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August 2002, Week 3

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 19 Aug 2002 20:35:44 -0400
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as someone who, rightly or wrongly, thinks of himself as
someting of a theorist, i rush to defend jeremy butler
with a number of small points

1. parody is not an escape from engaging with a position
and the people who hold it; it is itself another way of
engaging

2. louis schwartz himself seems to want to avoid engaging
with the substance of the parody . . . instead he asks for
something suspiciously like censorship . . . i would be eager
to see his "deconstruction" [as it were] of the parodic
discourse, rather than his rsorting to name calling

3. it almost seems that for louis schwartz only semiotics
and deconstruction count as "real" theory, and he laments
the turn [descent?] to the poverty of historicism and
cultural studies . . . where i come from both of these count
as highly theoretical enterprises

4. finally one factula matter . . . louis schwartz claims that
"Theory's value in US universities is at a new low". . . . let me
remind him that not all that long ago theory simply played no
part whatsoever in the literature curriculum . . . when i went
to school i wanted to get a degree [from a major ivy league
university] in criticims and theory but that was ot possible
so i took my degree in prose fiction --an acceptable rubric --
while loading up on as many theoretically and philosophically
oriented courses as possible

that today deaprtments are no longer in thrall to the sirens
of theory seems to me a very good thing, but it hardly means
that attention to theory is at a new low . . . in most places
it has never been higher

mike






louis schwartz <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
08/18/2002 11:43 AM
Please respond to Film and TV Studies Discussion List


        To: [log in to unmask]
        cc: (bcc: Michael Frank/Faculty/Bentley)
        Subject: Re: Grad Student Deconstructs Take-Out Menu


While I laughed at the piece Jeremy Butler posted when I read it in the
Onion, I wonder why he chose to post it in the forum. Surely Professor
Butler knows that in the current academic climate, jobs teaching
theory are few and far between. Theory's value in US universities is at
a new low. We are told by senior scholars that the era of "post-theory"
has arrived. Currently, historicism and cultural studies hold pride of
place in the humanities. Theorists are lucky if they can find a place
in their institutions curriculum for a serious class on semiotics, for
example.


In such a context is it appropriate for the administrator of this list
to post a parody of practice that universities have already relegated
to the dustbin? If professor Butler had presented an argument about the
limits of theory, it would have been redundant, but at least it would
not seem to write off theory as a game played by young fools.

I thought this list was meant to be an open forum for people in the
field. Such a post from the list's administrator suggests that this is
not quite the case. How can this be an open forum when the people
running the list show open contempt for some of the members by
subjecting them to mockery rather than engaging with them
intellectually?

Louis Schwartz
Assistant Professor
Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature
University of Iowa
319 335 0639

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