Lady Gaga running a sociology department is a fabulous examplar of the dilema TE tries to address in After Theory. After a while, after explaining the whole thing, he would prefer to retire a pint of warm beer, but is he 'Nostaligic?'
"What is under assault here is the normative… to say 'here' is to homogenise all sorts of richly diverse places"
Nostalgia comes from the Greek word "Nostos", meaning place and "Algia" meaning Longing. Its interesting to consider the classical definition of Nostaligia in relation to Eagleton, as although he pines for a time when pop culture and high art were treated separately it's perhaps more accurate to think of it as a space: not something lost to past, but a place to be rediscovered.
Going to go out on a limb here, and say that I HATE hipsters like Lady Gaga. Turning up to an awards ceremony covered in pieces of meat to not make a political statement but rather just stand out from the norm. Standing out to the extent that you abdicate from the mainstream just for the sake of being different, to escape the long shadows cast by the classics of either fashion or modernist literary theory is something that disengages you from the topical. Sometimes you can be more engaged if you're not a radical. Eagleton does say "it was majorities, not minorities, which confounded imperial rule in India and brought down Apartheid".
There is definitely a generation gap between what Terry Eagleton expects and what is evident in today's society. It has happened throughout history and always will.
Eagleton has talked about how topics of morality, marxism and structuralism are not sexy anymore, what is, is sex. It seems that society has become more selfish and individual, "as french philosophy has given way to a fascination with French kissing."
Through the references of the greats from Lacan to Foucault, Terry Eagleton highlights a valid point that today's society and education is more towards primal, individual, selfish capitalist society and marks the loss of high theory in which literature tackled bigger questions in life rather than masturbation...
I don't think he is nostalgic. He's moaning for about ten pages about todays academic paper topics and postmodernism in general. The papers students write about their friends, as he puts it, are not only referencial but selfreferential. So, there he sounds nostalgic, but he's pretty clear about that there is no way back. I would say Gaga shouldn't run a sociology department because it would go round in cicles like the post modernist are when writing papers about their hedonistic hobbies. I didn't get the thing with the warm beer. I guess thats a very english thing.
'The non-normative has become the norm', in society today to fit in you must find those niche markets (the ordinary!?). His critique and attack is aimed at the narcissism of theory, an academia that would take an out of touch view of what society should be, a position that would in any case fail to see how Lady Gaga running a sociology department is even a dilemma in the first place.
What Eagleton suggest is more I believe of an uprising (r)evolutionary belief. Internet has allowed people to connect and communicate more freely. As he says "high theory is dead". Theory as we are doing now is more accessible to people. So the case of Lady Gaga running a sociology department seems in a way a logical follow up. If people were to be represented it is certainly not today's politicians that are fit for this job.
"What is under assault here is the normative… to say 'here' is to homogenise all sorts of richly diverse places"
ReplyDeleteNostalgia comes from the Greek word "Nostos", meaning place and "Algia" meaning Longing. Its interesting to consider the classical definition of Nostaligia in relation to Eagleton, as although he pines for a time when pop culture and high art were treated separately it's perhaps more accurate to think of it as a space: not something lost to past, but a place to be rediscovered.
Going to go out on a limb here, and say that I HATE hipsters like Lady Gaga. Turning up to an awards ceremony covered in pieces of meat to not make a political statement but rather just stand out from the norm. Standing out to the extent that you abdicate from the mainstream just for the sake of being different, to escape the long shadows cast by the classics of either fashion or modernist literary theory is something that disengages you from the topical. Sometimes you can be more engaged if you're not a radical. Eagleton does say "it was majorities, not minorities, which confounded imperial rule in India and brought down Apartheid".
What do you think Paul?
Could you explain further why you think Lady Gaga is running a sociology department?
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a generation gap between what Terry Eagleton expects and what is evident in today's society. It has happened throughout history and always will.
ReplyDeleteEagleton has talked about how topics of morality, marxism and structuralism are not sexy anymore, what is, is sex. It seems that society has become more selfish and individual, "as french philosophy has given way to a fascination with French kissing."
Through the references of the greats from Lacan to Foucault, Terry Eagleton highlights a valid point that today's society and education is more towards primal, individual, selfish capitalist society and marks the loss of high theory in which literature tackled bigger questions in life rather than masturbation...
Nostalgic? I would be too.
I don't think he is nostalgic. He's moaning for about ten pages about todays academic paper topics and postmodernism in general. The papers students write about their friends, as he puts it, are not only referencial but selfreferential. So, there he sounds nostalgic, but he's pretty clear about that there is no way back. I would say Gaga shouldn't run a sociology department because it would go round in cicles like the post modernist are when writing papers about their hedonistic hobbies.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get the thing with the warm beer. I guess thats a very english thing.
'The non-normative has become the norm', in society today to fit in you must find those niche markets (the ordinary!?). His critique and attack is aimed at the narcissism of theory, an academia that would take an out of touch view of what society should be, a position that would in any case fail to see how Lady Gaga running a sociology department is even a dilemma in the first place.
ReplyDeleteWhat Eagleton suggest is more I believe of an uprising (r)evolutionary belief. Internet has allowed people to connect and communicate more freely. As he says "high theory is dead". Theory as we are doing now is more accessible to people. So the case of Lady Gaga running a sociology department seems in a way a logical follow up. If people were to be represented it is certainly not today's politicians that are fit for this job.
ReplyDelete