Model Thinking Generalization, Political Form, and the Common Good

For decades, many scholars in the humanities have set themselves against generalizations, valuing instead what is local, resistant, exceptional, nuanced, situated, concrete, embodied, and specific. Both close reading and historicizing, two of the major methods in literary studies, emphasize singular...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inNew literary history Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 633 - 653
Main Author Levine, Caroline
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.10.2017
Subjects
British & Irish literature
Cultural studies
English literature
Feminism
Generalization
Good & evil
Humanities
Literary theory
Modernity
Norms
Plot (Narrative)
Politics
Postcolonialism
Theory
Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941)
Chile
New York
United States > US
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:For decades, many scholars in the humanities have set themselves against generalizations, valuing instead what is local, resistant, exceptional, nuanced, situated, concrete, embodied, and specific. Both close reading and historicizing, two of the major methods in literary studies, emphasize singularity, strangeness, and heterogeneity. This essay argues that the antigeneralizing imperative has also brought with it a moralizing of the large scale, and has prevented the humanities from participating in imagining and building fairer, more egalitarian forms for collective life. It proposes a formalist reading method that embraces generalizations for the common good.
ISSN:0028-6087
1080-661X
1080-661X
DOI:10.1353/nlh.2017.0033