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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This edition published in the USA in 2005 by Totem Books Inquiries to: Icon Books Ltd., .~ The\Q'd' DairY,,~Brook Road, Th-riplow, Royston " 'SGB '7 RG, U,K.

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Previously published in the UK and Australia in 2001

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

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Printed and bound in Singapore by Tien Wah Press Ltd.

~ 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.

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~ 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.

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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

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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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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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Black Criticism

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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Further Reading

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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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Cyborg: The combination of human and machine (theterm is a contraction of "cybernetic organism"). In the work of DonnaHaraway, this notionis celebrated as a way of escaping human, and mostparticulariy gender, limitations.

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Death of the author: A concept devised by Roland Barthes to describe the process by whichtexts take on a life of their own afterthey leavethe author. Henceforth, they becomethe province of the reader, who is in no way bound by whatever the author'sintentions may have been.

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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us to noticewhat we normally take for granted. The concept was coinedby Viktor Shklovsky.

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.

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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

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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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express view of certaininfluential social groupscontemporary those texts. There IS, In other words, a "homology" betweentext and group, with the fonner a~ulating' 'the latter's beliefs moreclearlythantheycan.

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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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Ideological Stat . .8 Apparatus: Louis Althusser'sterm for all those institutions, such as the legaland educational systems, the arts and the media, which serveto transmit and reinforce the values of the dominantideology.

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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

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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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Seduction: Jean Baudrillard's methodfor SUbverting systems is based on the notion of "seducing" or "beguiling" them into submission, ratherthan resorting to the _ moreusualmeansof overtpolitical action or revolution.

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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,

46-8

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

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Semiotics and Linguistics Introducing Barthes Introducing Chomsky Introducing Unguistics Introducing Semiotics

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1 84046 061 X 1 840461128 1 84046 169 1 1 84046 073 3

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

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1 84046 087 3 1 84046074 1 1 840461144 1 84046 067 9

Uterature Introducing Joyce Introducing Kafka Introducing Shakespeare

ISBN 1 840461195 ISBN 1 84046 122 5 ISBN 1 84046 262 0

Psychology IntrodUcing Freud Introducing Lacan Introducing Psychoanalysis Introducing Psychology

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Women's Studies Introducing Feminism Introducing Postfeminism

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Anthropology Introducing Levi-Strauss

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