Consequences of Theory

In Consequences of Theory, Jonathan Arac and Barbara Johnson bring together scholars from literature, philosophy, religion, history, and law—with specialties in African-American, American, Eglish, European, feminist, and postcolonial studies—to map some of the routes taken by theory in recent years. Anthony Appiah and Donal Pease analyze key tests of the "new historicism" in order to offer alternative models for understaing agency and resistance. Cornal West and nancy Fraser question the quietist premises of current pragmatism; in contrast they sktech a pragmatism neither of individuals nor of communities, but of moevments. Bruce Robbins and Lynn Hunt explore the relations between disciplines and the public, specifying the functions not only of professionalism but also of scandal. Gayatri Spivak and Patricia Williams focus on questions of marginality and minority, and they meditate on the forms and styles necessary to rethink these categories in today's world.

With contributors of divergent backgrounds and intersecting interests, Consequences of Theory proposes an agenda for the 1990s that demonstrates the continuing vitality of theoretical questions within the academy and in the public world of cultue, politics, and history.