Object Lessons

Examining debates in interdisciplinary identity studies, Robyn Wiegman finds the repeated assumption that a better critical theory will produce a better political outcome. She studies debates in Women's Studies, American Studies, Queer Theory and Whiteness studies, especially at points when the key terms changed, as happened when Women's Studies was superseded by Gender Studies. While scholars each time imagined that a new configuration of the field would be more politically effective, instead the field reshapes itself around the new terms in ways that are not as different as hoped. Her metacritical analysis is sympathetic to the political desires she traces, but also clear about the limitations of this means of producing change.

Robyn Wiegman is Professor of Women's Studies and Literature at Duke University.