I Have This Material I am Interested In, So Now What Theory Should I Use?

Here's a kind of funny question. Suppose one is interested in some specific set of materials. The music of Morton Feldman. The poetry of Federico García Lorca. Ancient Minoan archeology. How children learn their first language.

It cannot be a question of writing a left-hand column of theoretical approaches and a right hand column of research materials, and then just finding a good match. First of all, there will be a methodology already entrenched in a field. Archeologists already do things in a certain way. for example. Secondly, the kind of research problems one is interested in are inherent to the materials, in some sense. If the wrong theoretical questions are asked, then the original source interest of the materials can fade away.

If you haven't asked the theoretical questions yet, it is as though you hadn't thought about your materials as an intellectual. If you don't have a theoretical approach that is your own, that is part of your own intellectual identity, then you will just be applying a theory because a professor told you too. That is perfectly fine for a Graduate Seminar, because that is a purely academic exercise. It is harder as a professional scholar to use a theory you don't really believe in.

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You can use theory as a heuristic, or as part of your intellectual identity. In the first case, you are not professing literal belief in the theory, but using it because you think it usefully illuminates the text. In the second case, there is more of an exisential commitment.

Four Uses of Theory

(1) Theory as object of study. Here we aren't using theory so much as examining it as a subject worthy of interest in its own right. We could be summarizing theory in order to use it later, or to explain it to someone who doesn't understand it, or making an original critique of a theorist.

(2) Theory as methodology. The critic is using a theory quite systematically as a framework to analyze a text.

(3) Theory as implicit system. In this case there is a theoretical framework, but it isn't really at the forefront discursively. There aren't a lot of citations of theorists by name. The entire analysis is informed by certain theoretical ideas.

(4) Theory as Anecdote.. "That reminds me of what Foucault said about..." Scattershot references to theorists.

(5) Original theory. Here the author is not explicating other theories, as in (1), but elaborating one of her own.


What I think is ideal for a dissertation is some combination of (2) and (3). There doesn't have to be a lot of metatheory (1), or summary of well-known ideas. A dissertaton on theory would consist of (1) with maybe a bit of (2). I think it's dangerous to confuse (2) with (4). I hate theory as anecdote.

In my own work, the main use of theory is a combination of (3) and (5). I like to just set forth my ideas without subordinating them to a methodology. My ultimate aim is to contribute to theory in a modest way (5). Of course, you can't do (5) without (1), and (1) already entails (5).

So the next time someone says that a particular critic is theoretically strong, you can ask them what they mean.