Although literary theories describe a world of strategies-textual,
discursive, interpretive, and political-what is missing is the
strategist. Poststructuralists try to explain agency as the effect
of large-scale systems or formations; as a result, intuitions about
individual action and responsibility are expressed in terms of
impersonal strategies. Mette Hjort's book responds to this
situation by proposing an alternative account of strategic action,
one that brings the strategist back into the picture. Hjort
analyzes influential statements made by Derrida, Foucault, and
others to show how proposed conceptions of strategy are
contradictory, underdeveloped, and at odds with the actual use of
the term. Why, then, has the term acquired such rhetorical force?
Since "strategy" evokes conflict, Hjort suggests, its very use
calls into question various pieties of idealism and humanism, and
emphasizes a desired break between modernism and postmodernism. It
follows that a theory of strategy must explore some of the
psychological implications of conflict, and Hjort pursues these
implications through traditions as diverse as game theory,
discourse ethics, and the philosophy of war. Unstable frames, self
deception, promiscuous pragmatism, and social emotion are some of
the phenomena she explores as she develops her account of strategic
action in the highly competitive domain of letters. In her
reflection on strategy, Hjort draws on such literary examples as
Troilus and Cressida, Tartuffe, the autobiographical writings of
Holberg, and early modern French and English treatises on theater.
For its well-informed and incisive arguments and literary
historical case studies, this book will be invaluable to literary
theorists and will appeal to readers interested in drama,
philosophy and literature, aesthetics, and theories of agency and
rationality.
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