The motivation of literary theory

from national culture to world literature

Stephen Shapiro

pp. 78-94

in: Richard Bradford (ed), Teaching theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Abstract

With the rising backlash against the false assumption of value that neoliberalism's fictions of the marketplace deliriously promoted, it is not surprising that the Humanities, in general, and literary theory, particularly, has been called on, once more, to demonstrate tangible worth. After the hangover created by more than a decade of make-believe policies, an overwhelmed public deservedly wants reassurance that university education, as a core component to social aspirations, is still worth bearing its debt-creating burden, even when the common sense about the safety of student loans has been thoroughly shaken up. We can take up this challenge, even in theory classes, without succumbing to functionalist cost-benefit logic, by revising them as spheres of learning how to engage and interpret the newly unknown and uncharted world in which our students will be propelled, like those early astronauts facing the astral darkness.