Postmodern Sophistry

Stanley Fish and the Critical Enterprise

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Edited by Gary A. Olson and Lynn Worsham,

Afterword by Stanley Fish

State University of New York Press

Due/Published March 2004, 312 pages, cloth

ISBN 0791462137

Fifteen prominent scholars from a range of academic disciplines--legal studies, critical legal studies, political science, Jewish studies, rhetoric, and literary studies--explore various aspects of cultural and literary critic Stanley Fish's work. They examine Fish's understanding of how interpretation functions, the various philosophical issues that Fish has addressed or failed to address in his work, and the political consequences of Fish's thought. Stanley Fish responds to the ideas put forth in this book in a detailed Afterword.

 "I look forward to holding this book in my hand, years from now when, if I continue to be lucky, an old man will sit up late at night looking back at a professional life and wondering what it was all about." -- from the Afterword by Stanley Fish

Contributors include Michael Bernard-Donals, Michael Bérubé, Reed Way Dasenbrock, Terry Eagleton, Stanley Fish, Gerald Graff, Margaret Kohn, Steven Mailloux, Gary A. Olson, Michael Robertson, Martin Stone, H. Aram Veeser, Evan Watkins, Gary S. Wihl, and Lynn Worsham.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One: Interpretive Authorities
There is Nothing Inside the Text, or, Why No One's Heard of Wolfgang Iser -- Michael Berube
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Stanley -- Gerald Graff
Theory, Practice, and Ubiquitous Interpretation: The Basics -- Martin Stone
Fish and Dworkin on the Work of Interpretation in a Democracy -- Gary S. Wihl

Part Two: Philosophical Interventions
Deconstructed to Death? Fish on Freedom -- Michael Robertson
The Trouble with (Arguing against) Principle: Stanley Fish's Incomplete Machiavellianism -- Ree Way Dasenbrock
Rhetoric, Emotion, and the Justification of Belief -- Gary A. Olson and Lynn Worsham
Contingent Universals and Rhetorical Pragmatism -- Steven Mailloux

Part Three: Political Prospects
The Estate Agent: Stanley Fish and His Trouble with Principles -- Terry Eagleton
Critical Theory and Political Action -- Margaret Kohn
Extirpating for Fun and Profit -- H. Aram Veeser
Professional Distinction -- Evan Watkins
The Consequences of Holocaust Denial -- Michael Bernard-Donals

Part Four: Afterword
One More Time -- Stanley Fish

Contributors
Index