Subject: Re: Bananastanley Fish
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Date: Sun Feb 20 2000 - 15:54:09 EST
In a message dated 2/20/00 2:18:13 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu writes:
> Maybe he does now. The whole of poststructuralism has, I think,
> turned largely towards (new) historicist tendencies. See Louis
> Montrose's critique of J. Hillis Miller's MLA address of 1986. Miller
> mourns the turn away from high theory back to the cruder, social
> studies sort work (Miller secretly imagines, one assumes, a
> pre-formalist-revolution kind of *romantic* historicism). Montrose
> argues neatly for contexts, for adding a salvaged Marxism and a
> measure of CLifford Geertz to the mix of poststructuralism. Maybe
> John V. is around and wouldn't mind stepping in with some thoughts
> here.
>
> Please, Jim, post on. I am delighted and intrigued, reading what
> you've said so far. I always (uncritically) liked Fish because he was
> one of the smartest and snottiest, yet most entertaining and
> smartly-spoken of the bunch. Here my pure enjoyment of a figure--of
> the author--wins out easily over my disciplanary pledge to hard-nosed
> post logicalism. I saw Fish once at UGA...he was a right bastard, but
> I never enjoyed a speaker more (even Stephen Greenblatt, even Terry
> Hawkes). He fooled a whole row of snooty philosophy grads and law
> students (a few of my own bretheren, too), in a way like a Mark Twain
> protagonist might beguile a bungling villain of his shotgun or his
> trousers. I wasn't able to figure out exactly how, but it sure was
> fun.
>
> --
> Matt Kozusko
I've never seen Fish as a post-structuralist. I think Barthes nailed it best
when he said that in reader response the reader simply serves the author
function. It does seem like a good reading of Fish, and Fish argues too
strongly for textual stability (at least within a reading community) to
really be a post-structuralist.
I agree that New Historicism seems to be taking over. Once it becomes less
politicized it'll be interesting to see what happens. Gender and Marxist
criticism yield pretty good results but only take you so far.
But your post did remind me of everything I enjoy myself about Fish, and he's
done a lot of footwork for me personally. Will recommended him to me when I
was trying to work out my own reading theory, and it was a good
recommendation. Fish had already thought through what I was still trying to
figure out. And he showed me I can do academic writing the way I want to --
and not have to do post-structuralism to be effective...
Jim
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