all this , an over-conceptualized , Derrida-driven approach to Edgar Allan Poe ’ s “ The Purloined Letter ” seems a minor crisis in a world completely and irrevocably deconstructed by President Trump .
Putting aside its timing , Beyond Literary Studies is required reading for graduate students and first-year assistant professors in English about to plunge into what Savoye labels a “ theorize or agonize ” landscape . In a series of brisk yet thorough chapters , he breaks down the many obvious and unspoken sins festering within the current academic publishing bubble : confusing the object of study with the study itself , inexpertly borrowing conceptual tools from other fields of study , using a scholarly tone to indulge in one ’ s personal feelings or experiences and calling it “ discourse ,” just to name a few . Because he wrestles with poststructuralism head-on , unlike better-known theory-basher Camille Paglia , who recoils from French crit , he hits hard . And as far as harangues go , much of this is gratifying , as when he lays into theory ’ s intentional impenetrability :
Since no one can really understand exactly what Lacan and Derrida are saying , their words have acquired the metaphysical connotations of religious formulas and are quoted accordingly . What we used to understand as literary interpretation often resembles the exegesis of obscure and provocative critical texts emanating from the Great Thinkers . ( 61 )
Sure , every so often , Savoye adopts the tortured philosophical syntax he mocks in theory to critique parts of Derrida ’ s epistolary pseudo-novel The Post Card :
We are therefore confronted to a purely formal device that does not complement the traditional didactic intent of a philosophical essay but rather undermines it by injecting literariness into the text and blurring its supposed intentionality . ( 52 )
Still , when Savoye begins to construct a new understanding of what we talk about when we talk about literary objects of study , his book earns its rightful place on the shelf of anyone who cares about the future of English departments . And , after an interesting ( if largely expositional ) series of un-definitions , he kicks off his argument on behalf of Imaginology with this sentence : “ The specificity of literature by opposition to other types of writings resides in its capacity to create an imaginary parallel dimension , whose relationship to our reality is indirect , uncertain and polysemic .” Indeed , Savoye unleashes a full quiver ’ s worth of ideas notched with an eye toward encouraging scholars to include new subjects as well as nearly forgotten objects ( Spanish author Carmen Laforet ’ s 1945 novel Nada , for example ). He offers several adaptive — some might say regressive — methods of study ( contextual analysis , relative synthesis , a return to thematic approaches , tracing a motif across several works ). Naturally , discarding theory altogether is impractical and likely dangerous : “ Without a proprietary theoretical
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