Times of Theory: On Writing the History of French Theory

"French Theory" is a hard case for historians. Through a discussion of recent historical work, this essay explores the challenge of identifying the contexts, institutional settings and lines of affiliation that produced figures like Barthes, Derrida, Kristeva, Deleuze, and Foucault. Basic to the historicizing effort is the question of our own temporal relationship to Theory. While many treatments of theory are governed by the rhetoric of the "end" of Theory, which would consign it to the past, the essay concludes by examining contrasting images of Theory's "future" through readings of works by Terry Eagleton, Jean-Michel Rabaté, and Slavoj Žižek.