Reading After Theory (Blackwell Manifestos)

Rating:
Summary: More theory-bashing
Review: The book argues for the rejection of stock theoretical readings and proposes a revival of attentive close readings. While pointing to some of the useful contributions of "Theory," the author spends most of the book denouncing Theory's appropriative approaches to literature (the approach, for instance, of a feminist reading that finds gendered politics everywhere and in everything -- the book provides numerous examples of such readings).

The basis for this important argument is that while such discourses supposedly want to champion the Other, they frequently function by simply advocating the same (a particular political or conceptual agenda that is known in advance). The book ends by briefly pointing toward a "tactful" ethics of reading that treats the literary text with care and attentiveness. Indeed, if the book had treated "Theory" texts with the kind of care and attentiveness it recommends toward "Literature," it would have been a great deal more compelling. As it is, those who enjoy the popular genre of ham-fisted, hyperbolic critiques of Theory and Post-modernism will certainly like this book (though the book repeatedly insists that it doesn't want to get rid of Theory, it just wants to keep it in its place). On the other hand, those who are interested in working through the complexities of ethics, politics, and reading might want to give it a pass.