| Theoretical Inquiry: Language, Linguistics, and Literature In the aftermath of debate about the death of literary theory, Austin E. Quigley asks whether theory has failed us or we have failed literary theory. Theory can thrive, he argues, only if we understand how it can be strategically deployed to reveal what it does not presuppose. This involves the repositioning of theoretical inquiry relative to historical and critical inquiry and the repositioning of theories relative to each other. Austin E. Quigley is Dean of Columbia College, Columbia University, and former president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. |