Heresy, history, and forum: Arguments in literature and critical method

My dissertation examines the way certain regnant understandings of humanism, universalism, agency, cultural determinism, and relativism combine with epistemological skepticism to create discursive conditions which skew critical method in English Literature and Cultural Studies departments. These conditions obscure the objects of literary and cultural studies. One of my central theses is that the habits of thought that do such work facilitate the flourishing of identity politics—which licenses religious revivalism—and damage progressive politics. Throughout the dissertation I keep theory, criticism, politics, and literary texts in dialogue with each other. I aim to clarify the relations between theory and practice, without losing sight of the object of study.; Chapter one engages two works that frame my arguments about the form the study of literature has come to take. The first is John Guillory's Cultural Capital (1993), which, I believe, concedes far too much to theoretical dispositions that sacrifice conceptual to sociological questions. The second is Gerald Graff's Literature Against Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern Society (1979), which provides precedence and warrant for my argument that cultural politics defines the language for much contemporary political discourse, and for our interpretations of literature.; Chapter two argues that theoretical ideas about relativism and subjectivity rely upon conceptions of tradition and modernity. Early twentieth century criticisms of modernist conceptions of tradition continue to be relevant in a remarkable way and show the similarity between “Eastern” and “Western” religious revivalisms.; Chapter three argues that contemporary anti-foundationalist treatments of words like “universalism,” “positivism,” “humanism” limit our relationship with objects of intellectual inquiry and narrow the possibilities of political argument.; Chapter four argues that Aijaz Ahmad's attack on Salman Rushdie should be read as an instance of identity politics. I argue that Ahmad is wrong to see Shame (1983) as a politically reactionary and misogynistic text.; Chapter five discusses John Carey's and Stanley Fish's labelling of Donne an anxious careerist and misogynist. The similarities between Ahmad's attack on Rushdie and Carey's and Fish's attack on Donne substantiate my argument that epistemological skepticism and homogenizing theories of tradition have become dangerously and unhelpfully linked.