it might come across as "name -dropping" but your reference to Eagleton reminded me of the recently departed Frank Kermode [1] and his consistent attempts at introducing 'theory' within the Leavisite bastions of Cambridge. Kermode's own work always remained a brilliant example of accessibility that was still sharp, intelligent and scholarly. Some here may remember the Fontana Masters Series that Kermode edited in the 70s and its popular introductions to Freud, Gramsci etc.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/18/frank-kermode-dies-aged-90 abhishek On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Supriya Nair <[email protected]>wrote: > > I'm not alone in calling her language obtuse - her fellow >> post-modernists (I don't think it's very nice to take a commonly >> understood term like "modern" and overlay it with a specific technical >> meaning, I hate this about Agile programmers too, who I usually abhor, >> but that's for another thread) claim she's nuts too. >> >> > Oh cultural theorists, when will they learn that ad hominem attacks along > the lines of 'I claim you are nuts Gayatari Chakravorty-Spivak! And I am a > theorist, so I should know!' are not generally the best way of ensuring > their ideas go down in history? I am not well-read on deconstructionism: > while I have enjoyed Terry Eagleton's criticism of Spivak (via Derrida), I > read it as part of an ongoing conversation on the nature of language itself, > as Shruthi highlighted in one of her last emails. Perhaps if it were a > debate, Eagleton, who is fantastically eloquent no matter how > self-contradictory or lazily constructed his arguments are, will always > emerge the winner, simply because there will be more people - in the short > term - who find him believable. > > > Supriya > > > -- > roswitha.blogspot.com | roswitha.tumblr.com >
