The Legacy of Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction

Introduction to the special issue. This introductory material is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol18/iss1/2 The Legacy of Louis Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction Philip Goldstein University of Delaware Althusser's death in October of 1990 provided the occasion for these essays, which re-examine his work, its influence, and its reception. Although his tragic insanity ended his career, his reputation has grown steadily: many Anglo-American literary and social theorists employ his concepts of "overdetermination" and "interpellation"; several volumes examine his life, politics, and ideas; a number of anthologies reproduce his essays; numerous surveys of recent literary theory devote a chapter to his work; and quite a few distinguished theorists, including Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton, Catherine Belsey, and Tony Bennett, have considered themselves "Althusserians" or have elaborated his views.' This impressive influence warrants the re-examination provided by the essays collected here. In addition, the growing recognition of Althusser's importance has led many scholars to claim that Althusserian theory is antipathetic to postmodernism? This collection, which emphasizes the postmodern aspects of Althusserian theory, seeks to correct this misapprehension. With a few important exceptions, the essays in this collection examine the conflicted relationship between Althusgerian theory and Jacques Lacan and/or Michel Foucault. A few essays deny or reject this relationship, but most of them demonstrate important parallels between Althusserian and postmodern theory. For instance, In "Althusserian Theory: From Scientific Truth to Institutional History," I survey the divided reception of Althusserian theory. My argument is that scholars have emphasized the scientific and the rationalist features of Althusser's work, but few have noted its poststructuralist aspects, especially its Foucauldian accounts of discourse and power. Both realists and postmodernists construe his work as scientific and/or rationalist, but they deny any rapprochement between his work and postmodern theory. I grant that in the rationalist Pour Marx Althusser defends the autonomous norms of "theoretical practice" and draws a general distinction between science and ideology. However, in several later essays Althusser repudiates his earlier faith in theory's normative force as well as his broad distinction between science and ideology. He argues that every discipline estab1 Goldstein: The Legacy of Althusser, 1918-1990: An Introduction Published by New Prairie Press 10 STCL, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter, 1994) lishes its own relationship between its ideological history and its scientific practices. This argument may not be consistent with his scientific or his rationalist theories, but, together with Althusser's earlier rejection of totalUing approaches, the argument establishes important parallels with Foucault's archaeological studies of "power/ knowledge." The literary criticism ofTony Bennett illuminates the rich implications of these parallels. Not only does Bennett repudiate the autonomous aesthetics shared by traditional and Marxist scholars; he also examines the ideological import of literary study's institutional history. In "Literature in the Abstract: Althusser and English Studies in England," David Margolies also examines the reception of Althusserian theory, but he adopts a traditional, socio-historical approach in which, along with hippies, the Beatles, and miniskirts, Althusserian theory exemplifies the cultural and political rebellion of the sixties. Moreover, he interprets the theory as a science that provided an exciting new totalization in which life had meaning, and intellectuals a vital role. In literary studies, the theory led students and lecturers to assume that works of literature preserved the status quo and lacked genuine knowledge. Condemning Literature as an institution, the Althusserians rejected empirical experience and defended general principles and abstract structures. Before the advent of Althusserian theory, scholars assumed that literary study was a matter of factual analysis or aesthetic appreciation. The Althusserians demonstrated that literature was really ideological and political, but the dogmatic arrogance ofthe Althusserians ultimately restored the mystical elitism of previous literary study. In "Ideology Takes a Day Off: Althusser and Mass Culture," Chip Rhodes repudiates such receptions studies as mere consumerism and defends Althusser's scientific account of ideological analysis. Critics who reject Althusser's scientific outlook ignore Althusser's epistemological rupture with humanism or substitute apolitical consumption for the whole complex process ofproduction. Such critics fail to understand his theory, whose anti-humanist stance requires a symptomatic reading in which texts and subjects are the bearers of structures. However Rhodes claims that Althusser was wrong to say that ideology produces a working subject that reproduces its institutional apparatus. Contemporary mass culture, in particular, fosters a non-productive, "free," consuming subject aware of its aesthetic status. To illustrate this updated account of ideological interpellation, Rhodes suggests that the popular film Ferris Bueller's Day Off reveals its own aesthetic practices, but still construes the viewer as a consuming, bourgeois subject. 2 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, ol. 18, Iss. 1 [1994], Art. 2 http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol18/iss1/2 DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1334