Gregory Jones-Katz - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Book by Gregory Jones-Katz

Deconstruction: An American Institution, 2021

Papers by Gregory Jones-Katz

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2023

the minnesota review, 2024

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, theory became a “cognitive good” throughout t... more In the last three decades of the twentieth century, theory became a “cognitive good” throughout the American academic humanities. The rise and uses of this new high-tech good fit the “new spirit of capitalism,” to quote Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello’s 2018 book by the same name, a post-1960s “ideology that justifies engagement in capitalism.” A neoliberal ethos and disposition animated theory and possessed theorists, as well as spaces that circulated theory, such as the University of Minnesota’s Theory and History of Literature book series, theory journals, and the University of California, Irvine’s School of Criticism and Theory. Meanwhile, capitalism incorporated the nature, scope, and social effectiveness of critique by way of theory in American higher education; theorists worked in a university where neoliberal forces saturated and directed professional and intellectual protocols. The academic humanist Left’s promotion of theory, for instance, facilitated the formation of the “university” as a theater for culture war conflicts, shifting attention inside and outside the academy away from underlying changes in capitalism.

Magazin für Wissenstransfer: UNIKATE, 2024

Raritan: A Quarterly Review, 2023

Schweizer Monat: Die Autorenzeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur, 2023

Jewish Social Studies, 2022

Jews used theory from the early 1970s to the late 80s at Yale University to revise humanism, a co... more Jews used theory from the early 1970s to the late 80s at Yale University to revise humanism, a collection of intellectual traditions in the American academy until then largely shaped by a white, male, and Christian-European perspective. Jews, first, uncovered and reworked the philosophical principles of literary scholarship. Jews subsequently employed theory, often in anti-humanist ways, to help inaugurate a number of curricular and intellectual changes, from the transformation of a Judaic Studies program at Yale to the housing of the Holocaust Survivors Film Project to contributing to the midrash-theory link, that had wide influence in the American academy and beyond. A chapter in the "Age of Theory," Jews' anti-humanist challenges renewed humanism and were illustrative of the intellectual and cultural effects of the increasing Jewish presence in American humanities departments.

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2022

Schweizer Monat: Die Autorenzeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur , 2022

History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History, 2022

In this exchange, Gregory Jones-Katz and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht discuss Gumbrecht’s oeuvre, his bo... more In this exchange, Gregory Jones-Katz and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht discuss Gumbrecht’s oeuvre, his book on Denis Diderot, and what this all might offer historians as they grapple with a transforming professional and intellectual landscape in the not-so-early twenty-first century. Of broad significance to the field of historical theory and practice are Gumbrecht’s explorations into the “presence”-based epistemologies embedded in often-canonical cultural protagonists’ lives and works. In his new book on Diderot, for example, Gumbrecht creates and employs a concept of our metabolic relationship to the environment to understand Diderot’s “implicit epistemology” as a way of thinking that was peripheral to Enlightenment and its “historical worldview.” Gumbrecht’s concept of metabolism describes certain intellectual operations that were emblematic for Diderot (and his times) and can also prove useful for historians (and humanists) in different contemporary contexts.

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2021

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2021

Analyse & Kritik: Zeitschrift für Sozialtheorie , 2019

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Richard Rorty advocated that his confréres kick the ‘philosoph... more In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Richard Rorty advocated that his confréres kick the ‘philosophy habit’—that is, adopt a post-positivist, post-metaphysical style of interpretation. Philosophers largely ignored Rorty’s clarion call. Unburdened by the kind of Selbstverständnis of scholarly mission held by most analytics, members of departments of literature instead became the most important advocates for reading literature philosophically during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Though the academic Left, especially practitioners of ‘theory’, largely celebrated and encouraged this development, Rorty, in the late 1990s, came to view it as harmfully elevating ‘cultural politics’ above ‘real politics’, which would ultimately lead to the abandonment of civic responsibilities. While heavy-handed and partial, Rorty’s critique of the uses of philosophy by literary critics was not only perceptive, but can be helpful for understanding how the contemporary academic Left might move forward as well.

Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 2019

This article’s chief contention is that the decisive context of Jacques Derrida’s 1988 Critical I... more This article’s chief contention is that the decisive context of Jacques Derrida’s 1988 Critical Inquiry essay on Paul de Man’s past was the oscillation between the collapse of the historicist chronotype (deconstruction) and the emergence of the chronotype of simultaneities (presence). To demonstrate this thesis, this essay (1) examines the ways Derrida’s highlighting of the deconstruction of Western metaphysics, by continually producing world-interpretations, was the definitive instantiation—and subversion—of the historicist chronotype; and (2) establishes that Derrida’s inquiry into and engagement with de Man’s past marked the limits of the historicist chronotype and what Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht identifies as the rise of the chronotype of simultaneities. Evidence of the oscillation between chronotypes includes the several amalgamations of presence and language that shaped Derrida’s readings of de Man’s collaborationist articles as well as his postwar silence. Signs of these interpenetrations between language and presence suggest that Derrida momentarily halted his willingness to unfold endless, conflicting narratives about de Man, and this fleeting arrest in Derrida’s commitment to perspectivism ultimately caused his arguments to lose their persuasiveness; Derrida’s interpretations gave way to presence. This presence rendered in Derrida’s readings not only generated controversy, but also offers historians the chance, today, to consider the interpretive space opened by the chronotype of simultaneities.

Modern Intellectual History, 2020

“The Brides of Deconstruction and Criticism,” an informal group of feminist literary critics acti... more “The Brides of Deconstruction and Criticism,” an informal group of feminist literary critics active at Yale University during the 1970s, were inspired by second-wave feminist curriculum, activities, and thought, as well as by the politics of the women’s and gay liberation movements, in their effort to intervene into patterns of female effacement and marginalization. By the early 1980s, while helping direct deconstructive reading away from the self-subversiveness of French and English prose and poetry, the Brides made groundbreaking contributions to—and in several cases founded—fields of scholarly inquiry. During the late 1980s, these feminist deconstructionists, having overcome resistance from within Yale’s English Department and elsewhere, used their works as social and political acts to help pave the way for the successes of cultural studies in the North American academy. Far from a suppl ́ement to what Barbara Johnson boldly called the “Male School,” the Brides of Deconstruction and Criticism arguably were the Yale school. Examining the distinct but interrelated projects of Yale’s feminist deconstructive moment and how local and contingent events as well as the national climate, rather than the importation of so-called French theory, informed this moment gives us a clearer rendering of the story of deconstruction.

Raritan: A Quarterly Review , 2017

Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice , 2017

Belgian-American critic Paul de Man’s postwar relationship to his wartime past has been fiercely ... more Belgian-American critic Paul de Man’s postwar relationship to his wartime past has been fiercely debated since the 1987 discovery of almost 200 pro-German articles that he wrote in his youth during the Nazi occupation of his native Belgium. What were the reasons for his postwar silence over this and how did this relationship shape his deconstructionist writings? Here, it is argued that after his 1948 emigration to America, de Man, with single-minded, almost obsessional, determination pursued an authenticating project, the goal of which was to become an author who never (again) committed the mistakes of his youth. To realize his goal, de Man underwent a decades-long spiritual conversion that can be viewed as embodying the tension between two models of conversion in Western culture: metanoia – the transformation of one’s way of thinking and being – and epistrophē – the return to the source of one’s way of thinking and being. While de Man’s conversion at first entailed the straightforward renunciation of and silence about his wartime life, his repudiation eventually fashioned an opposition between his present and past. This opposition remained ‘undeconstructed’ – his collaborationist identity became an unrepresented presence, ‘a stowaway’ that endured and in great part defined him. Evidence of the tension between de Man’s opposed aims – his divided conversion – is perhaps most legible in his postwar writings.

History of European Ideas, 2014

Intellectual History Review, 2010

Deconstruction: An American Institution, 2021

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2023

the minnesota review, 2024

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, theory became a “cognitive good” throughout t... more In the last three decades of the twentieth century, theory became a “cognitive good” throughout the American academic humanities. The rise and uses of this new high-tech good fit the “new spirit of capitalism,” to quote Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello’s 2018 book by the same name, a post-1960s “ideology that justifies engagement in capitalism.” A neoliberal ethos and disposition animated theory and possessed theorists, as well as spaces that circulated theory, such as the University of Minnesota’s Theory and History of Literature book series, theory journals, and the University of California, Irvine’s School of Criticism and Theory. Meanwhile, capitalism incorporated the nature, scope, and social effectiveness of critique by way of theory in American higher education; theorists worked in a university where neoliberal forces saturated and directed professional and intellectual protocols. The academic humanist Left’s promotion of theory, for instance, facilitated the formation of the “university” as a theater for culture war conflicts, shifting attention inside and outside the academy away from underlying changes in capitalism.

Magazin für Wissenstransfer: UNIKATE, 2024

Raritan: A Quarterly Review, 2023

Schweizer Monat: Die Autorenzeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur, 2023

Jewish Social Studies, 2022

Jews used theory from the early 1970s to the late 80s at Yale University to revise humanism, a co... more Jews used theory from the early 1970s to the late 80s at Yale University to revise humanism, a collection of intellectual traditions in the American academy until then largely shaped by a white, male, and Christian-European perspective. Jews, first, uncovered and reworked the philosophical principles of literary scholarship. Jews subsequently employed theory, often in anti-humanist ways, to help inaugurate a number of curricular and intellectual changes, from the transformation of a Judaic Studies program at Yale to the housing of the Holocaust Survivors Film Project to contributing to the midrash-theory link, that had wide influence in the American academy and beyond. A chapter in the "Age of Theory," Jews' anti-humanist challenges renewed humanism and were illustrative of the intellectual and cultural effects of the increasing Jewish presence in American humanities departments.

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2022

Schweizer Monat: Die Autorenzeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur , 2022

History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History, 2022

In this exchange, Gregory Jones-Katz and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht discuss Gumbrecht’s oeuvre, his bo... more In this exchange, Gregory Jones-Katz and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht discuss Gumbrecht’s oeuvre, his book on Denis Diderot, and what this all might offer historians as they grapple with a transforming professional and intellectual landscape in the not-so-early twenty-first century. Of broad significance to the field of historical theory and practice are Gumbrecht’s explorations into the “presence”-based epistemologies embedded in often-canonical cultural protagonists’ lives and works. In his new book on Diderot, for example, Gumbrecht creates and employs a concept of our metabolic relationship to the environment to understand Diderot’s “implicit epistemology” as a way of thinking that was peripheral to Enlightenment and its “historical worldview.” Gumbrecht’s concept of metabolism describes certain intellectual operations that were emblematic for Diderot (and his times) and can also prove useful for historians (and humanists) in different contemporary contexts.

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2021

Merkur: Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 2021

Analyse & Kritik: Zeitschrift für Sozialtheorie , 2019

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Richard Rorty advocated that his confréres kick the ‘philosoph... more In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Richard Rorty advocated that his confréres kick the ‘philosophy habit’—that is, adopt a post-positivist, post-metaphysical style of interpretation. Philosophers largely ignored Rorty’s clarion call. Unburdened by the kind of Selbstverständnis of scholarly mission held by most analytics, members of departments of literature instead became the most important advocates for reading literature philosophically during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Though the academic Left, especially practitioners of ‘theory’, largely celebrated and encouraged this development, Rorty, in the late 1990s, came to view it as harmfully elevating ‘cultural politics’ above ‘real politics’, which would ultimately lead to the abandonment of civic responsibilities. While heavy-handed and partial, Rorty’s critique of the uses of philosophy by literary critics was not only perceptive, but can be helpful for understanding how the contemporary academic Left might move forward as well.

Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 2019

This article’s chief contention is that the decisive context of Jacques Derrida’s 1988 Critical I... more This article’s chief contention is that the decisive context of Jacques Derrida’s 1988 Critical Inquiry essay on Paul de Man’s past was the oscillation between the collapse of the historicist chronotype (deconstruction) and the emergence of the chronotype of simultaneities (presence). To demonstrate this thesis, this essay (1) examines the ways Derrida’s highlighting of the deconstruction of Western metaphysics, by continually producing world-interpretations, was the definitive instantiation—and subversion—of the historicist chronotype; and (2) establishes that Derrida’s inquiry into and engagement with de Man’s past marked the limits of the historicist chronotype and what Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht identifies as the rise of the chronotype of simultaneities. Evidence of the oscillation between chronotypes includes the several amalgamations of presence and language that shaped Derrida’s readings of de Man’s collaborationist articles as well as his postwar silence. Signs of these interpenetrations between language and presence suggest that Derrida momentarily halted his willingness to unfold endless, conflicting narratives about de Man, and this fleeting arrest in Derrida’s commitment to perspectivism ultimately caused his arguments to lose their persuasiveness; Derrida’s interpretations gave way to presence. This presence rendered in Derrida’s readings not only generated controversy, but also offers historians the chance, today, to consider the interpretive space opened by the chronotype of simultaneities.

Modern Intellectual History, 2020

“The Brides of Deconstruction and Criticism,” an informal group of feminist literary critics acti... more “The Brides of Deconstruction and Criticism,” an informal group of feminist literary critics active at Yale University during the 1970s, were inspired by second-wave feminist curriculum, activities, and thought, as well as by the politics of the women’s and gay liberation movements, in their effort to intervene into patterns of female effacement and marginalization. By the early 1980s, while helping direct deconstructive reading away from the self-subversiveness of French and English prose and poetry, the Brides made groundbreaking contributions to—and in several cases founded—fields of scholarly inquiry. During the late 1980s, these feminist deconstructionists, having overcome resistance from within Yale’s English Department and elsewhere, used their works as social and political acts to help pave the way for the successes of cultural studies in the North American academy. Far from a suppl ́ement to what Barbara Johnson boldly called the “Male School,” the Brides of Deconstruction and Criticism arguably were the Yale school. Examining the distinct but interrelated projects of Yale’s feminist deconstructive moment and how local and contingent events as well as the national climate, rather than the importation of so-called French theory, informed this moment gives us a clearer rendering of the story of deconstruction.

Raritan: A Quarterly Review , 2017

Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice , 2017

Belgian-American critic Paul de Man’s postwar relationship to his wartime past has been fiercely ... more Belgian-American critic Paul de Man’s postwar relationship to his wartime past has been fiercely debated since the 1987 discovery of almost 200 pro-German articles that he wrote in his youth during the Nazi occupation of his native Belgium. What were the reasons for his postwar silence over this and how did this relationship shape his deconstructionist writings? Here, it is argued that after his 1948 emigration to America, de Man, with single-minded, almost obsessional, determination pursued an authenticating project, the goal of which was to become an author who never (again) committed the mistakes of his youth. To realize his goal, de Man underwent a decades-long spiritual conversion that can be viewed as embodying the tension between two models of conversion in Western culture: metanoia – the transformation of one’s way of thinking and being – and epistrophē – the return to the source of one’s way of thinking and being. While de Man’s conversion at first entailed the straightforward renunciation of and silence about his wartime life, his repudiation eventually fashioned an opposition between his present and past. This opposition remained ‘undeconstructed’ – his collaborationist identity became an unrepresented presence, ‘a stowaway’ that endured and in great part defined him. Evidence of the tension between de Man’s opposed aims – his divided conversion – is perhaps most legible in his postwar writings.

History of European Ideas, 2014

Intellectual History Review, 2010

Foreign Policy: the Global Magazine of News and Ideas, 2024

Review essay of The Years of Theory by Fredric Jameson

Foreign Policy: the Global Magazine of News and Ideas, 2024

Review essay of Anna Kornbluh's Immediacy, or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism

George L. Mosse Program in History Blog, 2024

Los Angeles Review of Books , 2019

"Jacques Derrida and the philosophical movement known as deconstruction were once the rage on col... more "Jacques Derrida and the philosophical movement known as deconstruction were once the rage on college campuses. Those days have passed, but deconstruction's influence is everywhere. We talk with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who first translated Derrida's landmark book "Of Grammatology" into English 40 years ago. Today, Spivak herself is an academic superstar - a pioneering feminist Marxist scholar and one of the founders of post-colonial studies. In this wide-ranging interview, Spivak tells Steve Paulson about her friendship with Derrida and the tragic family story behind her seminal essay "Can the Subaltern Speak." We also hear from intellectual historian Greg Jones-Katz, who's writing a history of deconstruction in America."

Review of Lynn Hunt's _Writing History in the Global Era_

Review of Lynn Hunt's _Writing History in the Global Era_