Description
Book SynopsisAnecdote and theory have diametrically opposed connotations: humorous versus serious, specific versus general, trivial versus overarching, short versus grand. This title cuts through these oppositions to produce theory with a sense of humor, theorizing which honors the uncanny detail of lived experience.
Trade Review“Gallop is our foremost comic theorist. Anecdotal theory, as she observes, is theory with a better sense of humor. Gallop shows us how to be smart and rigorous precisely by
refusing to ‘get serious,’ explaining how that imperative in fact makes literary critics relinquish what we do best. Lightening up without in any way producing theory ’lite’: this is one formulation of Gallop’s goal and considerable accomplishment, both here and throughout her career.”—Joseph Litvak, author of
Strange Gourmets: Sophistication, Theory, and the Novel“Jane Gallop’s essays are lucid, bold, and timely: she gives us our time through a series of brilliant lenses. I’m always grateful for the intelligence, the edge, and the generosity of her vision. We would all be more lost without her.”—Judith Butler, author of
Gender Trouble"[Gallop's] explorations resonate for us all. . . . [
Anectodal Theory] interrogates its own narrative with . . . formidable wit and intellectual rigor . . . . Moving and provocative . . . ." -- Cora Kaplan * Women's Review of Books *
Table of ContentsAnecdotal Theory; I The Incident; The Teacher's Breasts; The lecherous Professor: A Reading; The Personal and the Professional: Walking the Line; Resisting Reasonableness; II The Stories; A Tales of Two Jacques; Knot a Love Story; Dating Derrida in the Nineties; Castration Anxiety and the Unemployed PhD; Econstructing Sisterhood; Afterwords
