Conclusion

Abstract

Since I was approached to write Poststructuralism and After, sometime towards the end of the last century, there has been a growing feeling that the position of ‘Theory’ (usually spelt with a capital ‘T’) in the humanities and social sciences — and poststructuralism or postmodernism is widely regarded as the epitome of ‘high theory’ — has undergone a significant change for the worse. Some have alleged that the project of a critical social theory has run out of steam, and that its oppositional potentials have been ‘exhausted’ (Bové, 1992; Latour, 2004, pp. 225–48). Others have deplored the commodification and reification of ‘high’ or ‘cultural theory’, and its progressive separation from critical practices, philosophical reflection, and empirical research (e.g., Osborne, 2007, pp. 19–20). Still others have sought to redefine the role of theory, so that it no longer constitutes a ‘distinctive object’ but provides the basis for ‘a new sophistication in the analysis of the concrete’ (Laclau, 1999, p. vii). The upshot of these developments is much talk about the ‘end of theory’ in the humanities and social sciences, which is evident in expressions like ‘after theory’ or ‘post-theory’ to characterize our contemporary situation (Eagleton, 2003). On the other hand, more optimistic voices speak about the need to move towards a ‘post-theoretical’ universe, in which theory continues to reinvent itself in new circumstances and conditions (McQuillan et al., 1999; Simons, 2010a, pp. 8–12).