Beschreibung:
Advanced study in the humanities and social sciences discloses a deep ambivalence about Theory. Structurally, of course, the professionalization of young academics is approaching extinction. There are fewer and fewer secure jobs in academia, and thus fewer and fewer students embarking upon advanced study, and, in turn, fewer and fewer programs educating these students. What is offered the remaining students is instructive. Notably, students are expected by their future colleagues to be familiar with, maybe even conversant in Theory, but the structural logic of austerity prompts educators to wonder whether instruction in Theory is an efficient use of dwindling resources, especially now that academic publishing (with important exceptions) behaves as though this future, like the "last" wormhole, is collapsing. Given the Faustian articulation of publishing and promotion can advanced study in the humanities and social sciences even be justified today? Paradoxically, students are still expected to know what is less and less on offer. How is Theory to be "handled" (fingered, worked with, fashioned) under such circumstances?
Acknowledgments; The Pretext; Introduction: Theory in Limbo; 1. Queer Resistance: Foucault and the Unnamable; 2. Stumbling on Analysis: Psychoanalysis and Everyday Life; 3. Strangers in Analysis: Nationalism and the Talking Cure; 4. "Jamming"; 5. WWJD?; 6. What Said Said; 7. Apart from Theory; 8. Conclusion: Theory Is Out There; References; Index.