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Terry Eagleton's Theory.

Article Excerpt
Terry Eagleton, After Theory Allan Lane, 2003

Postmodern cultural theorists are much in the habit of declaring the end or, more ominously, the death of things--man, the author, even theory itself. Now one of their most trenchant critics is getting into the act. In the opening line of After Theory, Terry Eagleton announces the end of the golden age of cultural theory. No one, he argues, has come along to rival the theoretical innovations and insights of cultural theorists such as Raymond Williams, Jurgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigray, Frederic Jameson and Julie Kristeva.

In the hands of a lesser writer and critic, Eagleton's declaration would run the risk of appearing that of a crusty curmudgeon bemoaning the rise of a new generation wilfully ignorant of matters of exploitation, poverty and violence; a kind of left-wing counterpart to the standard right-wing reactionary grumble about how everything and everyone was better off before the Rolling Stones and their ilk came along and spoiled everything. The characteristic intelligence, wit and verve of Eagleton's writing saves After Theory from this fate.

His chief objection to much of contemporary cultural studies, particularly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, is that it became obsessed with the flotsam and jetsam of contemporary culture, mistaking...

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