1997 Conference

What's Left of Theory: New Work on the State and Politics of Literary Theory 56th Session Friday - Sunday September 26-28, 1997 Longfellow Hall 13 Appian Way Harvard University What remains of theory? What is the place of theory along a political spectrum? The 1997 meeting of The English Institute considered whether literary theory has necessary political affiliations, whether the question of politics has displaced theory, whether theory remains as an animating presupposition of politically engaged academic work. Are there spectres of theory that haunt the anti-theoretical bias, and how are we to think the relationship between literary theory and the sphere of political life? Literature after Post-theory JOHN GUILLORY, Harvard University Directed Literature after Post-theory JONATHAN CULLER, Cornell University The Literary in Theory MARJORIE LEVINSON, University of Michigan Picturing Pleasure: Some Poems by Elizabeth Bishop JOHN BRENKMAN, CUNY and Baruch College Extreme Criticism   Breaking the Laws of Theory KENDALL THOMAS, Columbia University School of Law Directed Breaking the Laws of Theory JEFF NUNOKAWA, Princeton University The Labor of Desire: Wilde and his Discontents MICHAEL WARNER, Rutgers University Zones of Privacy, Zones of Theory M. JACQUI ALEXANDER, New York, New York Sex and the State: Politics, Desire, and the Lesbian Body JANET E. HALLEY, Stanford University School of Law Legal Instantiations of Critical Theory, the Identity Politics of Theory, and the Case of 'Sex Harassment'   Theory Remains JUDITH BUTLER, University of California, Berkeley Directed Theory Remains WILLIAM CONNOLLY, Johns Hopkins University Secularism and the Return of Metaphysics MICHAEL BERUBE, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana The Future of Contingency GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK, Columbia University Theory-remains