Rapaport

[Otto]

Dave wrote:
>
> Also, for anyone interested ...
>
> Rapaport, Herman.  The Theory Mess:
>    Deconstruction in Eclipse.
>    New York: Columbia UP, 2001.
>
>
http://www.semcoop.com/categories/criticism/article.asp?review=crapaportmess
.txt
>
> This is NOT an attack on Derrida, et al., by the way
>

No, it sounds really interesting.

Otto

"Deconstruction and Jacques Derrida have received much of the blame for the
current "theory mess," particularly from conservative critics who suggest
that his emphasis on the instability and relativity of readings opened the
floodgates of criticism. Rapaport eschews the vitriol that fuels most
Derrida commentary, articulating how critics have misread him and the ways
in which a more careful and less biased reading of his work can offer a
great deal to contemporary Anglo-American theorists. He counters the notion
that Derrida's work is an invitation to an anything goes mentality and
argues that it is one that offers important ways of approaching difference,
the other, and other literary issues. Rapaport also discusses, in relation
to their critiques of deconstruction, Geoffrey Hartman, Gerald Graff, Frank
Lentricchia, Gayatri Chakravoty Spivak, Dinesh D'Souza, Judith Butler and
Harold Bloom."