• rhetoric
• theory
• war

Over on the WPA listserv a debate about military metaphors rages, specifically, calling TA training "boot camp"...calling the indented list symbol a "bullet." In thinking about my summer reading, which will include a lot of theory, in recent years there is much talk about the 'theory wars.' Two things about which Gary Genosko wrote in his book Undisciplined Theory (Sage, 1998): "The metaphor of war, it needs to be noted, never goes away. It is the engine of the discussion of theory's situation, in North America at least....While theory circulates intensely under propitious, though often short-lived, conditions in certain departments, it is afforded faint recognition across the humanities and social sciences. It has been settled in-between, but disciplinarians of all stripes are apt to give it another name, one with post-war connotations and general applicability: interdisciplinarity. Theory hangs in the balance, in the cross-appointments out of which the centre and the programme are cobbled together; in the form of the institute, the between is extra-curricular, something one pursues in the summer, at the end of the term after the 'real' intellectual labour is finished'" (1-2). I object to the military metaphors, too, but I also object to having theory deemed "something one pursues in the summer...after the 'real' intellectual labour is finished." Your thoughts?

• Cynthia's blog