What is it about?
This is contribution to a forum organized to reflect upon the recent publication of H. Aram Veeser's The Rebirth of Literary Theory and Criticism. It's specific focus is on the illustrations (pictures) that appear in the volume. It shows how these illustrations work to affect how we might understand the impact of literary theory on images, but also how they shape our understanding of what a rebirth of literary theory might require.
Featured Image
Photo by Jesús Alvarado on Unsplash
Why is it important?
An earlier skirmish in the ongoing, and renewed "Culture Wars" was named the "Theory Wars." At issue was the status of literary and cultural theory in the besieged domain of the humanities. As the humanities, if not the liberal university itself, remain precarious, this reflection on the legacy and future of literary theory resonates widely and with urgency. The classical problem of how images and words interact is not typically given the centrality it is given in this essay.
Perspectives
This essay is a gamble. As the source of the images discussed is not established, the essay risks the assertion that they were generated by contributors. They were not. Nevertheless, the problem of illustrating theory, of marketing it "for beginners," remains as does the important fact that the generative presence of the hand (all pictures are hand-drawn) is tied, provocatively, to the rebirth of theory.
John Mowitt
University of Leeds
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Picture Theory, symplokē, January 2021, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/sym.2021.0049.
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Contributors
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