Theorising Textual Subjects: Agency and Oppression (Literature, Culture, Theory, Series Number 21)

This book addresses the central crisis in critical theory today: the attempts to theorize the subject as both a construct of discourse and a dialogical agent. In Theorising Textual Subjects, Meili Steele argues that it is possible to understand the postmodern subject as an active political agent. Steele argues that some of the most influential theories of agency fail to account for the ethical implications of the supposed contingency of all contexts. Through wide reference to leading political, philosophical and critical thinkers, this book maps new ways of confronting the problem of how politics and ethics are deployed in imaginative narratives. This book addresses the central crisis in critical theory today: how to theorise the subject as both a construct of oppressive discourse and a dialogical agent. By engaging with a wide range of leading political, philosophical, and critical thinkers - Jameson, Habermas, MacIntyre, Rorty, Taylor, Benhabib, and West are all critiqued - Meili Steele proposes linking language with human agency in order to develop an alternative textual and ethical theory of the subject. Steele shows how constructivist theories of agency fail to account for the ethical implications of the supposed contingency of all contexts, and how dialogical theorists fail to acknowledge the insight of postmodern critiques. Developing this theory through readings of texts that address issues of identity, politics, race, and feminist theory, Steele illustrates that we do not have to choose between an idealised or demonised modernity. This book addresses the central crisis in critical theory today: the attempts to theorise the subject as both a construct of discourse and a dialogical agent. In Theorising Textual Value Meili Steele argues that it is possible to understand the postmodern subject as an active political agent. Steele argues that some of the most influential theories of agency fail to account for the ethical implications of the supposed contingency of all contexts. Through wide reference to leading political, philosophical and critical thinkers, this book maps news ways of confronting the problem of how politics and ethics are deployed in imaginative narratives. Contents......Page 7 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction......Page 9 1 Stories of oppression and appeals to freedom......Page 23 2 Language, ethics, and subjectivity in the liberal/communitarian debate......Page 70 3 Theorizing narratives of agency and subjection......Page 116 4 Truth, beauty, and goodness in James's The Ambassadors......Page 158 5 The subject of democracy in the work of Ralph Ellison......Page 184 Conclusion......Page 212 Bibliography......Page 218 Index......Page 232 Any attempt to characterize and critique in one chapter the diversity of contemporary theoretical practices will require a tight focus and purpose. Meili Steele. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 210-223) And Index.