . Industrial Revolution (c.1750 - 1880) Utopian Socialism (1796 - 1848) :&~\fW\ctAAel I
(17~4- ('104)

* Single namesgiven-in the tableare 'representative figures" 24

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...Marxism has managed to generate several distinctand opposed schools of critical theory. The question of how economic baseand superstructure interact is oftenat the root of suchdisagreements.

Oftencriticized for its academic bias, Western MarXism (which has many variants) has evinced a particular interest in the superstrucrure, most notably the arts. In its earliest pre-Westem Marxist form, however, Marxist critical theory tendedto assumethat everything that happened in the superstructure, including the arts, was a mere reflection of what happened in the base.

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Reflection Theory

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Anything categorized as following that line, as Cubism (1910-14) was by Plekhanov, must be condemned.

From such a perspective, critical theory became a relatively straightforward exercise, with clearly delineated paths of inquiry. The point wasto determine what the artreflected about its society. "Reflection theory" hasexercised a powerful hold over Marxist critical practice eversince. 27

-------@ Art, in this formula, had to be presented in a form accessible to the wider public. This strictly ruled out experiment. Art was no longerto be considered the preserveof "an elite with specialized interestsseparatefrom the lives of ordinary individuals.

Avant-garde modernism was the dominantaesthetic of the 20thcentury capitalist West. Even the mere suggestion of such modernism in one's art was enough to bring down the full might of the state machine on your head - as composers such as Dmitri Shostakovitch (1906-75) were to discover to their cost.

29

The Battle for Class Consciousness Westem Marxism is generally taken to begin with the work of Georg Lukacs (1885-1971), whose early writingson philosophy and literature exerted a huge influence on several generations of Western European theorists. Lukacs's Historyand Class Consciousness (1923) preached a more humanistapproach to class struggle, in comparison to the authoritarian Soviet Union model. Unlike manySovietthinkers of the time, Lukacs did not believe in the "inevitability" of revolution - it had to be consciously striven for through the combined efforts of the working class and the Communist Party in a creative ratherthan a dogmatic manner.

The glorious struggle of the people's revolution will triumph over the .ruMing dogs of bourgeois capitalism. It says here.

Thisamounted to a rejection of the deterministic interpretations of Marxist thoughtso popularin the Party at the time. 30

To orthodoxMarxistslike V.I. Lenin (1870-1924), who alreadyexercised dictatorial powers- extended even further under Joseph Stalin (18791953)- such views were considered dangerous to the socialistcause.

This was far too metaphysical a conception for the Comintern. Lukacs was .accordingly disciplined and forcedto offera publicrecantation of the work. History and Class Consciousness was later to resurface as a favoured text amongst the student revolutionaries of the 1960s(notably in the 1968 eve~ements in Paris).

· 0 f the Novel Lukacslan Theories

LUkacs's Hegelian roots are also evident in his early work on lite,Tature, Theory of the Novel (1920). This is stilt a WidelY studied text tOd8y, and its linking of the novel to the rise of bourgeois CUlture in Europe has een 6Cheea.in various other studies since.

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Luk8CS was later to develop a highly controversial theory of novelistic realism, "critical realism", based on the practice of his favourite 19th-centUry novelists, such as

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Regardless of their polifical outlook, novelisfs musf reveal fhe pressures working within their sociefy #hat led fo the developmenf of its particular mafrix of social relations.

What are the constrainfs placed on us as individuals within a given social class at a given historical point?

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A Critical Realist View of Alienation

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"Franz K~f~~;or Thomas Mann", a chapter title" Jf~om The Meaning of ,ContemporarYRealism (1958), was to become.something of a battlecry for . Luk~cs - a political rather .~han strictly'literary choice for the;individuaLto make, whetheras author or reader. 34

Lukacs was eventually tocondemn modernism in general as presenting a distorted picture ofreality which inhibited political action. This viewpoint brought him into dispute with the modernist experimental dramatist and Marxist, Bertolt Brecht -(1898-1956). ~ ._J . Brecht, backed upby . . ~(;...- ~.', ~ the Marxist critic Walter ~_..:' t Benjamin (1892-1940),

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.3 - The Theory of Hegemony ~

Marxists have always found it difficult to explain two problems. Both concern the failure of predicting revolution in capitalist societies.

These have been vexed questions within the Marxist movement. The concept of hegemony was developed to explain away such discrepancies. In the hands of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci (18911937), this concept became a sophisticated tool for cultural analysis. 36

Gramsci rejected the crudedetenninistic notion that the exploited working classes must inevitably recognize revolution as "in their best interests". Marxism had failed to consider how ideologyactuallyworks to make itself unrecognizable as such (another"disguise"). This is the trick of hegemony ...

We will see later how Michel Foucault's "archaeology" of knowledge digs under the apparent layer of hegemonic "consenf'to uncoverthe workings of cultural empowerment - a way already signposted by Gramsci.

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Cultural Criticism

Capitalist societies are adept at disseminating their ideological beliefswithout havingto resortto force. Ideologyis passed on at the level of ideas, as much as by economic pressures (oftenunwittingly by the indMduaisinvolved).

Such ideas were later to be developed further by the structural Marxistmovement. Some criticsbegan to wonder how we could ever break out of hegemony's embrace, so successful did it seem in maintaining the political status quo and defusing dissentat source.

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The Frankfurt School's Critical Theory Perhaps the most important strand of cultural criticism in Western Marxism was the Frankfurt School. It developed a rigorous approach to cultural analysis, particularly as seen in the work of its majorfigures, Theodor Adorno (1903-69),

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"Critical theory" is an amalgam of philosophical and social-scientific ;'-techniques (oftenmaking extensive use of statistical questionnaires in its inquiries) that had wide-ranging applications. Established as a research institute at the University of Frankfurt in the early1920s, the School fled from Germany on the Nazi takeoverin 1933and subsequently relocated in New York(returning to Frankfurt afterthe Second World War). 39

~-------~ The Progress of Irrationalism

Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcusechallenged entrenched aspectsof orthodoxMarxist thought- such as the role of the CommunistParty and the conceptof class. Adomo and Horkheimer's jointly authored Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)even questioned the validityof the Enlightenment projectitself, of which Marxism is regarded as a constituent part.

We will retum laterto Jean-Francois Lyotard's verdicton "grandnarratives", but, in the meantime ... 40

--------C§) Looking round, as the SecondWorld War came to a terrifyingsavage end, amid the ruins of civilization East and West, Adornoand Horkheimer could see only deeply repressive "administered societies" on each side of the ideological divide - the West being no less culpable in this respectthan the Stalinist SovietUnion.

Hegemony in Western civilization had all but destroyed the possibilityof political dissent under a glossy appearance of mass culture "consent", This was a theme explored in the work of Marcuse.

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Writing in the 1960s, Marcuse recognized a "one-dimensionar society in which the forces of advanced capitalism seemed triumphant overthose of the traditional left. Political opposition to capitalism, especially in America / where Marcuse remained afterthe war, had all but been eradicated.

42

Marcuse felt that the Marxistcategory of class had broken down in this situation.

The traditional working class was also in decline, giventhe speedand scopeof technological changenow creating a post-Industrial society, very different to anything that Marxor his immediate disciples couldever have envisaged. 43

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The Alternative or "New Left" Undersuch advanced technological circumstances, Marxist thinking couldno longer relyon the working class as the saviour of mankind. New constituencies of individuals had to be found to maintain the struggle against capitalism in the name of human liberation.

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Marcuse moved away from traditional Marxistnotionsof how revolution was supposed to come about. 44

Hisenthusiastic espousal of the American counter-culture (rock'n' roll, jazz ::s s» e, O'"

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The Politics of Avant-garde Art

Adorno, too, was an articulate theoretical champion of the artisticavantgarde. He was a composerhimselfand defended the twelve-tone music of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and his disciples, ~ and then later the newGerman cinema of the 1960s. / ' " And he did so for reasons similarto Marcuse. ~

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Although their aesthetic tastes markedly differed (Adorno hatedjazz and popularmusic in general), both Adorno and Marcusesupported the cause of artisticexperiment, which put them at variance with orthodox Marxist thoughtand the Soviettheory of Socialist Realism. 46

Of Adorno'sworks, the mostcritical of the Marxisttradition of thought- and arguably the most influential on laterdevelopments in critical theory- is Negative Dialectics {1966}. Here, it was arguedthat the notionof the dialectic as a way of resolving conflict and contradiction (a standard view that predates Hegel and Marx, in Adorno's reading) was misguided.

What dialectics revealed, according to Adorno, was "the untruth of identity, the fact that the concept does not exhaustthe thing conceived".

47

Against Totality - and Totalitarianism

From such a perspective, everything is always in a state of "becoming" ratherthan fully-fledged "being". And when that is so, Marxism soon runs intodifficulties.

48

Theory of the Aura Thecriticand cultural theorist Walter Benjamin was a maverickfigure on the fringes of the Frankfurt School. But his work shares at least some of their preconceptions. Although he died well before the School'smost influential period(the later 1940s through to the 1960s),Benjamin's work nevertheless has been instrumental in helping to define what we mean by critical theory. Benjamin is perhaps best known for his theory that what marks out worksof art is their "aura". This "aura" is what cannot be captured in any reproduction, as Benjamin pointsout in his highlyinfluential essay, "The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936).

The ability to reproduce works of art mechanically, especially in quantity, is a relatively new phenomenon ...

49

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In Combat with Tradition

But a print of a Vincent van Gogh, no matterhow high quality,its, reproduction, is not the real thing. In Benjamin's words, the print~lacks the original's "presence in time and space, its unique existence 'at the place where it happens to be"; or, as he proceeds to call it, its "aura".

Butthere is a positive sideto mechanical reproduction.

51

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Brecht's Epic Theatre

Benjamin was also one of the first champions of the German Marxist playwright BertoltBrechtand his concept of "epictheatre". The great virtueof epic theatrefor Benjamin was a clearly-defined political agendathat it self-consciously drew to the ~ audience's attention. It "does not reproduce conditions, but, rather, reveals them", showing us the way in which the ruling classes exploit and keep us in a state of subjection to their ideology.

Russian Formalism Although not strictlyspeaking a Marxist "school", the Russian Formalists were activejust beforeand after the SovietRevolution of 1917,and merit someconsideration beforemoving off the topic of Marxist critical theory. Although a casualtyof Stalinism and its brutallydoctrinaire SocialistRealist aesthetic in 1932,Formalist ideas resurfaced in the West in the 1960sto inspire new generations of theorists in the structuralist movement. Formalist critics, such as those associated with the Moscow Linguistic Circle, concentrated theirattention on literary form and literary language.

!Jj-T-h-e-G-ra-m-m-a-r-O-f-N-a-rr-a-ti-v-e--------Formalist influence can be detected in the work of such later theorists as

Roland Barthes (1915-80), who shares the Russians' concern with

"literariness" - those elements, such as the self-conscious use of literary devices, that signal that we are in the presence of "literature" as opposedto otherforms of discourse.

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Shklovsky's Defamiliarization Vlktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) contributed the concept of "defamiliarization" to his analysis of literary language- the "makingstrange" of everyday events and objects so that they appear to us in a new light.

The technique of art is to make objects "unfamiliar", to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be rolonged.

Brechfs "alienation effecf' is anotherversion of this process which forces us to recognize, by drawing attention to stylistic devices, what lies behind actionsand behaviourthat we take for granted (their hidden ideological connotations). Note how both Marxism and Formalism emphasize the '11idden" elements behindthe textualsurface.

Bakhtin's Plural or Dialogic Meanings Anotherfigure from this era whose work made a belated appearancein the West was Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). His innovativeapproachto literary analysisalso sufferedfrom Stalinistrepression - despite his attemptto devise a Marxist philosophy of language. Bakhtin's researcheson the novel strikingly prefigure poststructuralism in many ways, particularly in his . insistence on the plural qualityof meaning.

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There is no fixed meaningto any narrative, therefore, and it is always open to multipleinterpretation. There is a pluralqualityto Bakhtin'sown writings, too, in that he may have published work in the 1920s under a variety of names- most notably, Valentin Voloshinov(an issue still being debated among Bakhtin commentators).

56

Intertextuality or Heteroglossia Bakhtinsaw novels as intensely"intertextual" - a concept further developed by the structuralist-feministtheorist Julia Kristeva. Novelsare not independent unitarycreations, but products that rely on "intertextuality", that is, on references to an entire complex web of past and present discourses within their culture. This processBakhtin dubbed"heteroglossia". Heteroglossia works against the unifyingtendencieswithin a culture, as generally advocated by the ruling establishment.

Bakhtin identifies a similarly disruptive influence within the institution of the carnival, with its love of uncontrolled parody, whereby socia-political authority is mercilessly mockedand "made strange". The wildly satirical work of Rabelais (1494-1553) is for Bakhtina prime example of this camivalesque approach to authority(sadly lackingin the SocialistRealistenterprise). 57

Jakobson's Semiotic Linguistics Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) provides a direct bridge between Russian formalist semiotics and later poststructuralist developments in critical theory. He began as a member of the Moscow LinguisticCircle, then, in exile, the PragueLinguistic Circle (1920), until his arrival in America (1941) where he collaborated with the seminal structuralist anthropologist Claude levi-Strauss (b. 1908).

Jakobson analysed literary aesthetics ("poetics") as a sub-branch of systematic linguistics: "The object of study in literary science is not literature but literariness." He meansthe pattems of linguistic devicesthat The addressee _ specifyliterarydiscourse. de 's !L_

or rea r - I TIll source of aesthetic value.

-Onto this map of features I superimpose

corresponding functions...

referential emotive

poetic phatic metallngual

58

conative

Jakobson's interestin aphasia (a language disorderdue to brain injury) alerted him to a fundamental linguistic pattern of oppositions: metaphor and metonymy. Metaphor is a deviceof comparison ("strong as a lion") or imaginative unliteral description ("a glaring error'). Metonymy worksby substituting an associative part for a whole ("sails" for "ships"), as follows ...

:£,000 keels ploughed the deeps ...

metaphoric pole

metonymic pole

Romantic poetry lyrical songs filmic metaphor Surrealism

heroic epics Realist fiction film montage joumalism

The Psychoanalytic Unconscious After Marx,we can name Sigmund Freud (185~1~39) and his pioneering psychoanalysis as the next biggest influence on the'evolution'of critical theory. Indeed, there is a parallel between them ...

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conscious ,perception

Bothare also therapists. Marx soughta cure for "econqmic illness" in the historical process of classstruggle and revolution~ :Fr~ud, circa 1900, brokeawayfrom neurological psychiatry to pursue a curefor neurotic disorders by a process of self-knowledge. For both of them" humanity's "structural defects" are real, serious but not inescapable. There is a margin of freedom to be gainedby activeself-knowledge. 60

----------------® Marxiandialectics and Freudian psychoanalysis equally emphasizea hidden agenda beneathour surface dimension - things are not what they seem. Criticaltheory followsthem in attempting to tease out that agenda. Freudposits a discrepancy between our conscious "surfacelife" and the unconscious depth which is the unseen, unacknowledged controlling force. "Drives"at an instinctual level dictate much of what we say and do at a conscious level. Dreams, sexual abnormalities, neurotic pathologies will breakthrough the disguises of conscious normality. Drivesmay be frustrated or displaced for a time - but not indefinitely.

Eventually, we have the "return of the repressed" ... usually an unwelcome onel

Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory Critical theoristshave adopted the psychoanalytic idea of a "sub-text" to human activityand applied it to a variety of cultural phenomena - literature, film and media, and indeed society itself, as in the case of the Frankfurt School which married psychoanalysis to Marxism. The essential idea for critical theory is that there is nothing accidental in a text - in the widestsense of text as production. Everyindication of what is hidden, repressed or .displaced in its structure can be traced back to the 'extual unconscious".

62

Freud himself in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) suggested that Hamlet had a secret"Oedipal" desireto murderhis own father (and marryhis mother), hencehis difficulty in taking action against the usurper Claudius. Detractors of psychoanalytic criticism objectthat viewing Hamlet like this is to confuse literature with reality - the "textuality of texts" is ignored in favourof "psychical analysis".

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Psychoanalysis does indeed owe muchto literature. Freud's central dogma of the "OedipusComplex" derivesfrom Oedipus Rex by the Greek dramatist Sophocles (c. 496-406 BC). Psychoanalytic criticism oftenfalls back on the analysis of fictional characterization. And Freud'sclassiccasestudies, Little Hans, Dora,The Rat Man etc., whatever value they may haveas "science", are certainly greatexamples of story-telling.

.Struct uralism and Critical Theory We'now arrive"af a'thlrdinfluei1fialmodel'ofthe , unco~,~ci~us 'whi(h is rep~esen~td."~y struduralism. c

Structuraiism has its'origin'in the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1·913)..r SauS8ure aimed to reveal the universal struct~re of language as a constructed system of rules. His key idea is the relation of't~e islgn"ier to the signified. The connection between the linguistic signifier c/aIfJ and the signified concept "cat' is entirely arb~

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STRUCTURALISTS IN THE 1950s AND 60S PROCEEDED TO TAKE SEMIOLOGY FROM LINGUISTICS AND ·A P P L Y IT TO ALL MANNER OF SOCIAL "SIGNSYSTEMS".

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The Structuralist Unconscious

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Lacan and Structuralist Psychoanalysis

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Laean's ,Imaginary and Symbolic .Realms Lacan's work is notoriously difficult to interpret. But,as one participant in his famous seriesof seminars in Parisin the 1950sremarked, no matterhow obscure he may be, Lacannevertheless "produces resonances". This has proven especially the case among f$minist~ il1t~ late 1960s,and 70s attracted to Lacan's conception'of the:lm_glnarY and~'SymbOllc realms.

Thefirststageis identified ~with the mother; the second with the'f~~er,or, in a wit!er sen~, the "masculine":world.~j~t~order ,and aUtholjty fhat" .~~'~J~fla~~as adults. This is the Symbolic realm ofpre-establishedlanguagEl , SY~t~rris~ which in'the ~Narrae of'the Father', as Lacan puts it, oppresses 'women.

68

Lacanhimself was originally inspired by avant-garde Surrealism of the 1930s, chieflytheorized by the poet and former psychiatrist Andre Breton (1896-1966). Lacanian-inspired criticsare likelyto be most interested in works that self-consciously challenge the Symbolicworld in some way - as Surrealism manifestly does with its reliance on dreamimagery and the

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Surrealism itself was deeplyinfluenced by Freudian analysis. And, in general, modernism's rejection of orderly "realisf' stylesis likelyto appeal to

followers of Lacan.

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Barthes and the Empire of Signs Structuralism's task of identifying the "grammar'that underlieswhateversystem is being studied is perhaps best exemplified (and most accessible) in the work of the cultural semiologist Roland Barthes (1915-80). For him, structuralism is not limited to literature and art, but can equally well apply itself to the "sign-worlds" of fashion, advertising and the media- or even wrestling, football '. and a restaurant menu ...

Structuralism in the 1950sand 60s becamea theory applicableto any and every cultural phenomenon, as Barthesshows, and little escaped its attention.

70

The Common Structure of Narratives

Once again, we note the assumption of an unconscious "deep structure" to cultural phenomena, detennining their overall fonn.

The Death of the Author

72

~-------------Readerly versus Writerly Texts Barthes suggestsin S/Z(1970) that narratives can be divided into "readerly" and "writerly" categories. The latterdemands the activeparticipation of the reader; the formeran attitude of passivity. ,Modernist novels, and indeed anything at all experimental in.form - such as,the novel Tristram Shandy (1759-67) by Laurence Sterne (1713-68) - are "writerly". Most 19thcentury -realist novels are "readerly".

I prefer writerly texts to readerly, since in the latter the author is trying to impose a RQrticular reading on the reader ...

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By implicat~on, readerly texts are authoritarian. In the rebellious climate of the 1960s,'when the concept of the "death of the author"was developed, this was a grave charge to make. Critical theory since that date has had a distinctly anti-authoritarian, and oftencounter-eultural, edgeto it.

74

The "Death of Man" Structuralism also helped to promote the notion of the "death of man" (or ''the subjecf') which has been so influential in recent critical theory. The idea here is that our traditional Enlightenment notion of "man" as the centre of cultural process - a creature able to exert domination over its environment through the exercise of reason - is a delusion. In real terms, we are controlled by systems ...

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Language speaks through us, deep strudures work through us, and we have only very limited control over our destiny.

To "reconsider" is to challenge an entirecultural tradition basedon a commitment to individual self-realization and self-expression (whether in the artistic or economic domains).

Intertextuality and the Symbolic Order Semiotic theory was developed furtherby later poststructuralists, notably Julia Krlsteva (b. 1941).One of her key conceptsis Intertextuallty, which can simply mean that narratives are woven of echoes and traces·of other texts, a web or "mosaicof quotations". Kristeva complexifies this basic semiotic idea by admixtures of Marxism, psychoanalysis and feminism. She agrees with Lacan's view of an unconscious that can never itself be "spoken", but departsfrom him with her idea of its continuity even after the subjectentersthe Symbolic orderof language.

Evidence of such "disruptions" is provided by poetry and narratives which destabilize the repressive domain of lawfulSymbolic order. It is therefore also possible for Kristeva to rejectthe category of "essential woman"or gender as constituted by the Symbolic order.

76

Eco's Labyrinth Umberto Eco (b. 1932) offers anothersemioticview of intertextuality. One of the characters in his novel The Name afthe Rose (1980) remarksthat: "A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs."

My own semiotic

theory is strudured on

the ideas of the "net" and the "labYrinth". Systems are like nets. There is an infinitenumberof ways of traversing the distance between any two points on their surfaces. A net, for Eco, is "an unlimited territory". We mightalso see this as a labyrinth with no one "correct" way of journeying through it. Texts, as indeed systems as a whole, offer themselves up to multiple interpretations - "endlesssemiosis", as Eco says.

77

The Structuralist Marxism ,>of~~,.iAlth.u8ser

The' su~e~ , ~f. st~9turalist ~ought, in Franceled,to.a variantof Marxism called '"struclu~~ ~al?
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Following on from Gramsci's "hegemony" theory, Althusser also believed that ideology worked most effectively at the level of ideas - as enshrined in the Ideological State Apparatuses. The duty of the cultural critic is to identify where, and how, these ideas serve the cause of the ruling elite - as well as to identify the contradictions that reveal the gaps and flaws in the ideology in question.

deology"interpellates" or "hoils" us, and we respond to its "signs" in reflex-like fashion, ading as they require us to do to remain captive to ideology.

Marxism is the "science of society" that enables us to see through the manipulations of the dominant ideology, and thus develop a revolutionary class consciousness.

79~

Structuralist Marxism and Literary Criticism The implications of Althusser's ideaswereturnedintocritical theory by his disciple PI rre 'Mach rey (b. 1939). In his book A Theoryof Literary PrOduction (1966), Macherey states ...

Macherey is saying that criticism mustget beneath the surfaceof a text's ideological assumptions by asking of it what it does not say~ · Exposing its silences and evasions is itself a political criticism - and, we note, an "unconscious" is onceagain identified. 80

In the critical theory of Macherey, structural Marxism becomes a "science of. texts"- in effect, a sub-branch of Althusser's "science of society" - whose findings are always to be turned to political account. Literarytexts have a particular abilityto reveal ideological contradictions to us, which turns literary stUd~}gtoa politically subversive act.

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fIJ-------------------Genetic Structuralism

A related development to structural Marxism is "genetic structuralism", the approach devisedby the Franco-Romanian theorist Lucl n Gldmann (1913-70). Geneticstructuralism positsthe existence of parallels - or "homologies" in Goldmann's terminology between literaryworks and certain influential social group~ .operating at the time of"those works' production.

. In my study, The Hidden:God (955), Iestablished

such paf~lIels ' between th~ philosophy of Blaise Pascal 0623-62) and the plays of Jean Racine

(1639-99) ...

82

Rather than beingjust a reflection of the views of such groups, the greatest literature mightbe seen as a coherent articulation of what was otherwise "vague and confused" and contradicted by innumerable othertendencies" within the particular groupin question.

The novel form, too, argued Goldmann, featured such homologies. He followed his majorsource of Marxist critical influence, Lukacs, in tyingthe novel closelyto the rise of bourgeois culture and the spreadof the capitalist economic system.

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Reader-Response Theory Before goingon to consider the reaction to structuralism in the latterdecades of the 20th century, we shall take a brief sideways detourto consider anotherform of theory which, like Barthes', emphasized the reader's role: reader-response, or reception theory as it is sometimes called. Key figureshere are the German theorist Wolfgang lser (b. 1926)and the American Stanley Fish (b. 1938). ,r,

Iser assumesa greatersense of interaction between text and reader, whereby the text pushesthe readerin certain directions and the readerfills in any gaps left in the text. 84

Even Fish's ostensibly more radical approach is tempered by the insistence that the reader is a memberof an "interpretive community" whose shared values inform individual readings, as well as providing a criterion for assessing their validity. Reader-response or reception theory is not a particularly contentious form of critical theory.

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In that world, we can no longer take our everyday assumptions about the self, language and meaning for granted. From poststructuralism onwards, critical theory becomes muchmoreself-consciously counter-cultural, and, lefs admitit, difficult. Timeto takethe plunge ...

Poststructuralism: the Breakdown of Sign- UJ Structuralism went too far as an all-embracing form of analysis, apparentlyable to explain anything and everythingabout human affairs and the world around us. Everything became a sign-system in fact, nothingcould escape being part of a sign-system.

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Poststructuralism arose in the late 1960s and covers a wide range of positions. All of them are agreedthat the system-building side of structuralist Systems only analysis has many critical flaws.

explain everything by frequent recourse to suppression or omission .of "rogue" elements.

Whatever does not fit the system is either discorded as irrelevant or recoded to force itto fit.

To the poststructuralist mind, this was authoritarianism in action. It set out to undermine this position, introducing a note of radical scepticism intocritical theory. It has been a noteworthy characteristic of critical theory, as it develops, to find authoritarianism in the methodsof its immediate predecessors. Uberation from oppressive regimes, intellectual and political, is increasingly what we are being offered.

Poststructuralist Deconstruction Arguably the most influential branch of poststructuralism, and definitely one of its most sceptic, has been deconstruction, as practised by its leading exponent Jacques Derrida (b. 1930). Derrida's early work constitutes a sustained attack on the structuralist founders - Saussure and Levi-Strauss in particular. To his mind, structuralism is both authoritarian in manner and based on questionable philosophical premises.

Derrida argues that the standard conception of meaning in the West depends on an assumption of a "metaphysics of presence", ~at is, ~the full meaning of a word is held to be "present" to the speaker, or writer,-in their mind, as they use it. He has named this assumption log-ocentrism (logos in Greek has the sense both of "word" and "reason").

88

Differance and Meaning Such transparent presence of meaning can never be achieved, according to Derrida, because of the action of ditierence. He made up this word in French to describe the process by which meaning "slips" in the act of transmission. Words aJways contain within themselves traces of other meanings than their assumed primal)' one. It would probably be better to talk of a field of meaning rather than a precise one-to-one correspondence between word and meaning.

Afield that, critically enough, can never be bounded - because there is always a "surplus" of meaning atany one point.

In deconstruction, we move from system-building to systern-dlsmannlnq. Derrida's major concem is to direct our attention to the many gaps in our systems of discourse which, try as we may, we can never quite disguise. Deconstruction is a philosophy which very self-consciously sets out to deflate phUosophical pretensions about our ability to order the world.

89~

The Order of Things Michel Foucault (1926-84) is another French thinkerwho reacted against the formal rigidity of structuralism and its insistence that everything be neatlyclassified in terms of its system-bound role. Foucault deepened Gramsci's inquiry intothe problem of hegemony.

For him,the creation of such systems implied the marginalization and exclusion of certain vulnerable social groupsin the"nameof "order". The fate of such groups became the central concem of Foucault's historical inquiries: the hiddenagendahe was determined to bring to the surface. He delved into the "unconscious" of power.

knowledge -----.. classification power - - - - - - . . marginalization order - - - - - . . . . systemized control

-The Rise of Scientific Discipline Foucault's ,Madnessand,Civilization (1961) describes how the mentally 81, wereremoved to asylunlS'thatfonnerly housed lepers. From the 17thcenfury onwards, this was the "GreatConfinement".

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DIscipline and F!L!nish (1975) traced the rise'of the modem prison service; The Birthofths 'Clinic -(1963) of modem-rnedlcine.ln all three ~, -we arewitnessing the rise of "scientific" fonnsof.social control byth8 authorities. Thelivesof indMduaisareto be strictly regimented. 92

Foucaulfs three-volume Historyof Sexuality (1976-84) examined the process by which homosexuality (an unexceptionable form of sexual behaviour in classical Greece) was gradually outlawed by Christianity, until it was turned into a criminal activity.

Heterosexuality became the norm (and is still largely perceived to be so to this day), with all other forms of sexual expression being treated as deviations from that norm.

Uncovering the Hidden Di'scourse Foucault·descri.bed his historical researches'as'''archaeologies'' or. designed,tobringto lightsuppressed discourses 'ln Western .society~

"genealogies~,

What weare studying in each case of knowledge,.power and order is a particular "dlscourse"which~ ' at base" is structured'on~power;relatiQns~'As we shallsee,new historicism and cultural materialism hav9.proosdd to··draw heavily on that notion. 94

The End of Humanism There is no such thing as a universal "human essence" for Foucault. Behaviour, ethics, discourses and societies can - and all do - change over time. Nor is there any pattem to human history, no sense in which we are progressing - for example, to some Marxist utopia. (Foucault rejected Ma.rxism after dabbling with it earlieron.) Indeed, Foucault regarded our conception of "man"- that is, the liberal humanist vision of the individual as the possessorof certain inalienable natural rights- as a very recent invention.

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Foucault's vision of the human race was one that stressed difference rather than common elements. He continued to campaign for marginalized social groups - homosexuals, prisoners and ethnicminorities, for example - until the very end of his life. 95

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Postmodemism is a reaction to the ideology of modernity - the belief that reason can dominate the environment around us and by so doing guarantee us material progress stretching on into the indefinite future. Modernity as a cultural phenomenon is usually traced back to the Enlightenment period in 18th-century European history, often referred to as "the Enlightenment projed".

96

Lyotard's "Differends" '.Jean-Fran90Is Lyotard (1924-99) defined the postmodernist outlookas ~ characterized by an attitude of "incredulity towards metanarratives". He Imeantopenly expressed disbelief in the ideology or grand narrative un~erpinning modernity andthe Enlightenment project. Modernity tended to involvethe suppression of what Lyotard called "differends".

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for example, first nation inhabitanh disputing the property claims of their territory's colonizers without surrendering their own claims in the process.

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Unlessthese differends are respected, Lyotard contends, we drift into an authoritarian society in which many voices are simply silenced by the superiorforce of their opponents - as in the case of most first nation inhabitants in the "New World" who have found themselves marginalized and ignored by their colonizers.

97

~------------The Postmodern Condition Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition (1979) might be regarded as the bible of postmodernism as a critical theory. Its attackon grand narrative - and championship of marginalized "littlenarrative" - inspired a wholegeneration of theorists and has been instrumental in setting the agendafor the postmodem movement in general.

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Narrative only becomesproblematical when it is worked up into a "grar:-d" fonn that claimsauthoritarian or eventotalitarian precedence overthe multitude of "little" narratives (individual or smalllocalgroup) that any society contains. We note here the kinshipbetween Lyotard's idea of "differends" and the emphasis on difference in Derridaand Foucault. So also his idea of "constructed narrative" allieshim to Barthes and otherpoststructuralists. 98

Postmodern Science Lyotard also arguedthat what he called "postmodern science" (quantum mechanics, catastrophe theory and chaos theory) providesa modelfor us in our intellectual inquiries. Suchscience was "producing not the known, but the unknown" - that is, more problems than solutions, as scientists delved deeperinto the bizarreworldof "anti-particles", "strange attractors" and "deterministic chaos".

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In each case, we are confronted with counter-intuitive notionswhich challenge both our ordinary experience and our concept of logic.

The Enlightenment, "Unfinished Project" Manycriticshavetaken issuewiththis rejection of the Enlightenment project. The German philosopher JOrgen Habermas (b. 1929), himselfa productof the Frankfurt School of critical theory, is in the forefront. For Habermas, Enlightenment ideals are still worth pursuing: modernity is an "unfinished projeer which, for all its flaws, should not be jettisoned.

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Habennas defends the notion of consensus which postmodemist theorists havetumed their back on in their obsession with difference or "dissensus". The latteris politically suspect in his opinion, promoting division in our culture ratherthan a pragmatic approach to socio-political problems. 102

The Problem of Value Judgement Poststructuralist and postmodemist critical theory sets many unresolved problems regarding value judgement. Lyotard is one of the few figures from that camp to engage with this issue in some detail. Value judgement becomes problematical in any system of thought which questionsthe validity of our foundations of discourse, sincethis tends to lead to a selfdefeating relativism ...

... if all trufh is relative, then does that statement itseK become relative in its tum?

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Paganism or Benthamism Paganism demands that we make each judgement on a "case-by-case" basis with no over-arching system of rules to guide - or in any way constrain our deliberations. "Thejudge worthy of his name has no true modelto guide his,judgements", Lyotard argues. "Thetrue nature of the judge'is to pronounce judgements, and therefore prescriptions, just so, without criteria."

Bentham's ''felicific calculus" prescribes alwaysperforming the.action that leadsto "the greatesthappiness of the 'greatest number". The Ten Commandments (''thou shalf or "thou shalt nof', regardless of consequences or happiness) are out.

104

Postmodernism in the Service of Capitalism Fredric Jameson (b. 1934) argues that postmodemism'sswing away from generalizing "grand narrative" theory serves the cause of capitalism. For Jameson, postmodemism is less a theory in its own right than a symptom of our currentcultural impasse, in which all opposition to capitalism is being systematically eradicated.

The old order's commitment to competing grand narratives socialism versus capitalism, for ~ example - can now be ~ Jdiscarded. As Jameson points out, this simply leaves us defenceless against the power of globalcapitalism. Jamesonstill believes that the Marxist analysis of historyis the correctone, and that a "new international proletariar will eventually emerge to overcome late capitalism and its postmodem theories.

The "Case-by-Case" Event My refusal to adopt a set system of belief...

There is no underlying paHem or purpose to existence ...

. What we should reject is any scheme such as the Marxist -

...can also be seen atwork in my concept of the "event".

~-----W Techno-science and the Inhuman In Lyotard's view,

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the future is always "open". He is deeply opposedto all attempts to foreclose this openness in any way. The "openness" in Derrida's "deconstructionist" criticism is verysimilar in this respect. Hence Lyotard's break with Marxism, and hence alsohis criticism in laterlifeof the forces of 'echno-science", the new technology as appropriated by the multinationals.

Lyotarddubbed this process a move towards "the inhuman". He called on humanity to resist this latestattemptto eliminate difference fromthe world. Computers - unlike human beings - are entirely predictable and controllable and not much given to revolution against the authorities either!

Strangely enough, however, certain feminist theorists - most notably Donna Haraway (b. 1944) and Sadie Plant ' (b. 1964) - have welcomed the new technologyas a means of redrawing the gender map and breaking the pattem of male superiority in our culture.

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"I'd rather be a 0 ~ll;! 'I'· cyborg than a 0 ~. l~'t,: goddess", as ~\ Haraway .~ . provocatively • declares. sOmeCriti.C.,SCS . ../ .... ~~ from within the feminist movements have been just as unhappy as Lyotard about such a move away fromthe realm of the human. One might see a "new humanism" developing at such points, to replacethe old discredited one with its emphasis on competitive individualism.

The Sociology of Seduction In a move similar to Lyotard's, French sociologist Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929) encourages us to use "seduction" on systems as a method of undermining their "masculinisf assumption of authority.

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Once you lose your-fear of systems, they lose any hold they had over you systems can be "beguiled". It would be nice if it were that simple, although in , practice it rarely is. One wonders how one would go about "beguiling" the police forcel

110

Against the Marxist Fetishism of Production Baudrillard'swork has been just as harsh as Lyotard's on the grand narratives of our time. Marxism is dismissed, for example, for having an obsession with production that rivalsthat of capitalism at its worst.

A World of Hyperreal Simulacra Baudrillard contends that we now inhabita world of hyperreal simulacra.

He is attracted insteadto "signswithoutreferents, empty, senseless, absurd and elliptical signs". The future is not so much open here, one might say, as empty. 112

Disneyworld America To seek out "signs without referents" is to reject discoursessuch as Marxism and to render value judgements, politicalas well as aesthetic, more or less pointless. That does seem to be the message coming out of Baudrillard's later work. Value judgement is criticized in his study America (1986) as an essentially European preoccupation that belongs to the past.

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Any nostalgia we feel for this is misplaced. The attradion of America is that ithas left such considerations behind.

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Postmodern America has gone beyond meaning into the realm of the "hyperreal". Baudrillard even speaks of the desirability of the "extermination of meaning" by means of "theoretical violence" - which certainly brings the nihilism of his thoughtto the fore. Unless, of course, his rhetorical exaggerations are meant to provoke our reactions. 113

When Did Postmodernism Begin? Postmodemism has also drawn extensively on the work of the American architectural theorist Charles Jencks (b. 1939), who provocatively argued that modemism died at the precisetime that an award-winning example of modernist architecture, the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St Louis, Missouri (a fairly typical "new brutallsr' project of tower blocks), was demolished.

The Double-Coding of Postmodernism Jencks is a notablecritic of this modernist new brutalism who claimsthat architecture should be able to work on several levelssimultaneously, appealing to the generalpublic no less than to the architectural profession.

The aim was to satisfy both one's peers and the public by mixing together past and present styles in .a synthetic fashion. That has since become a very widespread architectural practice, as a glance around almost any Westem city today will readily reveal.

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Postmodern Pastiche and Irony

Much of postmodemist art and literature hasadopted Jencks's principle of double coding. The ideaisto "mix-and-match" familiar forms indeliberate pastiche quotation rather than experiment formally inthe manner ofthe modernist movement. Painters have gone back to representational art, authors to"realisf'-style novels - often consciously imitating the linguistic register ofthe past, as in the novels of Peter Ackroyd .)" )' "..".-~:

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Even inthe realm of postmodern theory we can see such principles at wOl1<: The new historicists - coming shortly - tryto establish a sense of dialogue with older forms of historicist thought. 116

Anti-Oedipus and Schizoanalysis On the wilder shores of postmodernism we find Gilles Deleuze (1925-95) and Felix Guattari (1930-92), whose Anti-Oedipus (1972) is an attack on the conceptof authorityin general and the allegedly authoritarian theories of Marxism and Freudianism in particular. Psychoanalysis for them is a repressive systemwhichforces individuals to conform to restrictive social norms of behaviour. Deleuze and Guattariput their faith instead in "schizoanalysis". .

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"Oedipus" becomes Deleuze and Guattari's shorthand name for the complex of social and institutional pressures by which psychoanalysis tries to make us conform and repress our desires. NeitherFreud nor Lacan comes ~ out of this exercise particularly well. ~ 117

Anti-Oedipal Networks -of Co'mmunication In Anti-Dedipus and its sequel,: A Thousand'Plateaus (1980), Deleuzeand Guattariunleash a seriesof strange concepts designedto undenn"ne our standardworld-view"desiring-machines", "bodJes.without orgari$", "rhizomes" and"nomadic thoughf, f~r example"

"Bodjeswithout organs" are part of the process by which d~si~ is repressed. 'Capital, forinS1ance, constitutes ~8",body wlthoutorgan§'of ,capitalism: thetis, its 'sterile and-· . unproductive component. ~ I

118

"Rhizomatic structures" are put forward as the basis for developing new networks of communication. Their attraction for Deleuze and Guattari is that they operate in a nonhierarchical manner.

This opens up exciting creative possibilities in the way that itbypasses established hierarchies.

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The Internetis viewed by its enthusiasts as having a similar rhizomatic formof operation. We also find echoes of the rhizome conceptin .. Eco'ssemiotic"nef r" and "labyrinth". ,iI• •W.lHllllU,- Rhizomes ~ were also c. .~ the favoured model of ,I.'. , thinking for the ,,philosopher LUdwig Wlttgensteln

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"Nomadic thoughf becomes the idealfor Deleuze and Guattari. It is tied to no particular system or sourceof authority. Authority for them is inherently territorial and thus is the enemy of desire, which does not respect the concept of boundaries.

Which is to say that nomads simply·ignore authority- much in the way that Lyotard is exhorting us to do in The Postmodem Condition by ceasingto pay any attention to fixed.grand narrative territories. 120

Post-Marxism: The Breakdown of Marxism By the later 20th century, Marxismbegan to lose support in the West. The brutal legacy of Communisttyranny in the Eastern bloc and Asia constituted an increasing source of embarrassment to the Western left. A position known as "post-Marxism" was gradually developed. In practice, it involved a rejection of most of the tenets of orthodox Marxism ...

''There is no need to criticize Marx, and even if we do criticize him, it must be understood that it is in no way a critique ... we laugh at critique", as Lyotard dismissively noted in Libidinal Economy (1974). Thereis not much nostalgia in the attitudes of Foucault or Baudrillard either. 121

A Post-Marxist Answer to Capitalism Post-Marxist theorists such as Ernesto Laclau (b. 1935) and Chantal Mouffe (b. 1943), on the other hand, deliberatelydraw on a wide range of poststructuralist, postmodernist and feminist thought-to'attackthe evils of capitalistsociety. They adopt a very pragmaticattitude towards the construction of a new theoretical synthesis that builds on the liberationist idealsof Marxism.

New social movements around the globe - ecological, ethnic, sexual, feminist - indicate that Marxism has been bypassed.

A fresh approach was desperately needed if the onward march of capitalism was to be countered at all. 122

Laclau and Mouffe'scontroversial study Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985) constituted a rallying cry on behalfof these new social movements, more worthy of supportby the left than the out-of-date socialist programme of orthodox Marxism committed to centralized parties and trades unions.

The Failures of Marxian Theory

124

Beyond Doctrinaire Marxism Post-Marxists in general rejectthe doctrinaire qualityof orthodox Marxism which demands unswerving unity of thought and belief - as symbolized by the Communist Party - and almost pathological dislike of spontaneity and individualism. The call is for a much more pragmatic approach to cultural problems, free of the preconceptions of orthodox Marxistthoughtwhich refuses to countenance any tinkering with its basic philosophical categories.

Such ideas, floated by many post-Marxist thinkers, have outrageddoctrinaire Marxists. Post-Marxists, on the other hand, want to retain the spirit of Marxism without any of its messy historyof failure (to most of them) or authoritarian bias. 126

The Spectre of Marx

'Marx has himself become a "spectre" we cannot expelfrom our consciousness or our culture. His legacycontinues to hold important lessonsfor us. Derridaarguesthat there will be "no future withoutMarx" .

.. the multinationals are verY much in control. Political oppression is still rifetoo.

~. Its continued existence callsfor.principled resistance from the left,just as it did

in Marx's day.

127

A Plural Marx

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But this is to be a much looserformation than the Communist parties of old. • Derridadismissesall the works of the Party"dogma machine"for having I distorted Marx's originalmessage of liberation.

128

The "End of History"

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Oneof the mostthought-provoking figures in post-MarXism the . Slove~'lian cultural criticSlavoj Zlzek (b. 1949). He challenges the assumption that ideology is a "conspiracy" by counter-proposing that we are all as individuals complicit in the operation of ideology. Zizek's idea is that we are well awareof the gaps and contradictions in our . id~~ogy. We just turn a blind eye to them mostof the time.

Rather like Lyotard, it becomes a case of withdrawing one's support and waiting- or at least hoping- for the systemto collapse, Again, it would be nice if it really were that simple. Zizek's criticism does at least havethe merit of "empowering" ordinarypeoplewho are otherwise seen as helplessly in the control of a political elite.

The New Historicism Poststructuralism and postmodemism are essentially anti-historicist theories. They deny the existenceof any "grand" patternto history regarded as ~ steady progresstowards some distant goal. But there was a return of sorts to historicist thoughtin the latterdecades of the 20thcenturywhichtook the fonn of "newhistoricism".

Historical periods are treated as powerstruggles that leavetheir "imprinf on allthe artistic production of theirtime. Thereis an echoof Marxist "reflection theory" here, discussed earlier, although of a muchmore sophisticated variety than Plekhanov's crudelymaterialistic one. 132

The leading American new historicistcritic Stephen Greenblatt (b. 1937), with his books Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1980) and Shakespearean Negotiations (1988), influenced the development of critical .theory in the AngloAmerican world. Greenblatt'swork on Renaissance literatureemphasizes that such material is caught up in the power strugglesof its time.

A much-imitated aspect of Greenblatt's analytical method is the juxtaposition of literaryand non-literary texts in order to exposethe power strugglesof the time: a police report alongside a Shakespeare play, for example.

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Both Sinfield and Dollimore have also been very active in Shakespeare They argue stronglyfor a politicized reading of the plays, as opposed to the more conservative notion of Shakespeare as a universal geniusfar abovethe mere concerns of ideology (still a very prevalent notion in Britain). 134 studi~.

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The Theory of Postcolonialism

This is an area "beyond", where normal Western moralityand rationality cease to apply. A desire for decadencecan be indulged. But there is also something to be feared in this "uncontrolled" area. 136

The West has deliberately "infantilized" the East. It has done so not only ideologically but as an excuse precisely to exert political control over the East. "Orientalism is a Westem stylefor dominating, restructuring and having authority overthe Orient."

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A Palestinian himself, Said has been a leadingvoice in the movement for Palestinian self-determination, and a severe critic of Israeli state policy towardsthe Palestinian people.

Fanon's Anti-Colonialism Said has drawn on the pioneerwork of the psychiatrist and politicaltheorist Frantz Fanon (1925-61). Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1952)explored the ways in which the black colonized races internalized the ideas of their whitecolonizers.

Fanon's Wretched of the Earth (1961) uncompromisingly defendsviolencein the cause of overthrowing colonialism. The revolution in Algeriaagainstthe French in the 1950s and 60s became exemplary of what was needed. Fanonwas an active member of the Algerian Liberation Front (FLN) at the time. 138

Poststructuralist Hybridity

That notion of "something else besides', with its anti-essentialist overtones, indicates the poststructurallst influences on Bhabha's thought.

Subaltern Studies Gayatrl Chakravorty Spivak (b. 1941) is'a leading member.of the Subaltem Studies group at Delhi University. She is best known for havingintroduced poststructuralist theories - especially Derrida's deconstruction - into postcolonial debate.

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As one of Spivak's essays puts it, "Can the subaltem 'speak?~ The concept"subaltem" was first definedby Gramsci in 1934; the New Delhi groupuse it for the Indianpeasantry doublyoppressed; first by colonialism, then by India'sown political elite. 140

Ithas demonstrated awell-honed ability to absorb what it wants from awhole range of other theories - Marxism, deconstruction,

postmodemism, etc. -

while still pursuing a

clearly-defined agenda of its own.

And, in critical terms, the challenge ' that can be created to male domination in areas such as the arts by the construdion of afemale "canon" of works.

~------A Feminist Literary Canon Literary "canons" of Great Workshave generally been weighted in the past towards malefigure$. Feminism's challenge has led to the recovery and subsequent republication - often for the firsttimesince the original edition - of a series of novels by hitherto neglected female aUthors of ·t~e 18thand 19th centuries. Two such works of recovery are Dale Spender's (b. 1943) 'Mothers of the Novel: 100Good Women Novelists beforeJaneAusten (1986) and Elaine Showalter's (b. 1941) A Literature of their Own:British Women Novelists fromBronte to Lessing (19n). tv

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Feminism and Marxism So-called"second wave" feminism from the 1960s and 70s onwards has adopted a significantly more militantstancetowards patriarchy than the "first wave"did. Such militancyhas often involved heavy criticism of Marxism, heldto be in league with patriarchy, if only unwittingly. The American feminist Heidi Hartmann (b. 1945) famously spoke of ''the unhappy marriage

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Although Hartmannwas still hopingthat an accommodation could be reached, somehow or other, Marxismhaving its positivepoints, several of her contemporaries act as if the divorce has already taken place - and not before time! 143

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Marxistfeministsthemselveshave become increasingly critical of Marxism in the last few decades, and, while acknowledging the theory's scope and power, have come to regard it as a bastion of patriarchal attitudes holding back the cause of women.

Marxism's tendency is to subordinate gender issues to what itsees as the most important socia-political considermion overall the class sbugg!c.

Feministthought now generally has a "post-Marxist" bias. It is no longer willingto wait until the "revolution" comes about for gender issuesto be addressed seriously. Some feminists have even gone so far as to argue that the revolution is unlikely to happen at all unless gender issues are resolved first.

144

The Theory of Gynocriticism Amongthe significant theoristsof second-wave Anglo-American feminism, as far as the development of criticaltheory is concerned, we might instance Elaine Showalter, Kate Millett (b. 1934), the team of Sandra Gilbert (b. 1936) and Susan Gubar (b. 1944), and Ellen Moers (b. 1928).

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"Gynotexts" should be the subject of our attention narratives which deal specifically with women's exp.erience. The main concern of the gynocritic is to trace "the evolution or laws of a female literary tradition". The clear intention is to revise cultural historysuch that women are brought in from the marginsof discourse where patriarchy historically has tended to banishthem. 145

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The work of Juliet Mitchell (b. 1940), Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974), is a particularly notable"return to Freud"from a critical theory perspective. 146

Freud remains something of a battleground in feminist theory. It is still very mucha live issuewhetherhe furthers or retards the cause of women. Millett also emphasized the patriarchalist role played in literature by such novelists as D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) and Norman Mailer (b. 1923).

Su'ch writers fypically presenf negative images of women as necessarily_ subordinate to the male.'

Literature has in fact becomeone of the prime sites of secondwave feminist research, and the representation of women one of its key concerns. 147

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The team of Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in theAttic (1979)takes as an image of "subordinate woman" the"case-history" of Bertha Rochester in Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre (1847). She issymbolic ofwomen's vulnerability ina patriarchal society: a vulnerability felt no less byfemale authors than bytheir readers. ._..,,.,..."',.. ,... ~.~ ...---- - ~_.HlIZi "· : ·_ · ~...-.~

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Against the Male Canon Ellen Moers's study Literary Women (1978) is also representative of the growing desire in Anglo-American feminism to construct a canon around women authors. Her concern - as with Showalterand Spender- is to establish a specifically female literarytradition that breaksthe male stranglehold on the canon.

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The differences between the sexes are such, it would seem, that they can hardly talk to each other any more. Cixous does allow that certain male writers - Jean Genet (1910-86) most notably - may aspire to the condition of ecriture feminine. 151

The Undecidable of ecriture feminine Adifficulty with (ixous's conception of ecriture feminine is the sheer vagueness of the term itself.

152

It is impossible to define afeminine practice of writing, for this practice can never be theorized.

Does Difference Lead to Separatism? Luce Irigaray (b. 1932) has been a particular proponent of difference feminism. Women's identity is for lrigaray, unlike men's, very diffuse~._-.I

Ecrirure feminine is designed to capture It is useless, then, to trap women in this diffuseness and the exad definition of what they mean. difference. And the same goes for ecriture feminine.

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The most logical conclusion to such a belief is separatism from men, which did indeed become a very powerful movement within feminism in the last decades of the 20th century (with Irigaray being one of its most vocal champions), although its influence is of late on the wane.

Two Champions of Modern Feminism A classic pioneering work, The Second Sex (1949) by Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), set much of the agendafor modemfeminism. Existentialism and Marxism combine in her challenge to societywhich demands ''feminine'' behaviour from women and "constructs" them in opposition to men as the assumeddominantsex. There is no biological or psychological necessityfor this. Becoming a woman means being indoctrinated into a certain code of behaviour that can be resisted.

Some feminists, for instance Rosalind Coward, complain of what they call "womanism": the assumption that the female perspective is by definition the only correct one, and thus completely beyond any possible criticism.

The anti-womanisf argument is a plea for a more inclusive feminism that does not simply discount the male perspective altogether. . . ..... ".-.

I accuse difference feminism of having allowed itself to sink into an essentialist cult of Woman, whereas I want it to speak for both sexes.

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Postfeminism and Positive Womanhood We can now even speak of postfeminism. It stands in relation to feminism much in the way that post-Marxism does to Marxism. The attack on womanism might be seen as an instance of this phenomenon in action.

Postfeminism represents a move away from the culture of vidimhood that has so often been cultivated by second-wave feminism ...

A Parallel with Post-Marxism Although it is at best a loose term, postfeminism represents something of a backlash against the more doctrinaire forms of feminist thought. But it has been attacked in its tum for being anti-feminist. Tania Modleski (b. 1949), for example, has accused postfeminists of "negating the critiques and undermining the goals of feminism - in effect delivering us back to a prefeminist world",

The critique of orthodox feminist thought constitutes yet another rejection of "grand narrative" - in this instance, of second-wave feminism with its essentialist bias and separatist sympathies. Postfeminists share the tendency of their post-Marxist, postmodernist and poststructuralist counterparts to view their predecessors as authoritarian.

--~~--I: er 'F';Ielry and Sexual Identity It addresses itselfto the natureof sexualidentity. In Judith Butler's (b. 'f 956) words.jt attempts"to destabilize the entiresystem of sex regulation", and "binaryoppositions such as gay/straighr. Butler.herself has promoted the idea of genderas "performance": "a kind of lmpersonanon", as she puts it. >

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Queer theory can be seen as an attempt to break away from the essentialist arguments of much feminist thought. In fact, it deliberately sets out to cultivate dialogue, and a sense of common interests, between lesbians and gay men. -

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Blackcriticism is another recent development in critical ~eory witha specific political agenda to pursue. Likefeminist criticism, it is muchconcemed to create an alternative canonof writing~ this time basedon blackwriters.

160

One of the most influen~ial figures in this movement has been Henry Louis _ Gates, Jr. (b. 1950). He draws extensively on poststructuralism and postmodemism in his writings on the African-American literarytradition. In The Signifying Monkey (1988), Gates argues that there is often a hidden discourse within black writing itself.

Itis often a case of authors "saying one thing" to mean "something quite other".

Black Feminist Criticism Another theoristto make use of poststructuralist-postmodemist thought in this critical area of discourse has been the black feminist bell hooks (b. 1952).In her best-known book, Ain't I a Woman (1981), hooks points out that black women are doubly discriminated againstculturally.

162

Black female experience is seen to be yet another suppressed discourse which needs to be teased out by the critic. Taking inspiration from postmodem theory, hookscalls for the construction of a "politics of difference" in which "multiple black ldentlnes" can be allowed to express themselves.

Theory is

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There is a notablyoppositional qualityto both past and recentcriticaltheory which renders it potentially quite subversive, cUlturally speaking. The emphasis is on the "critical". A libertarian political agendaof someform or . Recent critica .other has always been a force behind the scenes.

theory aims very much to put our culture "under the microscope" ...

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Rather, it constitutes a principled intervention intocultural politics. Arguably, the more''theorized'' we are, the more impactour interventions will have. It is often remarked that "knowledge is power", but we might just as easily say that "theory is power" too, once you know your way around it. 164

Critical Theory and a Pluralist World

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... argues against the development of any over-arching grand narrative for the time being.

In that sense, critical theory helps to promote the cause of democratic pluralism, and is therefore an integral part of the current political scene. Theory is power. This is not merely an academic exercise for "intellectual mandarins", but a perspective on awareness and a talent well worth developing for all of us.

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The . list,below comprises some general introductions to criticaltheoryand to key .~ movements within the field.

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Barry~ Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to literary and Cultural Theory ~ (Manehester: ManchesterUniversityPress, 1995).A well-or.ganiZ8d. user-friendly survey of the majormovements, with the emphasis on the literaryside of things.

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Culler. JOnath.n.'. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Lin. 9. uist .. Ica and .the , Study • ~ of .....ratur. (Londonand Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1~75). Cor:np~~hensive '0 study of structuralism that still holds up well overa quarterof a centurylater." ';',

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Terry. a.nd Literary . . n: M . 97.6).• Solid-and conase Introduction to the field's mostImportant figuresand debates. . ,

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Gamble,Sarah, ed., The leen Critic I DIctionary of Feminism and (Cambridge:' Icon Books. 1999; shortly to be republished ~y 'Routledge) : < '- . " • ~ Comprehensive studyof the ~e.V!I.o~ment o~ feniiniSIthOU9tit,~nd, its~impaCt. ~n . . '-: contemporary c~lture. completewith extensive glos~ry of key themes and flgu.res..

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Moi. Toril. Sex~allrextual Politics: Feminist Llt~rary,TheolY'~(London: Methuen• 1985).One of the first attempts'(i~,'English to captu're,the",fUltrangEi:offemi'nistliterary theory. with coverage of both A~glo-American and Fre~ch approach~.

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Norris,Christopher, The Deconst,:"e:tlye .
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Sarup. Madan. An Introductory Guide to,~ost~truCtu~II.·rn'.~~d -P981modernl . m (Hemel Hem~tead: ~arvester, 1988). Clearexpos!tfon~fttie1n~rp~.~:)O. ,·.c. . e,m.~,·~;'!hese movements, WIth parbcular reference to the thoughtof Lacan, D8iTJd8~ .foucaUIt. .." Selden, Raman, and Widdowson, Peter. A Reader'8 GUIc:ht16 Corit' ,'~PorarY· ... . Literary Theory (Harvester: Hemel Hempste~d. · 1~~.'~J(reVised· 8dlti~~»;'Hlghly ·regarded general introduction. muchusedin literature degrees~ ' , " " '

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Sim, Stuart. ed.• The Icon Critical Dictl~n~ry of ~Cistinodem Thought'(Carrtbridge: Icon Books, 1998; shortly to be republishedb.Y ., .R . o,·~t1edg.e).•,.c. o.. mp~,ehen'. sive ,~tudy of the impactof postmodernism on the majordiscourses,of W~ste~tculture. with an extensive glossaryof the major concepts and figures'involyed'ln pOstmodemism's development.

~ Slm, Stuart, Post-Marxism: An IntellectuaU:tisto,y (Lon ,".. ~.on: Routledge, 2000). Wide'-: ranging accountof the development of dissenting' from the

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:e::s.:::::: in Oswald Hanfling. ed.• Philosophical Aesthetics: An Intr~ductlon (Oxford:'Blackweli. 1992),pp. 405-39 and 441-71. Two historically-based essaysoutlining ~ . r:t:lajor concepts and concemsin structuralist, poststructuralist and Marxistcritical theOry.

166

Glossary of Terms Alienation: Many modemthinkers and artistshave claimed that a senseof alienation from otherhuman beings is the natural human condition. Marx, on the other hand, arguedthat individuals were alienated from eachotherby the dehumanizing processes of industrial labour. ArchaeolOgy: Michel Foucault's termfor his historical researches intothe hidden discourses of Western society (such as its suppressed historyof homosexuality). The aim of these archaeologies was to showthat Western culturewas basedon powerrelations rather thansuchidealistic notions as truth or natural justice.

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carnival: Mikhail Bakhtin sawthe institution of carnival as a modelfor subversion of socio-political authority in the way that it parodied the ruling class. The comicgenius Rabelais was for Bakhtin an excellent example of the application of the carnival spirit to literary narrative.

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Deep structure: In structuralist theory, systemsare held to have deep structures whichdictatehow they operate. Roland Barthes, for example, asslimed an . under1ying structure of rulesto narrative. Another way of thinking of deepstructure is as something similarto a geneticprogramme. Defamlliarlzation: The processby which literarylanguage rendersthe everyday

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Desiring machine: Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari see individual humanbeings as motivate.d by the needto find an outletfor their libidinal energy: in their tenninology, as "desiring-machines". Muchof modemsociety, in their view, is dedicated to suppressing this drive. Deterritorialization: Gilles Deleuze and FelixGuattari regard institutional authority as inherently territorial in mentality. Attempts to contest the boundaries that institutions set therefore countas acts of deterritorialization. Nomadic thought (q.v.) is an example of such transgressive behaviour.

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Dialectical materialism: In the dialectic, thesisgeneratesantithesis, with the conflict between the two resolving itselfintothe creation of a new thesisor synthesis. Marxtook over this scheme, but located it in the material wortd where it manifested itselfin the struggle of one classagainstanother. Resolution wouldcome aboutin our own era whenthe proletariat overcame the bourgeoisie. Dialogism: Mikhail Bakhtin conceived of meaning as in a constant process of negotiation between individuals in a givensociety; that is, as "dialogic". Ratherthan beingfixed, meaningis plural and alwaysopento reinterpretation - and the same can be said of any narrative.

Dlff8rance: The neologism coined by Jacques Derridato describethe way in whichwordsfail to achievefixed meaning at anyone point. Meaningis always indetenninate to Derrida - both "differed" and "deferred" - and differance is the movement within language that preventsit from being otherwise.

~ Difference: In poststructuralist and postmodemist thought, difference is always

emphasized over unity,and is takento be an inescapable aspectof humanaffairs.

168

Systems, and texts, are held to be intemallymarkedby difference and incapable of achieving unity: rather, they lendthemselves to multiple interpretations. Dlfferend: Jean-Francois Lyotard's tenn for an irresolvable dispute, in whicheach side starts from incommensurable premises. An employerand an employee debatingemploymentrights would be one example; colonizer and colonized debating propertyrightsanother. Traditionally, what happens is that the stronger side imposesits will on the weaker. Discourse: In the work of Michel Foucault, discourse constitutes a socialpractice govemedby an agreed set of conventions. Medicine is a discourse, as is law, or any academic discipline. Discourses are founded on powerrelations, and function something like paradigms (q.v.) in ThomasKuhn. Double coding: CharlesJencks'stenn to describe how postmodem architecture oughtto work;that is, to appeal to both a specialist and a general audience. Modernist architecture had signally failed to do so, in his opinion, restricting its appeal to specialist practitioners only. Ecriture feminine: French feminists such as HeleneCixousand Luce lrigaray have arguedthat women shoulddevelopa style of writing uniquely their own, selfconsciously distancing themselves from patriarchal modesof expression. Otherthan a certain fluidity of meaning, however, it is difficult to specify whatthe styleactually involves.

Enlightenment project: The cultural movement, datingfrom the Enlightenment period in the 18thcentury, that emphasizes the roleof reason in human affairsand is committed to material progress and the liberation of humankind from political servitude. Modem culture is based on these premises. Epic theatre: A theory of drama developedby the playwrightBertolt Brecht which demanded that, ratherthan providing an illusion of real life,theatre should makeits artifice visibleby "alienation effecf' to the audience. Theatre that did so, Brecht thought, wouldthen become a critique of the dominant valuesof its society. Grand narrative: In the workof Jean-Franccls Lyotard, a grandnarrative constitutes a universal explanatory theorywhich admitsno substantial opposition to its principles. Marxism is one such example, liberal humanism another, with ideology in general tending to operate in suchan authoritarian manner. Gynocriticism: According to ElaineShowalter, the properobject of feministcritics is textsthat concentrate on femaleexperience, or "gynotexts". The concernof gynocriticism is to tracethe development of a specifically female literary tradition, thuschallenging patriarchal accounts of literary history. Hegemony: In Marxisttheory (particularly the work of AntonioGramsci), hegemony explains how the ruling class exertsdomination over all other classesby a varietyof apparent "consensus" means, including the use of the mediato transmitits system of values. Heroinism: Literature by female authors in whichthe femaleprotagonists are placed in situations whichtesttheircharacters and require themto display heroic

169

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beh~vio~r in order to survive. The term was devised by EI~en Moers, for whom

ct,G>. ; 18th~ntury Gothic novels were an exampleof "travelling heroinism". .~ .

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H_ogl.qss . 18.: Mikh.ail Bakh .: tin's ~enn , to deSC.ribe. t.he intertextual (q.v.)natu,re of novels~Then~vel ls.avery flexible and open form, capable of~fening t~ a multitud~ of cultural discourses. Bakhtin ~w this as subversive sinceit resisted the unify~ng - (that is, conservative) forcesoperating withinmostcultures. .

G> ; Homology: Lucien Goldmann'swork exploresthe way in which literarytexts can

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Hybridity: The concept of hybridityfigures large in postcolonial theory. For Homi K. . Bhabha,.it representsa condition betweenstates (som~where ~tween workingClass,.' identityand gender,for example) whose Virtu~ is that it eScapes the controlof ~ eithe~. As such, it has considerable subversive potential. ~

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Hyperreallty: Jean Baudrillard's conceptto describethe conditionbeyond meaning that, forhim, .sums . up postmodem life. A culturalphenomenon like Disneyland no longer-means at:'Ything: it is neitherthe realthing nor a representation of the past. Rather, it is hyperreal- beyondmeaningor analysis. :

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Imaginary: In Lacaniantheory., the pre-selfconscious young babies up to six monthsor so. Lacan identifies this state with the mother,and'we leave it when we move into the symbolic(q.v.) realm of languageand social existenceat the age of around eighteen months.

Inhuman: For Jean-Fran~is Lyotard, all those processes which conspireto marginalize the humandimen'sion in our world. Exarrlples would includ~ -the growth ~ of computerization, and particularly the development of sophisticated,' and ~ eventually autonomous, systemsof Artificial Intelligence an~ Artificial Life. , iI

Interpellation: The process by which ideologymanipulatesus to conform to its values. For LouisAlthusser, it was a case of,ideology"hailing" us::almo~Ji~~ a ~ : policeman callingus to attention. We respond tosuch signs'in reflexfashion, thus ~ revealing how successfully ideologyhas conditioned us.

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the body of scholars workingIn a cntlcal dlsc~plln~ whosecollectIVe practices set the criteria for interpretation. Thesepractices can changeovertime, and the community might be thought of as similarto Thomas Kuhn'sconceptof paradigm (q.v.).

IritertextUalll)': ":- term which~esc~bes t~e way in ~ic~ all texts ~?othertexts, and are,'as'theonsts sueh'as Mikhail Bakhtln and Julia Kristeva have POlnted.out, "mosaics of quotations" and references from an extensive variety of sources.

Linguistic model: Ferdinand de Saussure'smodel of how languageworks'-a.· systemwith its own internallyconsistent rules or grammar- was appropriated by

170

the structuralist movement which applied it to any and all phenomena. The main concem of structuralist analysis then became to isolate and catalogue the grammar of whatever system was being studied. Literariness: The qualitythat differentiates literary language from otherforms of language-use. This qualitylargelyderives fromthe highlyself-conscious use of literary devicesin literarytexts, and according to Roman Jakobson is the proper objectof studyof literary critics. Uttle narrative: The oppositeto grand narrative (q.v.), little narratives comprise groupsof like-minded individuals who attemptto subvertthe power of grand narratives. Littlenarratives remain at an oppositional leveland refuse to allow themselves to be turned intoauthoritarian ideologies of the kindthey are rejecting. Metanarratlve: Another namefor grand narrative (q.v.). Jean-Fran90is Lyotard usesthe terms interchangeably in his best-known work, ThePostmodem Condition (19.79). Metaphysics of presence: JacquesDerridaarguesthat all discourse in Westem culture is basedon the assumption that the full meanings of wordsare immediately "presenr to us, in our minds, as we use them. For Derrida, this "metaphysics of presence" is illusory: meaning is alwaysindeterminate. Narratology: The study of how narrative works in terms of the relations betweenits ~ structural elements. Structuralists likeBarthes, in theirdesire to establish a general ~ grammarof narrative, reduced narrative to a set of functions, specifying how these applied in each literarygenre. ~ q

Negative dialectics: Both the Hegelian and Marxistdialectic featurea conflict between thesisand antithesis which resolves itselfintothe creation of a new thesis. ForTheodorAdorno, however, the dialectic failedto resolve its internal contradictions, with newtheses simplystarting anothercycleof conflict. Dialectics were negative ratherthan positive in quality. Nomadism: Thought which does not follow established patternsor respect traditional boundaries (suchas disciplinary ones). For GillesDeleuze and Felix Guattari, nomadism is a transgressive activity which challenges institutional authority, giventhat the latteris invariably committed to protecting its own particular "territory". Orientalism: EdwardSaid'sterm for the way in whichthe Middle East has been constructed (by writersand artists, for example) as the "other" to Westemculture. In the process, the "Orienf' is presented as mysterious, sensuous and irrational: qualities which tend to be lookeddown upon in the West. Paganism: Jean-Francoie Lyotard argued that paganism was the state in which judgements were reached without reference to pre-existing rulesand conventions, but on a "case by case" basis instead. Judgement in anyone case established no precedent for another. Paradigm: A framework of thoughtwhichdictates whatcountsas acceptable inquiry in an intellectual field. Thomas Kuhnsawscientific history as consisting of a series of paradigms, each incommensurable with its predecessor, with periodic revolutions whenone paradigm replaced another. 171

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Pluralism: The commitment to multiple interpretations and the rejection of the notion of an unquestionable central authority, whether in critical or political matters. Pluralists refuse to privilegeanyone interpretation of a text or ideological position, and encourage diversity. .

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Reaclerly fiction: Roland Barthes's term for fiction which imposes a particular reading of the text on the reader, and attempts to closeoff altemative interpretations. 19th-eentury novelistic realism, with its carefully worked-out plotsand explicit moral messaqes, is a prime exampleof this style of writing. Reception theory: Reception theorists concentrate on the interaction of readerand text (reader-response being anothername for the approach). Textualmeaning is seento emergefrom the reader's engagement with the text, with sometheorists claiming-thatthe reader is almostentirely responsible for the creation of that meaning. Reflection theory: Reflection theorists assume that artistic artefacts reflect the ideology of their culture. Thus,for the Marxist GeorgiPlekhanov, the art of a bourgeois culture couldnot helpbut reveal the character of that culture. Art has a ratherpassivecultural rolefrom this perspective. Repressive State Apparatus: Louis Althusser's term for those forces, such as the police and,thearmy, whichthe ruling classrelies on to enforce its control overa society- by violent means if necessary.

Rhizome: For Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the rhizome becamea modelfor how systemsidea.11y shoulddevelop. Rhizomatic structures (suchas tubersor _moss)can make connections between any two pointson their surface; a process which thesethinkers considered to be inherently creative arid anti-authoritarian.

Schizoanalysis: Gilles Deleuze and FelixGuattari's attackon Freudian .psychoanalysis led them to developthe conceptof schizoanalysis. in which schizophrenia was taken as a modelof howto resistthe methodsof the ~ psychoanalyst. The multiple personalities of the schizophrenic frustrated the ~ psychoanalytic desireto tum us intosocially conformist individuals.

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"the science of signs"- in his Course in General Linguistics (1916). Language itself, in Saussure's formulation, was a system of signs (q.v.) whichoperated according to an underlying grammar. All sign-systems were assumed to work on this linguistic model.

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Semiotics: Although it is sometimesused interchangeably with semiology(q.v.) to mean"the scienceof signs", semiotics has also cometo referto the operation of signsin a given system. Thus, one speaks of the semiotics of film or fashion.

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Sign/Signified/Signifier: For Ferdinand de Saussure, language is made up of signs, whichconsist of an arbitrary signifier (word) and a signified (concept) joinedin 172

an act of understanding in the individual's mind. The signcommunicates meaning, which in Saussurean linguistics is heldto be a relatively stable entity. Simulacra: According to Jean Baudrillard, signs no longerrepresent some deeper or hiddenmeaning(such as the classstruggle), but only themselves. We live now in a world of simulations which have no deepermeaning to be discovered. Disneyland is a good exampleof such a simulation. .

Socialist realism: An aesthetictheory imposedon artists in the Soviet Union from the early 1930sonwards. This demanded that works of art appealto a popular audience and,wherepossible (as in the visual and literary arts), contain an explicit socialist message. Strange attractor: In chaostheory, the underlying force whichcontrolsany given sy$tem. The weather, for example, is assumed to havea strange attractorwhich dictates its patterns. The mostextreme example of a strange attractor is a black hole, whichabsorbs all matterwithwhich it comesintocontact. Subaltern: To be in the subaltern ·position is to be in an inferiorposition culturally, thus subjectto oppression by groups more powerfully placedwithin the dominant ideology(as women so often are by men, or the colonized by their colonizers). Symbolic: In Lacanian theory, the statethat succeeds the imaginary (q.v.)at around eighteen monthsin a child'slife.The symbolic is the realm of language and social existence. Lacanidentifies it with the "masculine" worldof adulthood. Feminists see this as the entry into repression. Womanlsm: Theorieswhich assumethe superiority of women. The term suggests a reverse kind of sexism in whichthe prejudice always lies withthe woman's position. Writerly fiction: Roland Barthes's term for fiction whichdoes not imposea particular reading of a text on the reader, and which invites altemative interpretations. In Barthes's canon, modemism is the styleof writingthat best achieves this desirable objective. .

The Author

Stuart Sim is Professor of English Studies at the University of Sunderland. His books include Derrida and the End ofHistory and Lyotard and the Inhuman in Icon's 'Postmodem Encounters' series.

The IDustrator

Borin Van Loon has illustrated more hot dinners than you have eaten books. He has given physical form to Darwin and Evolution, Genetics, Buddha, Eastern Philosophy, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Mathematics and Media Studies in Icon's 'Introducing' series.

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Index AbsoluteSpirit, the ,17 'academic study 8, 10' Ackroyd, Peter 1.16 Adomo:,Theodor'39-41,

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Coward, Rosalind 155 critical . realism 33 theorydefined39 criticism. politicsof 5 cultural materialism 134 studies3

Guattari.Felix 117-20 Gubar,Susan. 145, 148 gynoeriticism 145·' Habermas. JOrgen .1 02 Hamlet·analys." 62-3 HarawaY" .QQfl~a' 1.0~9 Hartrriann, fleidi143 Hege,~ ,9 .W.F. 1 6~ 17, 3~ ' hegemony36-8~ 41, 91', 124 heroinism150 heterogloSsia 57 historicism~ new 132-3 history

,'alienation 1~ 17, 23, 34, 52, 55 Dali. Salvador 69 ' Althusser, Louis 78-9 deconstruction 48, 88-90 ;''" _ s18"59 ,,,' , ' 'defamiliarization 55 architecture 115 Deleuze, Gilles 117-20 art 49-51 , Derrida, Jacques 88-90. 'and Communism 26-9 127-9 ofldeas 2~5 defamiliarization 55 desire 118 and logic 16-17 and formalism 53 dialectical materialism homosexuality 93 and pos~~~ism116 1&:-16 hooks,l)e1l162-3 aurs. theoryof'~9::"51 dialectics 47~8 Horkheimer, Max 39-41 author, the 72~, 74 dlfferance 89 humanism95 ' authoritarianism 87 differends97 human~ies 8-10 avant-garde 45-6 Collimore, Jonathan 134 hybridltf 139 , double'coding 115-16 hyp~e8lltf 112-13 Bakhtln,- M~khail 56' BarrQW,J,ohn Q. ,100 Eco, UmbertoTJ ideas. histOry of 24-5 Bai1hes~ Roland 54. 70-4~ economic determinism 22 ideology9,21,37-8. 78-9 Enlightenment project.the 98 , 130 96-102 ' Baudrillard, Jean 110-13 imagi".ry, the (Lacan) 68 BeaUvoir.,SimOne de 154 epic theatre52 infrasttucture21 ,'"'seckett, Samuel35 intertextUalltf'76. rt Fanon, Frantz 138 ~njamin. Walter 35, 49-51 lrigaray, ,Luce 153' Faulkner, William35 Bentham, Jeremy 104-5 Iser, W~~fgan~ 84 "c·Bhabha. Homi K. 139 ' feminism 108-9,.141-57 bin8ry;opposi~ions 90 162-3 Jakobson.Roman 58 black Fish, Stanley84 Jameson.Fredric 106 formalism 53 criticism160-1 Jencks,Chartes 114-15 feminism 162-3 Foucault, Michel37, 91-5. Joyce, James 35 134 bOurg~isie19 ' , ' , justice 1 ,~5 _ FrankfurtSchool39, 49 Brecht,'Bertolt 35, 52 . SretOn~ Andre 69 Frenchfeminism 151-4 Kafka, Franz34 Bronte. Chartotte81 Freud,Sigmund 60-3, Kristeva.Julia 57, 155 Butler,Judith 158-9 146-7 Kuhn,Thomas 11, 101 FUkuyama, Francis 129 capitalism 18-21 Lacan,Jacques67-9, 76 attacked122 ,.Gates,Henry Louis 161-2 Laclau,Emesto 122-4 ideplogy38 ' genetic structuralism 82-3 language·75,,76 Mareuse 42..;;5 :'Gilbert. Sandra145. 148 and'structuralism'64-9 and postmodemism 106, Goldmann, Lucien82-3 'Lenin, VJ. 31 chaostheory 12 ~orz. Andre 125 .,. Levi-Strauss, Claude ~-9, Cixous,Helene 151-~ - 71 grammarof narrative54 class Gramsci,Antonio36-7 linguistics 65 and Marxism43-4 'grand narrative4,40•.101; : literaryanalysis 106 struggle.1,~ 1 9. 144 . aesthetics.58-9 Communist Manifesto, 'The see Slso'narrative d8familiarimtion55 ' , 18-21 Greenblatt, Stephen133 formalism53-4 ,Greer,Germaine154 complexity theory 12 plurality of meaning56-7 Greimas. A.J. 54 consensus 102

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literary feminism 150 literature grammar of narrative 54 see also reader responselogic 16-17 logocentrism 88 Lukacs, Georg 30-3, 83 Lyotard, Jean-Fran~is 97-101,103,107-8, 120,121 Macherey, Pierre 80-1 Mann, Thomas 34 Marcuse, Herbert 39, 41-6 Marxism 4, 15-59, 107 breakdown of 121 reasons for failure 124-5 and feminism 143-4 inheritances from 23 rejecting 111, 113 schools of 26ft structural 78-81 Western 26 materialism see cultural materialism metaphor 59 metaphysics 5 metonymy 59 Millett, Kate 145,146-7 models, synthetic 6-7 modemism and Lukacs 30-5 banned in Russia 29 modemity96 Habermas 102 Modleski, Tania 157 Moers, Ellen 145, 149-50 Moscow Unguistic Circle 58 Mouffe, Chantal 122-4 narrative 54,71,74,96-8 scientific 100-1 negative dialectics 48 new historicism 132-3 New Left, the 44 nomadism 120 novel, the 56-7 Lukacs on 32-5 Orientalism 136-7 paganism 103 Plant, sadie 108-9 Plekhanov, Georgi 27 pluralism 165 politics of criticism 5

postcolonialism 136 postfeminism 156-7 post-industrial society 43 post-Marxism 121, 157 posfmodem science 99 postmodemism 114-20 black identity 163 and capitalism 106 grand narratives 96 and postfeminism 157 and science 12 poststructuralism 12, 85-7 deconstruction 88 Prague Unguistic Circle 58 proletariat 19 psychoanalysis 60-1, 117 and critical theory 62-3, 67-9 quantum mechanics 12 queer theory 90,158-9 Rabelais, FranQois 57 reader-response 84-5 reception theory 84 reflectionism 27-8 reflexivity 10 relatMsm 12, 100 revolution 36-7 and capitalism 42 rhizomatic structures 119 Russian formalism 53 Said, Edward 136-7 Saussure, Ferdinand de 64 schizoanalysis 117 Schoenberg, Arnold 46 science 11-14 autonomous or constructed? 14 postmodern 100 scientific narrative 1 00 Scott, Sir Walter 33 Second World War 40-1 self-consciousness 10 self-realization 16-17 semiology, semiotics 58,65 Barthes 70 Ec077 Kristeva 76 separatism 153 sexual identity 158-9 Shakespeare, William 73, 133 Shklovsky, Viktor 55 Shostakovich, Dmitri 29 Showalter, Elaine 142

sign systems 86 signified/signifier 64-6 signs, science of 65 simulacra 112 Sinfield, Alan 134 social control 91-2 sciences 8-10 totality 48 Socialist Realism 28 Sokal, Alan 13 Spender, Dale 142 Spivak, Gayatri C. 140 Stalin, Joseph 31 structural Marxism 78-81 structuralism 53,64-83 student protest 44-5 superstructures 21, 26 surplus value 20 Surrealism 69 Symbolic, the (Lacan) 68-9 synthetic models 6-7 systems 75, rt, 110, 131 deconstruction 88 social 91 technoscience 108 texts, analysis of 62 theory of everything 3 Todorov, Tzvetan 54 totality 48 unconscious, the 76 Utilitarianism 104-5 value judgements 4, 8, 103 rendered pointless 113 Western Marxism 26 Williams, Raymond 134 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 119 women, suppression of 140 World Spirit, the 17, 31 Zhdanov, A.A. 28 lizek, Slavoj 130-1

175

Related Introducing Titles Icon Books publish a wide range of titles in the Introducing series which are directly relevant to the field of critical theory:

176

Philosophy Introducing Derrida Introducing the Enlightenment Introducing Existentialism Introducing Foucault Introducing Hegel Introducing Heidegger Introducing Kant Introducing Marx Introducing Modernism Introducing Nietzsche Introducing Philosophy Introducing Postmodernism Introducing Romanticism Introducing Sartre Introducing WalterBenjamin Introducing Wittgenstein

ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

1 84046118 7 1 840461179 1 84046 266 3 1 84046 086 5 1 84046111 X 1 84046 088 1 1 84046 081 4 1 84046 055 5 1 84046 229 9 1 84046 075 X 1 84046 053 9 1 84046 056 3 1 84046 009 1 1 84046 066 0 1 84046 165 9 1 84046 118 7

Semiotics and Linguistics Introducing Barthes Introducing Chomsky Introducing Unguistics Introducing Semiotics

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Sociology and Cultural Studies Introducing Baudrillard Introducing CulturalStudies Introducing Media Studies Introducing Sociology

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Uterature Introducing Joyce Introducing Kafka Introducing Shakespeare

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Psychology IntrodUcing Freud Introducing Lacan Introducing Psychoanalysis Introducing Psychology

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Women's Studies Introducing Feminism Introducing Postfeminism

ISBN 1 84046 058 X ISBN 1 84046 010 5

Anthropology Introducing Levi-Strauss

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1 84046 1 84046 1 84046 1 84046

054 168 176 059

7 3 4 8