I really liked Edward Pechter's "The New Historicism and its Discontents" and essays by Richard Levin like "The Poetics and Politics of Bardicide" that were published in the PMLA early 90s. What really gave me pause was the inability of the critics named in these essays to defend themselves rhetorically. Though I don't see my own work as being conservative, and I certainly am not politically conservative, I do have a certain antagonism toward eco-criticism and certain other abuses of theory in the name of causes I would support politically.
It is something I have to watch in myself because I can take it too far. I need to be skeptical, but also not go into the reactionary mode.
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