Description:
Biographical note: D. N. Rodowick is Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago.
Rhetorically charged debates over theory have divided humanities scholars for decades. D. N. Rodowick steps back from arguments pro and con to assess why theory has become such a deeply contested concept. Far from lobbying for a return to the "high theory" of the 1980s, he calls for dialogue on an ethically inflected philosophy of the humanities.