Showing papers by "Jonathan Culler published in 2006"

The Literary in Theory

Abstract: @fmct:Contents @toc4:Acknowledgements iii @toc2:Introduction 000 @toc1:Theory @toc2:1 The Literary in Theory 00 2 The Novel and the Nation 00 3 Resisting Theory 00 @toc1:Concepts @toc2:4 Text: Its Vicissitudes 000 5 The Sign: Saussure and Derrida on Arbitrariness 000 6 The Performative 000 7 Interpretation: In Praise of Overinterpretation 000 8 Omniscience 000 @toc1:Critical Practices @toc2:9 Bad Writing and Good Philosophy 000 10 Writing Criticism 000 11 Doing Cultural Studies 000 12 Comparative Literature, at last 000 @toc4:Index 000

Whither Comparative Literature

Abstract: 85 Once upon a time, the story goes, comparative literature focused on the study of sources and influence, bringing together works where there seemed a direct link of transmission that subtended and served to justify comparison. But then comparative literature liberated itself from the study of sources and influence and acceded to a broader regime of intertextual studies – broader but less well-defined. Comparative literature has been differentiated from other modes of literary study because it did not take it for granted, as did the departments of English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, that a national literature in its historical evolution was the natural and appropriate unit of literary study. Since comparative literature could not avoid, as the national literature departments could, the question of what sorts of units were most pertinent – genres? periods? themes? – comparative literature frequently became the site of literary theory, while national literature departments often resisted, or at least remained indifferent to the sorts of theory that did not emanate from their own cultural spheres. Comparative literature was thus distinguished by its interest in addressing theoretical issues, as well as knowledgably importing and exploring ‘foreign’ theoretical discourses. It was the place where those questions about the nature and methods of literary study begged in other literature departments were taken up, argued about, even made the focus of teaching and research. If neither of these features suffices any longer to distinguish comparative literature, it is because the views that once distinguished comparativists have become widespread. Even the study of American literature, once committed to exceptionalism and totalization (Americanists had to have a theory about the nature and distinctiveness of American literature), is now in the process of reconfiguring itself as ‘comparative American literatures,’ in the plural. In this sense, comparative literature has triumphed. But of course, institutionally, comparatists do not feel at all triumphant. How far their lack of joy

Knowing or Creating? A Response to Barbara Olson

Abstract: I welcome Barbara Olson's response as a contribution to a discussion of omni science that seems to me long overdue. I find I actually agree with several of her main points, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to clarify these and some others. I am struck that Professor Olson does not try to defend the claim in her book Authorial Divinity in the Twentieth Century I had criticized, namely that Heming way's "The Killers" features an omniscient narrator who just declines to tell us the many things that he knows. I had cited this as an example of how the concept of om niscience, with its focus on knowledge, can lead us astray when used in the analysis of narrative. Instead of concentrating on what we are told and its implications, we are led to speculate about what the teller knows, so indeed why not imagine that the teller knows the names and past histories of Max and Al and is just choosing not to tell us? The correct question?if analysis of the story is to be our goal?is why the author chooses not to present such information but restricts reports to what someone sitting in the caf? might have observed. It is not a question of knowledge but of au thorial construction of a narrative focus. The fact that Olson does not defend her