Words

In the comments to the McSweeney's post, below, Bruce Williams wondered if we couldn't put "transgressive" out of its misery.  There are a number of other critical buzzwords that have surely outstayed their welcome:

• "Subversive."  I generally operate on the assumption that a truly "subversive" work will have been understood as such at the time it was written/staged/filmed.  If nobody noticed, then the work probably didn't subvert much of anything.  Either that, or the author was incompetent. 
• "Anxious."  I've noticed that some scholars* are getting annoyed with "anxious" (there was a small-scale dustup on NASSR-L when someone accused more traditional critics of "anxiety").  Critics use "anxious" in order to suggest that a dominant group might be self-consciously aware of its vulnerability vis-a-vis a minority.  But it often seems to be the case that the modern critic projects the "anxiety" in question onto the text.  This was my initial response to reading Homi Bhabha and Sara Suleri, for example.  I understood why "anxiety" was useful to them, but it didn't seem any more operative in the works they were describing than, well, "subversiveness."  Moreover, the term seems to be a catchall for an entire range of proximate emotions, some of which fit ("fright") and some of which don't ("anger").
• "Interrogate."  This is literary criticism, not Alias. 
• "Police."  This is literary criticism, not Law & Order. 
• "Map."  I don't think that this is an objectionable verb--I've used it on occasion--but it's not clear to me that the spatial imagery involved is always appropriate. 
• "Inventing"/"imagining."  I'm guilty as charged here as well, but it sometimes seems as though all historical activity has been swept under the cultural-fantasy carpet. 

Other suggestions?

*--Was it Jennifer Green-Lewis who objected to "anxiety" in an article on feminism and historicism? I can't find my copy...

Comments

[rob]

You are very correct about "map", and it's especially prevalent in the PoCo world. Even Mr Imagined Geography himself, Edward Said, neatly called this "a fuzzy tic inherited from Fredric Jameson."

My suggestion:
"Otherness" -- if nothing else, it's time to give "alterity" a whirl.

[Paula]

Little Professor, I applaud all your nominees as well as Rob's nomination of "otherness," although I'm not convinced that "alterity" is a better candidate.

My nomination goes to "intervention." Until recently, the last time I had heard the word "intervention" used was at a history conference at Oxford in 1982. (The word "comrade" was also used extensively.) What the speakers obviously meant was some form of the noun or verb "question." And I think I'll throw in "contested" just for fun.

[Annam]

Funny that "subversive" usually means "not as hopelessly retrograde as you might think".

[joe]

It's not a word, really--or even critical--but I am so very sick and tired of "It's the (blank), stupid."

[DC]

Thank you for this list! I nominate "situate" as an addition to it.

[loganarthur]

An interview story:

Interviewer: Could you tell us what kind of intervention your project is making?

Me: Uh...uh...Intervention?

Interviwer: Wait, I've been at this conference too long.

Me: How about I describe the "contribution" I think my project makes?

Interviewer and the rest of search committee laughs. Interview goes splendidly. I proceed to next round of campus visits.

[eb]

Often seen alongside "contested": "negotiated."

Also: "liminal" (or "liminality") but I suspect it just seems like I see it more frequently than I actually do. Same with "performative."

[Jonathan]

I agree that the word is overused, but it's a direct consequence of the unconscious nature of literary creation that a work can be subversive without it being recognized by the audience (and still be artful).

[Legal Alien]

How about "complicates"? For example, "Rushdie's text complicates theories of hybridity."

[Jonathan]

Legal Eagle's comment reminds me of the absolutely indispensable chiasmus: not only does Rushdie's text complicate theories of hybridity, it hybridizes theories of complexity.

Try it sometime.

[Jonathan]

The only true subversive literature is Children's.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary etc.

[Jim Flannery]

Problematic, adj. Tending to support a position I disagree with.

[Ray Davis]

To quote myself: "You know that warm feeling you get from someone agreeing with you? Or when you feel clever for working something out? Well, that's not actually called subversion.

"In fact, I'd say that the only context in which it makes sense for a comfortable guy to apply the word 'subversive' to anything is when he's trying to have it banned."

I like Annam's formula even better, though -- "subversive" in the sense of "not troubling my own worldview."

[Zh.]

I'm not really into giving words a vacation. I say, use all of them but only when you really need to.

[kennyboy]

lens
unpack

[ogged]

I'm sympathetic to some of these words, but they're just so 90s: "irruption," "interstices," and "imbricated." "Densely imbricated" is definitely out. Ditto "problematize." I'm torn about "occlude."

But let's keep "situate;" it's still on the upswing!

[Poethique]

Definitely "problematic," also "evocative" or "evoke."

[Stubbs]

Thank your for foregrounding these horrible examples of university-speak. You sure are constructing some knowledge!

[Prof MC]

I don't mind "problematic"--"problematize," on the other hand... And let's throw in "decentering" while we're at it. Oh. OH. And "PRAXIS"!

[m.]

One prof. I knew would always describe anything he liked or wanted to comment on as "interesting." Drove me nuts--I always thought it was a way of avoiding actually addressing the topic and stating why it was interesting, and reaching a judgment about it.

[Daryl]

"Problematise" is extremely annoying. How about "limns"?

[Apian]

torture is not an american value.
you cannot make war on an abstract noun.

[Mike S]

Bifurcation
Construct (as noun)
Elucidate
Cogent
Hegemony (leave it for poly sci)

This is a great thread, by the way. But I made the mistake of reading it while I'm writing a paper, and now I'm lamenting my overuse of "subvert."

[Jake]

I've heard "trope" repeated to death, although that was only at my undergrad university, so I don't know if it's part of a wider trend.

"Construct" as either a noun (as mentioned above) or a verb is another good candidate.

[Douglas Cleary]

Intervention is a good verb in recovery circles...Love this blog, since I grew up in university town the son of a professor of communications...dc