The Politics of Interpretation: Ideology, Professionalism, and the Study of Literature

by Patrick Colm Hogan

Overview

This interpretive study analyzes the complex politics of literature, criticism, and professionalism. While affirming the profound importance of political analysis—from the ideological critique of literary texts to the social and economic critique of academic institutions—Hogan reassesses the poststructuralist doctrines that underlie much recent work in this area. He presents extended expositions and criticisms of the views of several influential poststructuralist writers, including Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray. In keeping with recent "post-poststructuralist" trends in France and elsewhere, Hogan argues for the political necessity of rational inference, and empirical enquiry, guided by ethical, and more specifically Kantian, considerations. In the process, he convincingly formulates a general theory of ideology that recognizes the crucial link between literary politics and the concrete political issues that affect the lives of real men and women in the real world of social and material life. His study concludes with an economic analysis of the institutions of literary study, outlining some anarchist implications for their restructuring.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195062724
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	07/28/1990
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.02(d)
Lexile:	1460L (what's this?)

Editorial Reviews

"Hogan's penetrating study of ideology and cultural institutions, moral judgment, and political commitment is a welcome contribution to the lively current debate on these topics. His carefully reasoned critique of influential 'post-structural' tendencies is developed in the context of an independent libertarian perspective, informed by a sympathetic understanding for the vital human concerns that are at stake, and the intellectual issues that are being confronted, or sometimes evaded."—Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Formidably armed with statistics, intelligence, a relentless philosophical method....Hogan makes an excellent case that the world is a very real place which we can touch and shape with both our hands and our pens. If the world is a text, it is a text which is written by men and women, and by men and women who must take individual responsibility for what they write."—Times Higher Education Supplement

"The Politics of Interpretation can be read as a fascinating proposal for the use of literary criticism as a new form of political dissent. To Professor Hogan, critical awareness is the basis for creative social and political intervention."—Ashis Nandy, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

"I admire [Hogan's] common sense, lucidity, and civic courage."—Philosophy and Literature

"Hogan's book seems to me engaging and energizing!!."—Theory and the fate of literature

From the Publisher