{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://jcrt.org/archives/04.2/flaxman/",
  "path": "/archives/04.2/flaxman/",
  "publishedAt": "2003-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:e24okfpxr7ctcbmruijop5gp/site.standard.publication/jcrt",
  "tags": [
    "[]"
  ],
  "textContent": "Flaxman - Past Imperfect, Future Unknown - JCRT 4.2 \n\nPast Imperfect, Future Unknown: The Discourse of Theory\n\nGregory Flaxman  \nUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.\n\n  \n\n> _Pragmatically speaking, then, we know that there has been, over the last fifteen to twenty years, a strong interest in something called literary theory and that, in the United States, this interest has at times coincided with the importation and reception of foreign, mostly but not always continental, influences. We also know that this wave of interest now seems to be receding as some satiation or disappointment sets in after the initial enthusiasm. Such an ebb and flow is natural enough, but it remains interesting, in this case, because it makes the depth of the resistance to theory so manifest._\n> \n> —Paul de Man, _The Resistance to Theory_.\n\nTwilight of the (Theoretical) Idols\n\nWhatever we think about theory, and today we are often encouraged to think the worst, perhaps we can all agree that its recourse has become a matter of profound tact. The \"resistance to theory\" that Paul de Man underscored in the mid-1980s has evolved over the last twenty years into something closer to disapproval, dismissal, and occasionally outright derision. The result is that one must ultimately understand the discretionary limits of theory as much as theory itself. In the most obvious sense, we might say that the _savoir-faire_ of theory has degenerated into a game of proper names, for if the emergence of theory coalesced around the writings and teachings of distinct figures, the diplomacy of theory has come to lie in the capacity to grasp the right names to drop and the right times to do so. The proper name is now inextricable from the larger sense of its propriety. All things being equal, we know that Roland Barthes remains an ever-graceful option, Michel Foucault an acceptable turn, Jean-Fran'ois Lyotard a more delicate case, Jacques Lacan a prospective breech of etiquette, and de Man himself a point of almost certain instigation.\n\nRemembrance of Theory Past: The French Invasion\n\nThe Position and Disposition of Theory\n\nPropadeutic to Any Theory: The Four Discourses\n\nS1\n\n→\n\nS2\n\n↑\n\n↓\n\n_$_\n\n_//_\n\na\n\nS2\n\n→\n\na\n\n↑\n\n↓\n\nS1\n\n//\n\n_$_\n\na\n\n→\n\n_$_\n\n↑\n\n↓\n\nS2\n\n//\n\nS1\n\n_$_\n\n→\n\nS1\n\n↑\n\n↓\n\na\n\n//\n\nS2\n\nMaster\n\nUniversity\n\nAnalyst\n\nHysteric\n\na. \n\nagent  \n\n→  \n\nother\n\nagent\n\n→\n\nother\n\n↓\n\nproduct\n\nagent\n\n→\n\nother\n\n↑\n\n↓\n\ntruth\n\n//\n\nproduct\n\n     > It is only the fourth position that introduces the psychoanalytic point of view. In fact, it is not the fourth, but the very first position, namely the position of _truth_. Indeed,\n     > \n     > Freud demonstrated that, while man is speaking he is driven by a truth, even if it remains unknown to himself. It is this position of truth which functions as the motor and as the starting-point of each discourse.\n\nimpossibility\n\nagent\n\n→\n\nother\n\n↑\n\n↓\n\ntruth\n\n//\n\nproduct\n\nimpotence\n\nThe Discourse of Hysteria and the Hystercization of Theory\n\n  \n\nNotes\n  \n\n> Gregory Flaxman is assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the editor of _The Brain is the Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema_ and is currently at work on a book about romantic comedy and the modern imagination of freedom.\n\n  \n\n> \n\n  *\n\n ' 2003 Gregory Flaxman. All rights reserved.  \nUpdated 07/28/21.   \nhttp://jcrt.org/archives/04.2/flaxman/\n\n---",
  "title": "Past Imperfect, Future Unknown: the Discourse of Theory"
}