Ten Lessons in Theory: An Introduction to Theoretical Writing - Hardcover

Thomas, Calvin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1623569893 ISBN 13: 9781623569891

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013

Synopsis

An introduction to literary theory unlike any other, Ten Lessons in Theory engages its readers with three fundamental premises. The first premise is that a genuinely productive understanding of theory depends upon a considerably more sustained encounter with the foundational writings of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud than any reader is likely to get from the introductions to theory that are currently available. The second premise involves what Fredric Jameson describes as "the conviction that of all the writing called theoretical, Lacan's is the richest." Entertaining this conviction, the book pays more (and more careful) attention to the richness of Lacan's writing than does any other introduction to literary theory. The third and most distinctive premise of the book is that literary theory isn't simply theory "about" literature, but that theory fundamentally is literature, after all.

Ten Lessons in Theory argues, and even demonstrates, that "theoretical writing" is nothing if not a specific genre of "creative writing," a particular way of engaging in the art of the sentence, the art of making sentences that make trouble―sentences that make, or desire to make, radical changes in the very fabric of social reality.

As its title indicates, the book proceeds in the form of ten "lessons," each based on an axiomatic sentence selected from the canon of theoretical writing. Each lesson works by creatively unpacking its featured sentence and exploring the sentence's conditions of possibility and most radical implications. In the course of exploring the conditions and consequences of these troubling sentences, the ten lessons work and play together to articulate the most basic assumptions and motivations supporting theoretical writing, from its earliest stirrings to its most current turbulences.

Provided in each lesson is a working glossary: specific critical keywords are boldfaced on their first appearance and defined either in the text or in a footnote. But while each lesson constitutes a precise explication of the working terms and core tenets of theoretical writing, each also attempts to exemplify theory as a "practice of creativity" (Foucault) in itself.

About this title

About the Author

Calvin Thomas is Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies in English at Georgia State University in Atlanta, USA. He is the author of Masculinity, Psychoanalysis, Straight Queer Theory: Essays on Abjection in Literature, Mass Culture, and Film (2008) and Male Matters: Masculinity, Anxiety, and the Male Body on the Line (1996). He is the editor of Straight with a Twist: Queer Theory and the Subject of Heterosexuality (2000).

Review

“Ten Lessons in Theory: An Introduction to Theoretical Writing is an excellent, thoughtful, and sophisticated introduction to the use of theory in critical work. Calvin Thomas encourages readers to have a better understanding of foundational theoretical texts on a fundamental level ... This introduction is nuanced and holds something for everyone.” Literary Research and British Postmodernism

“[A] wide-ranging, incisive and sometimes polemical tour through contemporary literary theory ... Any student or teacher of theory who has trouble giving a sympathetic audience to psychoanalytic concepts and approaches would benefit from the first half of Thomas’s book. Thomas has a gift for not only making Lacanian psychoanalysis clear, but also for making these concepts seem virtually self-evident. ... Ten Lessons in Theoryshould be read widely. Thomas makes a passionate, compelling case for the work of theory, for the political purchase of a certain way of thinking and writing theoretically. He also does an exceptional job of making surprising connections across theoretical approaches and ideas. For the student who does not understand why virtually impenetrable texts are being assigned with such frequency, or why they are considered a necessary part of one’s education, Thomas’s book will not only help clear the conceptual ground, but will also give the student some sense of why grappling with complexity a density is worthwhile in the first place.” -Kent L. Brintnall, Chiasma

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1623569893
• ISBN 13: 9781623569891
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240