Category: Theory Article Summaries

🔹 1. Bridging Cognition and Discourse in Metaphor Theory

• Contemporary metaphor theory attempts to reconcile the cognitive and discursive approaches to metaphor.
• Embodied metaphor is not just a mental construct, but also socially and communicatively emergent.
  👉 “Metaphor… as socially emergent cognition, not just as private concepts buried inside people’s heads.” (Gibbs 2014a: 34–38)

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🔸 2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT): Foundation and Critiques

• CMT redefined metaphor as conceptual, not just linguistic, challenging the view of metaphor as decorative.
  👉 “Metaphor as a ubiquitous conceptual figure… part of the shared tacit knowledge of speakers.”
• Critics argue CMT is too static and fails to capture metaphor’s messy, contextual usage.
  👉 “Metaphor in language use [is] relatively more messy – or perhaps rather dramatically enriched.”

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✅ 3. Role of Multimodality and Gesture

• Gesture and multimodal research connect cognition and discourse by studying metaphor across bodily, visual, and verbal channels.
• These findings support a view of metaphor as dynamic, embodied, and interactive.
  👉 “Communicative events are by default constituted by expressions from multiple semiotic channels.”

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🌱 4. Primary vs. Complex Metaphors

• Primary metaphors are rooted in embodied experience (e.g., importance is size, affection is warmth).
  👉 “Primary metaphors… arise from bodily experience”
• Complex metaphors (e.g., life is a journey) are culturally shaped analogies that may be built from primary metaphors.
  👉 “Primary metaphors… motivate or constrain complex metaphors by providing deeply embodied point-wise connections.”

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🧠 5. Multilevel Model of Metaphor

• Metaphor operates across multiple levels:
  1) Neurophysiology → 2) Cognition → 3) Discourse → 4) Language systems → 5) Culture → 6) Evolution.
• Language reflects cultural and bodily experience and distributes cognition across individuals and time.
  👉 “Culture can be seen as a potent, cumulative reservoir of resources for learning, problem solving, and reasoning.” (Theiner 2014)

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🔁 6. Dynamic Systems and Distributed Cognition

• Social interaction creates emergent metaphorical meaning—beyond individual minds.
  👉 “The synergy emerging from individuals co-acting as a group… enslaves the behavior of individual actors.”
• Dynamic metaphor use depends on context, group interaction, and cultural embedding.

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🎭 7. Metaphor in Real-Time Face-to-Face Interaction

• Metaphors evolve dynamically in discourse and are shaped by co-participants.
  👉 “The full functionality of a metaphor emerges from repeated occurrences of token expressions.”
• Example: Journey and bridge metaphors used during reconciliation dialogues show how deeply metaphors are tied to shared social narratives.

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💬 8. Metaphor Activation: Dead or Alive?

• Some metaphors become “dead” or inactive in comprehension unless context revives them.
• However, primary (correlational) metaphors may remain mentally active even in conventional forms.
  👉 “Correlational metaphors never retire.” (Casasanto 2013)

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🧪 9. Embodied Simulation Hypothesis

• The strongest claim: understanding metaphors involves re-enacting sensorimotor experiences (simulation).
  👉 “Metaphorical simulations may generally be less detailed and specific than simulations of literal, non-abstract meanings.”
• Still under debate due to mixed neurocognitive evidence.

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🔍 10. Toward a Unified Theory

• The chapter calls for an integrative socio-cognitive model that merges the strengths of both traditions.
  👉 “Understanding what metaphor is requires a thorough understanding of what it does.”

🔄 Redefining Metaphor as Both Cognitive and Discursive

Hampe challenges the traditional literary view of metaphor as merely poetic or rhetorical.
🗨️ “Metaphor as part of thought, but as socially emergent cognition, not just as private concepts buried inside people’s heads.” (Hampe, p. 3)
✅ Contribution: Moves beyond metaphor as ornamentation, placing it at the core of conceptual and cultural cognition — relevant for analyzing metaphors in literature as cognitive and communal acts.

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🧠 Advancing Embodied Approaches to Literary Language

The text links bodily experience to metaphor comprehension and production in both speech and writing.
🗨️ “Primary metaphors… constituted by conceptual correspondences that arise from bodily experience.” (p. 7)
✅ Contribution: Aligns literary metaphor with embodied cognition — supporting analysis of physicality, emotion, and sensorimotor grounding in figurative literary expressions.

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🌐 Bridging Literary Discourse and Cognitive Science

The chapter invites interdisciplinary convergence, drawing literary scholars into socio-cognitive metaphor theory.
🗨️ “It is high time for metaphor theory to integrate the major insights yielded by these… complementary strands of inquiry.” (p. 3)
✅ Contribution: Reorients literary theory toward integrated cognitive-discursive models, expanding the scope of metaphor analysis in texts and cultural contexts.

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🧩 Enriching Literary Interpretation with Multilevel Metaphor Analysis

Introduces a framework for metaphor at levels from language systems to evolution.
🗨️ “A model… ranging from the bodily foundations… to the evolutionary scale.” (p. 11)
✅ Contribution: Equips literary scholars with a multilevel toolkit to interpret metaphors dynamically—across character, narration, genre, and cultural tradition.

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🧶 Introducing Dynamic and Contextual Metaphor Usage

Emphasizes how metaphors emerge and shift meaning within discourse events.
🗨️ “Patterns of metaphor… shift in meaning, depend on interaction and vary across genres.” (p. 6)
✅ Contribution: Grounds literary metaphor in real-time, socially interactive contexts—offering tools to analyze metaphor across scenes, dialogue, and reader response.

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🧬 Highlighting the Cultural and Linguistic Embodiment of Figurative Language

Metaphors vary across languages and cultures but are shaped by shared bodily and linguistic experience.
🗨️ “Transparent metaphors… do not die because their original vehicles are so basic and universal to our experience.” (p. 10)
✅ Contribution: Enhances cross-cultural literary analysis by linking metaphor universals and variations to cultural embodiment and linguistic systems.

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🌀 Complex Metaphor as Cultural Narrative Structure

Complex metaphors like life is a journey are seen as stable yet adaptable frames in literary and public discourse.
🗨️ “Enduring conceptual metaphors present ‘stabilities’ that ’emerge’ in bigger groups and over larger timescales.” (p. 15)
✅ Contribution: Supports narrative theory and cultural critique—analyzing how recurring metaphors scaffold ideologies, character arcs, and worldview in literature.

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🖐️ Foregrounding Gesture and Performance in Metaphor Theory

Expands metaphor beyond verbal language to include multimodal and gestural dimensions.
🗨️ “Gestures… are produced as part of the cognitive processes that underlie thinking and speaking.” (p. 11)
✅ Contribution: Encourages performance-based literary criticism (e.g. drama, spoken word) to consider how metaphor is embodied and enacted in gesture and tone.

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🧭 Modeling Metaphor as Emergent in Interactive Literary Discourse

Metaphors in conversation, including literature, are emergent, co-created, and situated.
🗨️ “Systematic metaphors… emerge from repeated occurrences over the course of a social interaction.” (p. 16)
✅ Contribution: Invites reinterpretation of dialogue, dramatic interaction, and reader-response as collaborative metaphorical meaning-making.

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📚 Literature as a Site of Multimodal Metaphor Activation

Even conventional metaphors retain potential for reactivation, recontextualization, and embodiment.
🗨️ “The fact that a speaker uses a conventional metaphor… does not entail its source-domain content remains inactive.” (p. 20)
✅ Contribution: Empowers literary scholars to read layers of metaphorical depth, even in cliché or conventional metaphors, reinterpreting them as contextually reawakened.

🔍 Criticism Against Hampe’s Socio-Cognitive Model

• 🧭 Overcomplexity of Multilevel Integration
  The attempt to unify cognitive, discursive, cultural, and evolutionary scales into one dynamic model risks becoming too broad and unwieldy to be practically applicable or testable.
  (cf. pp. 10–12, “levels from neurophysiology to evolution”)
• 🧱 Unclear Operationalization of ‘Embodiment’
  While advocating for embodied cognition, the chapter does not clearly distinguish between different degrees or types of embodiment (e.g., neural vs. social). Critics may argue that the term is used too loosely.
  (cf. pp. 13–14, discussion of Casasanto’s and Soliman & Glenberg’s views)
• 🎭 Neglect of Literary and Aesthetic Metaphor
  The focus is on empirical and conversational data. Aesthetic, poetic, and literary metaphor is rarely engaged with, limiting the theory’s relevance to literary studies, despite its potential.
  (cf. general focus on discourse and gesture analysis, pp. 5–6, 16–18)
• 📉 Underestimates the Role of Individual Creativity
  The emphasis on group interaction and distributed cognition may downplay the role of individual metaphorical innovation and artistic agency in meaning-making.
  (cf. pp. 12–13, on “soft-assembled” group dynamics)
• 🎲 Empirical Evidence for Simulation Hypothesis Is Inconclusive
  While Hampe references Bergen and Gibbs’ metaphorical simulation hypothesis, neurological evidence remains mixed and far from conclusive, especially for abstract metaphors.
  (cf. pp. 20–21)
• 🔁 Bidirectionality Challenges CMT Assumptions
  The chapter accepts new findings showing bidirectional metaphor processing (e.g., warmth → affection and vice versa), but this contradicts earlier unidirectional CMT claims, creating a theoretical tension.
  (cf. pp. 9–10, Casasanto and Lakoff debates)
• 🌍 Western-Centric Embodiment Claims
  Although Hampe acknowledges cultural variation, the reliance on English and Indo-European examples may limit the universality of her claims about primary metaphors.
  (cf. pp. 14–15, e.g., knowing is seeing vs. hearing in Aboriginal languages)
• 🎯 Vague Causality Between Embodiment and Discourse
  While the chapter emphasizes interplay, it often fails to specify causal mechanisms — how exactly embodied schemas shape discourse and vice versa remains under-explained.

🔄 Rejection of Metaphor in Literature

• 🔹 Deleuze rejects metaphor as central to literary expression:

“The general rejection of metaphor that informs Deleuze’s work on literature can be more precisely defined as a theory of free indirect discourse” (Marks, 1997, p. 234).

• 🔹 Metaphor is seen as “disastrous for the study of language”, only a secondary effect of indirect discourse:

“Metaphors and metonymies are merely effects… they presuppose indirect discourse” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 76; quoted in Marks, 1997, p. 238).
🌈 (Theme: Against Representation)

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🗣️ Free Indirect Discourse as a Literary Principle

• 🟣 Free indirect discourse is key to Deleuze’s literary philosophy:

“It is no longer metaphor… it is free indirect discourse” (Deleuze, 1986, p. 73; in Marks, 1997, p. 239).

• 🟣 It reflects the multiplicity of voices in literature, enabling a zone of indiscernibility between narrator and character:

“Literature is a matter of becomings… a zone of indiscernibility” (Marks, 1997, p. 234).
🌈 (Theme: Multiplicity & Enunciation)

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🌍 American Literature as a Model

• 🟢 Deleuze privileges American literature for its experimental and deterritorialized character:

“Anglo-American literature is somehow ‘superior’… a literature of flight, rupture, deterritorialisation” (Marks, 1997, p. 235).

• 🟢 Writers like Whitman, Melville, and Kerouac illustrate the “line of flight” and “open road” ideology, resisting interpretation:

“Whitman’s essential message was the Open Road… the bravest doctrine man has ever proposed to himself” (Lawrence, 1964, quoted in Marks, 1997, p. 233).
🌈 (Theme: Deterritorialization & Experimentation)

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🧠 The Impersonal Force of Literature

• 🔴 Writing becomes impersonal; the self is dissolved:

“Literature is characterised by ‘the force of the impersonal’” (Deleuze, 1993, p. 13; cited in Marks, 1997, p. 234).

• 🔴 Great writers are “symptomatologists,” revealing signs and flows rather than telling personal stories:

“They may themselves be physically frail… overwhelmed by the life that traverses them” (Marks, 1997, p. 234).
🌈 (Theme: Impersonality & Affects)

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🌀 Characters without Identity

• 🟡 Characters like Bartleby and Nashe resist psychological or moral interpretation:

“Bartleby’s ‘I prefer not to’… hollows out a zone of indiscernibility” (Marks, 1997, p. 237).
“Nashe… remains obscure… describing Nashe’s enigmatic inner world” (Marks, 1997, p. 237).
🌈 (Theme: Subject Dissolution)

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🎥 Application in Cinema

• 🔵 Deleuze extends free indirect discourse to cinema (e.g., Cinema 1 & 2):

“Cinema’s perpetual destiny… from objective perception to subjective perception” (Deleuze, 1986, p. 72; in Marks, 1997, p. 239).

• 🔵 Directors like Godard and Antonioni use free indirect discourse to displace the viewer’s position and create polyphonic narratives.
  🌈 (Theme: Media Crossovers)

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🌿 Landscape, Percepts, and the Earth

• 🟢 Deleuze argues that art is geophilosophical, rooted in the earth, not metaphor:

“We are not in the world, we become with the world… everything is vision, becoming” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 169; in Marks, 1997, p. 243).

• 🟢 Lawrence and Melville show how landscapes “see” and affect the subject, dissolving individual consciousness:

“The landscape sees as much as the subject… the mind is a membrane” (Zourabichvili, 1996, cited in Marks, 1997, p. 243).
🌈 (Theme: Percepts & Territory)

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📚 Polyphony and Democratic Expression

• 🟣 Literature allows the coexistence of voices, especially in American literature:

“Whitman is… a poet of polyphony” (Marks, 1997, p. 236).
“The novel contains… polyphonic, and plurivocal compounds” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 188; in Marks, 1997, p. 239).
🌈 (Theme: Plurality & Minor Literature)

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🌌 Affects and Percepts in Literary Creation

• 🔴 Literature creates percepts and affects, not metaphors:

“Percepts aren’t perceptions… affects aren’t feelings, they’re becomings” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1995, p. 137; in Marks, 1997, p. 241).

• 🔴 Melville and Kafka are cited as creators of perceptual intensities, not interpreters of meaning.
  🌈 (Theme: Becoming & Intensity)

🌀 Poststructuralism & Anti-Hermeneutics

• 🔸 Challenge to traditional interpretation and hermeneutics: Marks emphasizes Deleuze’s resistance to interpretation in favor of flows, becomings, and intensities, destabilizing meaning as fixed or representational.

“Abandon interpretation in favour of ‘fluxes’ or flows” (Marks, 1997, p. 234).

• 🔸 Marks positions Deleuze as part of a poststructuralist rejection of metaphor and symbol in favor of immanence and literal becoming.

“Metaphor… has no real significance… all language is indirect, or ‘oblique’” (Marks, 1997, p. 238).
🌈 (Contribution: Critiques metaphoric language and interpretive models)

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🎭 Narratology / Voice Theory

• 🗣️ The paper significantly contributes to narrative theory through its analysis of free indirect discourse as central to literary enunciation.

“Free indirect discourse… blurs the distinction between narrator, character and author” (Marks, 1997, p. 239).

• 🗣️ This challenges classic narratology’s rigid distinctions between first-person/third-person or author/narrator/character, suggesting instead a polyvocal or plural mode of storytelling.

“All discourse is indirect… many voices in a voice, murmurings, speaking in tongues” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, quoted in Marks, 1997, p. 238).
🌈 (Contribution: Advances polyphonic and hybrid narrative theory)

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🌍 Minor Literature / World Literature

• 🌐 The article develops Deleuze & Guattari’s concept of “minor literature”, showing how American literature functions as a destabilizing, experimental space.

“American literature is a minor literature ‘par excellence’… its fragmentary nature lends itself to collective statements” (Marks, 1997, p. 236).

• 🌐 By doing so, Marks contributes to the growing theoretical interest in non-canonical, transnational, and politically minor writing.

“American literature creates something schizophrenic from the neurosis of the Old World” (Marks, 1997, p. 236).
🌈 (Contribution: Reinforces minoritarian aesthetics and postcolonial resonance)

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🧩 Affect Theory

• ❤️ Marks connects Deleuze’s theory of affects—intensities beyond emotion or cognition—with literary practices.

“Affects aren’t feelings… they’re becomings that spill over beyond whoever lives through them” (Marks, 1997, p. 241).

• ❤️ This influences the affective turn in literary theory, where emotion, sensation, and intensity replace interpretation and psychological realism.

“Literature creates percepts and affects, not metaphors” (Marks, 1997, p. 241).
🌈 (Contribution: Deepens affect theory’s engagement with literary form)

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🌄 Ecocriticism / Geophilosophy

• 🌿 Marks shows how Deleuze’s geophilosophy proposes a new relationship between literature, subjectivity, and environment: the landscape sees.

“The landscape sees as much as the subject… the mind is a membrane rather than a searchlight” (Marks, 1997, p. 243).

• 🌿 This moves beyond anthropocentric readings to consider how geography, materiality, and affect form literature.

“Art is the Earth’s song… becoming is geographical” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, cited in Marks, 1997, pp. 241–243).
🌈 (Contribution: Contributes to ecocritical, materialist approaches in literary theory)

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🧠 Experimental Literary Form & Modernism/Postmodernism

• 📚 By exploring authors like Whitman, Melville, Kafka, Beckett, and Lawrence, Marks aligns Deleuze with the tradition of modernist and postmodern experimentation.

“Great writers… invent ways of living, of surviving, resisting, and freeing life” (Marks, 1997, p. 234).

• 📚 This supports a non-linear, fragmented understanding of literature where logic and character dissolve into flows and becomings.

“The American writer must write spontaneously in fragments, or ‘specimens’” (Marks, 1997, p. 236).
🌈 (Contribution: Links modernist experimentation with Deleuzian ontology)

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🎬 Intermedial Theory / Cinema Studies

• 🎞️ Marks shows how Deleuze’s literary theory overlaps with cinematic theory, especially through Cinema 1 and Cinema 2.

“Cinema’s perpetual destiny is to make us move from an objective perception to a subjective perception” (Marks, 1997, p. 239).

• 🎞️ This contributes to intermedial studies, where literature, cinema, and art share aesthetic functions—e.g., the indirect discourse of the image.

“Free indirect discourse is an aesthetic cogito to which cinema is ideally suited” (Marks, 1997, p. 234).
🌈 (Contribution: Connects narrative techniques across media)

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🧬 Materialism / Assemblage Theory

• 🧩 Marks presents literature not as symbolic but as a material assemblage of affects, language, subjectivity, and sensation.

“Speaking in tongues… the molecular assemblage of enunciation” (Marks, 1997, p. 238).

• 🧩 This reinforces non-representational theories of literature that align with new materialism and assemblage thought.
  🌈 (Contribution: Develops a non-human-centered, assemblage-based literary materialism)

⚖️ Philosophical Overreach

• 🧠 Too abstract for literary analysis: Critics may argue that Marks, by channeling Deleuze’s philosophy, often departs from grounded textual analysis, making the paper more philosophical than literary.

📍 Focuses more on Deleuze’s ontology than the works themselves.

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📉 Marginalization of Metaphor

• 🔍 Neglects metaphor’s productive role: The paper follows Deleuze in rejecting metaphor wholesale, but this can be seen as reductive, especially when metaphor is a cornerstone of literary aesthetics.

📍 “Against metaphor” stance may ignore how metaphor generates complexity and ambiguity in literature.

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📚 Selective Canon

• 📘 Overemphasis on Anglo-American and male writers: While celebrating “minor literature,” the essay paradoxically centers canonical white male authors (Melville, Whitman, Lawrence, etc.), overlooking more diverse minoritarian voices.

📍 Limited representation of gendered, racialized, or non-Western ‘minor’ literatures.

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🌀 Ambiguity in Methodology

• 🧩 Conceptual slippage: Terms like becoming, assemblage, and percept are used evocatively but can feel vague or underdefined in a literary context, making application difficult for close reading.

📍 Lacks methodological clarity for literary critics unfamiliar with Deleuzian vocabulary.

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📽️ Overextension into Cinema

• 🎬 Cinema analysis diverts from literary focus: The integration of Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 insights, while illuminating, might distract from the core argument about literature, creating a diffuse theoretical field.

📍 Blurs the boundary between literary and cinematic analysis, potentially weakening focus.

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🧭 Directionless in Application

• 🔄 Non-linear, deterritorialized structure: Although this mirrors Deleuzian logic, the article’s structure can appear unanchored, making it challenging for readers seeking cohesive literary theory.

📍 May feel like a “rhizome” of ideas without clear critical payoff.

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🧓 Lack of Contemporary Examples

• ⌛ Few modern or experimental texts beyond 20th-century canon: Despite theoretical openness, the essay focuses on earlier works (Melville, Beckett, etc.) and lacks strong engagement with contemporary or avant-garde literature post-1990s.

📍 Missed opportunity to apply Deleuze to newer postmodern or digital literature.

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🤖 Inaccessibility

• 🧬 Heavy jargon and reliance on Deleuzian idiom: The density of Deleuzean terminology may alienate readers not already versed in poststructuralism or continental philosophy.

📍 Difficult for entry-level students or general literary scholars to engage with.

1. CDA’s Neglect of Metaphor

• While CDA has focused on structures like passivization and nominalisation, metaphor has been underexplored.

“Metaphor, on the other hand, has been largely neglected in mainstream CDA” (Hart, 2008, p. 91).

• Yet metaphor is central to how ideology and social reality are constructed.

“Metaphor is ‘central to critical discourse analysis since it is concerned with forming a coherent view of reality'” (Charteris-Black, 2004, p. 28, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 91).

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🔹 2. Metaphors as Ideological Tools

• Metaphors shape our understanding and privilege certain perspectives.

“Metaphors are ideological… in so far as they ‘define in significant part what one takes as reality'” (Chilton & Lakoff, 1995, p. 56, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 91).

• They serve both the interpersonal and ideational functions of language.

“Metaphors also play an important role with regard to both the interpersonal and the ideational function of language” (Hart, 2008, p. 91).

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🔹 3. Call for Cognitive Approaches in CDA

• CDA needs a cognitive dimension to explain how discourse produces social knowledge.

“Discourse is produced and interpreted by human individuals interacting with one another” (Chilton, 2005a, p. 23, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 91).

• Cognitive linguistics and CDA both deal with language, cognition, and culture, making the former suitable for metaphor analysis in CDA.

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🔹 4. Critique of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)

Hart identifies three major incompatibilities between CMT and CDA:

a) Problem of Focus

• CMT is too abstract and introspective, relying on imagined examples.

“The data CMT presents… are often not attested but rather appeal to native speaker intuition” (Hart, 2008, p. 92).

b) Problem of Motivation

• CMT sees metaphor as an unconscious product of embodiment, ignoring speaker intention.

“Metaphors are ‘chosen by speakers to achieve particular communication goals'” (Charteris-Black, 2004, p. 247, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 93).

c) Problem of Relation

• CMT posits that linguistic expressions merely reflect internal thought structures, while CDA sees discourse as constructing thought.

“In CDA… linguistic representation in discourse can determine, to some extent, conceptual representation” (Hart, 2008, p. 94).

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🔹 5. Introduction of Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT)

• CBT focuses on online meaning construction through multiple input spaces.

“Blending can ‘compose elements from the input spaces to provide relations that do not exist in the separate inputs'” (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002, p. 48, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 96).

• The blend is not just a reflection but a site of cognitive activity, where meaning, reasoning, and emotion coalesce.

“Blended spaces are ‘sites for central cognitive work: reasoning… drawing inferences… and developing emotions'” (Fauconnier & Turner, 1996, p. 115, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 97).

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🔹 6. Selective Projection and Ideological Framing

• Not all knowledge is projected into the blend—what’s left out is often ideologically significant.

“Speakers may choose to recruit particular structure in order to promote a certain perceived reality” (Hart, 2008, p. 96).

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🔹 7. Entrenchment and Social Cognition

• Frequent metaphorical blends become entrenched and shared socially, reinforcing dominant ideologies.

“Integration networks built up dynamically can become entrenched and available to be activated all at once” (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002, p. 103, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 97).

• Such entrenched blends function as social cognitions in Van Dijk’s model.

“Entrenched conceptual blending networks are precisely the mental representations and processes of group members” (Hart, 2008, p. 97).

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🔹 8. Three Types of ‘Discourse’ and Metaphor’s Place

• Drawing from Foucault and Fairclough, Hart distinguishes:
  • Discourse (concrete): actual talk/text
  • Discourse (collective): sets of related statements
  • Discourse (abstract): systems of knowledge/practice
• Metaphors travel across all three:

“Synchronically, current conventional uses of metaphor reflect entrenched conceptual blending patterns…. Diachronically… they give rise to entrenched conceptual blending patterns” (Hart, 2008, p. 99).

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🔹 9. Case Study: BNP Immigration Metaphors

• Hart analyses metaphors in the British National Party 2005 manifesto to show how metaphor supports racist and exclusionary discourse.

a) Immigration as Water

• ‘Flood of asylum seekers’ uses the topoi of number and danger, making immigrants seem overwhelming and threatening.

“The conceptualisation of an ongoing ‘flood of asylum seekers’ immediately warrants… restrictive immigration policy” (Hart, 2008, p. 100).

b) Nation as Container

• Britain is conceptualised as a full container, suggesting that no more immigration can be ‘absorbed’.

“Britain is full up…” (BNP quote, cited in Hart, 2008, p. 101).

c) Nation as House

• ‘Shut the door’ metaphor frames the nation as private property, evoking ownership and the right to exclude.

“Entry into which only takes place with the permission of the resident” (Hart, 2008, p. 101).

• These metaphors employ a referential strategy (us vs. them) and an evaluative strategy (threat, invasion, dilution).

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🔹 10. Conclusion: Toward a Full Framework

• Hart’s approach, using CBT within sociocognitive CDA, enables the microlevel analysis of metaphors with ideological consequences.
• However, he acknowledges the need for quantitative analysis to identify widespread metaphorical patterns.

“A complete and lucid framework requires quantitative analysis across different discourse genres” (Hart, 2008, p. 102).

🔍 🧩 Bridging Linguistics and Literary Criticism

• Hart integrates cognitive linguistics with critical discourse analysis, offering literary theorists tools to unpack how metaphor constructs ideology in poetic and narrative texts.

“Metaphors are ideological… in so far as they ‘define in significant part what one takes as reality'” (Chilton & Lakoff, 1995, p. 56, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 91).

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🧠 🌀 Expanding the Interpretive Scope of Metaphor

• Unlike classical metaphor theories focused on rhetorical ornamentation, Hart’s framework treats metaphor as a cognitive and discursive act—deepening literary analysis beyond figurative style.

“Metaphor is ‘central to critical discourse analysis since it is concerned with forming a coherent view of reality'” (Charteris-Black, 2004, p. 28, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 91).

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📦 🧠 Applying Mental Space Theory to Literature

• Hart’s use of Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) allows readers to visualize meaning construction in narrative or poetic metaphor, emphasizing how emergent structure reshapes understanding.

“The blend inherits partial structure… and has emergent structure of its own” (Fauconnier & Turner, 1996, p. 113, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 96).

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🎭 🎯 Reframing Characterization and Plot in Ideological Terms

• His focus on metaphor as a referential and evaluative strategy can be extended to literature to analyze how characters, spaces, or actions are ideologically positioned.

“Referential strategies are used in discourse to represent… social actors… evaluative strategy is manifested in negative representation” (Hart, 2008, p. 99).

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🏠 🌍 Nation and Identity Metaphors in Literary Texts

• Literary metaphors that depict the nation as a house, container, or bordered space can be critically re-examined using Hart’s framework for entrenched blending and emotional resonance.

“The nation is conceptualised as a private property… where policymakers have the right to refuse entry” (Hart, 2008, p. 101).

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📚 📖 Contributes to Discourse Theory in Literature

• Hart’s distinction among discourse (concrete, collective, abstract) offers literary theorists a way to trace how texts interact with discursive formations, genres, and ideologies.

“Discourse (abstract) dictates the nature of discourse (concrete)… and vice versa” (Hart, 2008, p. 99).

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💬 🧭 Enabling Socio-Political Literary Critique

• His model equips scholars to explore how metaphors shape political worldviews in literary texts, especially in postcolonial, migration, and nationalist narratives.

“Metaphors… contribute to a situation where they privilege one understanding of reality over others” (Chilton, 1996, p. 74, as cited in Hart, 2008, p. 91).

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🧬 🎓 Grounding Literary Ideology in Cognitive Theory

• Hart shows how literary metaphors become socially entrenched and cognitively shared, which aligns with cultural memory studies and the role of entrenchment in interpretive communities.

“Entrenched conceptual blending networks are… the mental representations and processes of group members” (Hart, 2008, p. 97).

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📈 📊 Toward Quantitative Literary Metaphor Studies

• Hart calls for blending qualitative and quantitative analysis of metaphor, paving the way for corpus-based literary criticism.

“A complete and lucid framework requires quantitative analysis… to determine which metaphors are used conventionally” (Hart, 2008, p. 102).

❗ ⚖️ Over-reliance on Cognitive Models

• While Hart successfully integrates Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) with CDA, critics may argue that it over-intellectualizes discourse by framing metaphor primarily as a cognitive phenomenon, potentially neglecting material conditions and historical contexts.

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❗ 🔬 Limited Empirical Validation

• Hart advocates for the cognitive entrenchment of metaphor through discourse, but offers limited empirical data to substantiate how often specific blends occur across genres or populations.

“A complete and lucid framework requires quantitative analysis…” (Hart, 2008, p. 102).

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❗ 🚫 Dismissal of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)

• Some may view Hart’s critique of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as overly rigid. While he treats CBT and CMT as “competing,” many linguists (e.g., Grady et al.) argue for their complementarity, not conflict.

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❗ 📉 Reduction of Metaphor to Ideological Function

• Hart often ties metaphor directly to ideology and strategy (e.g., immigration discourse), which may risk simplifying metaphor’s poetic, emotional, or ambiguous functions, especially in literature or art.

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❗ 🌍 Limited Cultural Flexibility

• The blending framework as presented is based mostly on Western political discourse (e.g., the British National Party). It may not be as adaptable across non-Western rhetorical traditions without significant modification.

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❗ 🗺️ Under-theorization of Power Structures

• Although Hart discusses social cognition and inequality, his model doesn’t fully address macro-level power systems (e.g., capitalism, patriarchy) in the way traditional CDA (e.g., Fairclough, Wodak) does.

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❗ 🧱 Highly Technical Jargon

• The heavy use of cognitive linguistics terminology (e.g., “mental space integration,” “vital relations,” “entrenchment”) may limit accessibility for scholars outside the field or from humanities/literary backgrounds.

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❗ 📚 Singular Case Study Focus

• The BNP manifesto is the sole example in the paper’s application section, raising questions about generalizability. Critics might ask: Can this framework apply equally well to literature, film, or visual art?

🔍 1. Critique of Reductionism in Conceptual Metaphor Theory

• The authors argue that grounding all abstract thought in embodied metaphor leads to reductionism:

“The abstract matter… is being reduced to a more primitive material” (p. 215).

• They challenge the idea that metaphors fully govern abstract thought, stating:

“The target domain must have considerable premetaphoric structure to constrain the metaphoric selection of features” (p. 217).

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🧠 2. Premetaphoric Structure of Abstract Concepts

• Abstract domains are not blank slates; they influence how metaphors are applied:

“If the target domain were a conceptual blank slate… it is unclear why we would adopt or offer one metaphor over any other” (p. 217).

• The authors emphasize that metaphoric mapping is guided by prior conceptual understanding.

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🔄 3. Limits of Metaphor as Cognitive Explanation

• Metaphors do not constitute understanding; they enhance or highlight certain aspects:

“The example can be written… as a literal class inclusion statement” (p. 218).
“Our sense… constrains which source domain is chosen for a metaphor” (p. 219).

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🔍 4. Metaphor as Reformatting, Not Origin

• Instead of generating new concepts, metaphors reorganize or reframe existing ideas:

“A metaphor helps to structure pertinent properties in the desired order of salience” (p. 225).
“This structure helps to translate… into a more declarative format” (p. 225).

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🌐 5. Role of Spatial Mapping Beyond Embodiment

• Spatial metaphors are not solely derived from sensorimotor experience; they function as cognitive tools:

“Spatial relations are multimodal and therefore allow for the integration of information” (p. 223).
“Spatial relations… foster the noticing of higher-order invariants and patterns” (p. 223).

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🧰 6. Procedural Knowledge as a Basis for Metaphor

• Understanding abstract domains often relies on procedural, not declarative, knowledge:

“Procedural knowledge… plays a key role” (p. 224).
“Much of this information is encoded procedurally” (p. 225).

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🌀 7. Problems with Conceptual Blending Theory

• The authors reject blending theory as theoretically vague and unfalsifiable:

“Mental space theory can explain everything and thereby really explain nothing” (p. 228).
“Nothing could falsify it” (p. 228, citing Gibbs, 2001).

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🎭 8. Metaphor Evokes Experience, Not Literal Meaning

• Metaphors trigger cognitive responses rather than merely mapping literal features:

“What the metaphor ‘brings to the fore is the kind of emotions, comparisons, and expectations'” (p. 141, quoting Ritchie).
“The metaphor makes its target more vivid… not by content but by experience” (p. 225).

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✨ 9. Metaphor Supports but Does Not Define Abstract Thinking

• Metaphors are powerful cognitive aids, but abstract thought precedes and constrains them:

“Conceptual metaphor does not actually seem to be doing most of the important work in conceptual innovation” (p. 220).
“Metaphor… does not constitute the basis for understanding argument” (p. 219).

Cognitive Literary Theory

• 🧭 Challenges to Embodiment-Centric Readings: The article critiques Lakoff & Johnson’s claim that abstract thought is almost entirely derived from embodied metaphor, arguing instead for premetaphoric and cognitive structures that resist full reduction (p. 213–215, 217).
• 🧠 Highlights the Role of Procedural Knowledge: It introduces the importance of procedural cognition—nonverbal, ineffable know-how—in metaphor comprehension, providing a broader base for understanding narrative and poetic metaphor (p. 224–226).
• 📊 Supports Spatial-Cognitive Processing in Texts: By demonstrating how spatial mappings facilitate meaning, the article aligns with how readers interpret spatial-temporal relations in literary texts (p. 223–224).

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🔍 Metaphor Theory (within Literary Studies)

• 💥 Critique of Conceptual Metaphor Theory’s Circularity: The article warns that metaphor theories relying only on recurring metaphor families risk becoming unfalsifiable, weakening literary-critical claims (p. 216–217).
• 🪞 Reasserts the Agency of Target Domains: It emphasizes that target concepts (e.g., “argument,” “love”) are not passive recipients of metaphorical structure—they constrain and reshape metaphors themselves (p. 217–218).
• 🌱 Introduces Transmetaphoric Innovation: The authors explore how novel metaphors emerge from dissatisfaction with existing ones, which is essential for understanding literary creativity and metaphorical innovation in poetry and fiction (p. 219–221).

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⚖️ Post-Structuralism / Deconstruction

• ❌ Unsettles Binary Oppositions in Metaphor Source–Target Relations: The article resists the strict hierarchy between source (embodied) and target (abstract), opening space for a non-linear, recursive interplay between domains (p. 220–222).
• 📉 Disrupts Foundations of “Literal vs. Metaphorical”: The critique of direct/indirect knowledge distinctions challenges assumptions about literalism—a key target in deconstructionist critiques (p. 221–222).

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🧬 Narratology & Semiotics

• 🧩 Promotes Multimodal Understanding: Drawing on spatial and procedural mappings, the article connects with narrative structures and how they encode abstract concepts like agency, causality, and time (p. 223–224).
• 🎭 Acknowledges Salient Performative Impact of Metaphors: The discussion of metaphor “experience” (Ritchie’s term) is akin to reader-response theories that emphasize metaphor’s affective engagement (p. 141–142).

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🧠 Philosophy of Language & Hermeneutics

• 🧱 Emphasizes Preconceptual Constraints in Meaning: Meaning is not only projected from metaphors but also arises from prior, often procedural, structures in thought, echoing hermeneutic emphasis on the “already-understood” (p. 217; p. 220).
• 🔄 Reframes Understanding as a Bidirectional Process: Rather than a unidirectional flow from metaphor to meaning, the article posits a dynamic interaction—deeply resonant with Gadamerian hermeneutics (p. 220–223).

• ⚖️ Overemphasis on Reductionism Claim
  While Vervaeke & Kennedy argue conceptual metaphor theory is overly reductionist, they may oversimplify the nuanced positions of Lakoff & Johnson, especially by focusing on extreme interpretations and downplaying the flexibility built into the theory.

“We argue that in fact [Ritchie] did not escape the problem” (p. 215)

• 🔁 Neglect of Embodiment’s Empirical Base
  The authors criticize the embodiment hypothesis as insufficient, yet they do not engage deeply with empirical evidence from neuroscience and psycholinguistics that supports embodied cognition (e.g., Gibbs, 2003).

Their challenge to embodiment relies more on logical critique than empirical falsification.

• 🔍 Ambiguity in Defining Procedural Knowledge
  The concept of procedural knowledge is central to their alternative, yet they do not offer a clear operational definition or method for measuring it in metaphor comprehension. This makes their theory difficult to test or apply consistently.

“Procedural similarity probably plays a significant role…” (p. 225)

• 🌀 Dismissal of Conceptual Blending Is Incomplete
  Their critique of conceptual blending theory is valid in parts (e.g., lack of falsifiability), but they overlook blending theory’s success in modeling novel metaphors and creative linguistic constructions, especially in poetry and narrative.

“Conceptual blending theory… fails as a theoretical framework” (p. 227)

• 🔄 Possible Circularity in Pre-Metaphoric Structure Argument
  Their claim that metaphor relies on pre-existing cognitive structures risks its own circularity: how are these premetaphoric understandings formed if not through metaphorical language itself, especially in early cognition?

“Initial independence sets up the opportunity for metaphor” (p. 220)

• 🧩 Philosophical Tension in ‘Literal vs Metaphoric’ Distinction
  They rely on the literal/metaphoric divide to argue against metaphor theory but this dichotomy has been widely challenged as unstable in both literary theory and cognitive science (e.g., Davidson, 1978; Black, 1979).

“Literal aspects… have played a significant role…” (p. 218)

• ⚙️ Limited Scope of Application
  While their model works well in certain scientific or analytic contexts, it may struggle to explain the cultural, affective, and poetic depth of metaphor in literature and myth, where embodied metaphor often flourishes.
• ❌ Dismisses Metaphor’s Generative Role Too Quickly
  By positioning metaphors as interpretive rather than generative, they underplay how metaphors can create new understanding, not just shape or reflect existing structures.

“The metaphor… does not constitute the basis for understanding argument.” (p. 219)

🔹 Core Argument: Metaphor is Fundamental to Thought and Language

• Metaphor is not just poetic or rhetorical; it is central to everyday thinking and language.

“We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but in thought and action” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 454).

• Our conceptual system is metaphorical, shaping perception, behavior, and reasoning.

“If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor” (p. 454).

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🔹 Key Conceptual Metaphors

• ARGUMENT IS WAR: We structure arguments as battles.

“He attacked every weak point in my argument… I demolished his argument” (p. 454–455).
“Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war” (p. 455).

• TIME IS MONEY: Time is treated as a finite, valuable commodity.

“You’re wasting my time… That flat tire cost me an hour” (p. 456).
“Because of the way that the concept of work has developed… time is precisely quantified” (p. 456).

• IDEAS ARE FOOD / THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS / LOVE IS A JOURNEY: Metaphors define abstract domains.

“Now there’s a theory you can really sink your teeth into” (p. 470).
“We need to construct a strong argument for that” (p. 470).
“Look how far we’ve come… Our marriage is on the rocks” (p. 470).

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🔹 Systematicity of Metaphors

• Metaphorical concepts form coherent systems, not isolated expressions.

“Metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way” (p. 456).

• One metaphor (e.g., TIME IS MONEY) entails others (e.g., TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE) through entailment hierarchies.

“TIME IS MONEY entails that TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE, which entails that TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY” (p. 457).

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🔹 Highlighting vs. Hiding

• Metaphors highlight certain aspects of a concept while hiding others.

“A metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept which are not coherent with that metaphor” (p. 458).

• Example: ARGUMENT IS WAR hides cooperative aspects of argument.

“We lose sight of the more cooperative aspects involved in an argument” (p. 458).

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🔹 Orientational and Ontological Metaphors

• Orientational metaphors give concepts spatial direction:
  • HAPPY IS UP, SAD IS DOWN → “My spirits rose… I fell into a depression” (p. 462).
  • MORE IS UP, LESS IS DOWN → “My income rose last year” (p. 463).
• Ontological metaphors allow us to view activities or emotions as entities or substances:

“The brutality of war dehumanizes us all… His theory has thousands of little rooms” (p. 461–472).

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🔹 Cultural and Experiential Grounding

• Metaphors reflect cultural values:

“The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts” (p. 465).

• They are grounded in bodily experience (embodiment):

“Our constant physical activity… makes UP-DOWN orientation… centrally relevant” (p. 476).

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🔹 Novel Metaphor and Meaning

• Novel metaphors can create new ways of understanding and guide future actions.

“Metaphors have entailments through which they highlight and make coherent certain aspects of our experience” (p. 481).

• Example: LOVE IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART

“LOVE IS WORK… LOVE REQUIRES COMPROMISE… LOVE IS CREATIVE” (p. 482).

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🔹 Critique of Literalist Theories

• The authors challenge traditional views that restrict metaphor to non-literal language.

“We have tried to show that most of our everyday, ordinary conceptual system… is metaphorically structured” (p. 485).

• They propose an experientialist theory of meaning and truth, where truth is “dependent on understanding” and metaphor plays a central role.

“A sentence is true in a situation when our understanding of the sentence fits our understanding of the situation” (p. 486).

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🔹 Philosophical Implications

• Metaphor challenges objectivist theories of language and knowledge.
• Understanding is embodied, metaphorical, and shaped by cultural coherence, not universal logic.

🔍 ❗ Partial Structuring Problem

🔸 “The metaphorical structuring of concepts is necessarily partial…” (p. 455)
🔹 Critique: Since metaphors highlight some aspects while hiding others, the theory may oversimplify or mislead if metaphorically “hidden” dimensions are ignored.

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🧠 ⚠️ Dependence on Subjectivity

🔸 “Which values are given priority is partly a matter of the subculture you live in…” (p. 467)
🔹 Critique: The subjective, culturally biased nature of metaphor makes generalizing cognitive structures difficult across societies.

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🔗 🔄 Overgeneralization of Metaphors

🔸 “Most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature.” (p. 454)
🔹 Critique: Critics argue this claim lacks empirical precision and tends to uncritically universalize metaphor as a dominant mode of cognition.

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🧱 🏗️ Structural Rigidity in Metaphor Pairs

🔸 “We talk about attacking a position… defend our own.” (p. 455)
🔹 Critique: Binary metaphor mappings (e.g., ARGUMENT IS WAR) may impose an overly dualist and combative worldview, ignoring more fluid or cooperative interpretations.

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📚 🧪 Philosophical Incompatibility with Traditional Semantics

🔸 “No account of meaning and truth can pretend to be complete… if it cannot account for metaphor.” (p. 486)
🔹 Critique: This challenges established truth-conditional theories of meaning, but critics argue that metaphor lacks logical precision and may not suit formal semantics.

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🔀 🌀 Vague Boundaries Between Literal & Metaphorical

🔸 “Literal expressions… and imaginative expressions… can be instances of the same general metaphor.” (p. 471)
🔹 Critique: The blurred line between literal and metaphorical language complicates linguistic clarity, making analysis messy or indeterminate.

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🚧 ⚙️ Operational Issues in Application

🔸 “Our account… may seem similar to Goodman’s… but we are at odds with Goodman…” (p. 458)
🔹 Critique: The authors reject rival theories but don’t fully develop alternative frameworks or offer rigorous methodologies for identifying metaphors in practice.

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🎭 🎨 Inadequate Treatment of Poetic or Creative Language

🔸 “Literal expressions… and imaginative expressions… can be instances of the same general metaphor.” (p. 472)
🔹 Critique: Literary scholars argue that the nuanced, polysemous nature of literary metaphor is not adequately addressed, being reduced to cognitive templates.

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🧩 💬 Fragmentation in Understanding Emotion or Abstract Domains

🔸 “No sharply defined conceptual structure for the emotions emerges from emotional functioning alone…” (p. 476)
🔹 Critique: Emotional metaphors (e.g., “LOVE IS A JOURNEY”) are reductionist, potentially ignoring multi-layered emotional realities.

Cultural Studies as a Multi-Moment Inquiry

Johnson proposes that cultural studies engages with “a circuit of culture”, encompassing production, textual forms, and lived experience, rather than isolating any single element.
“Each aspect has a life of its own… but after that, it may be more transformative to rethink each moment in the light of the others” (p. 74).

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📚 Text-Based Analysis and Its Limitations

He explores how humanities disciplines (especially literary studies) have contributed rigorous textual analysis, yet have often lacked broader social application.
“There is a tendency for the tools to remain obstinately technical or formal… buried in a heightened technical mystique” (p. 60).
Johnson warns against “the abstraction of texts from the other moments” of cultural circulation (p. 63).

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🧠 The Importance of Formalism (But Not Too Much)

Johnson values structuralist and semiotic methods for identifying forms of subjectivity but critiques their overdetachment from social life.
“A little formalism turns one away from History, but that a lot brings one back to it” – quoting Roland Barthes (p. 61).
He insists on “describing them carefully, clearly, noting the variations and combinations” of narrative and symbolic forms (p. 60).

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📺 Critique of Structuralist Foreshortening

He critiques approaches like those in Screen theory for focusing narrowly on “the productivity of signifying systems” and neglecting real contexts of production and readership (p. 65).
“There is no real theory of subjectivity here… no account of the carry-over or continuity of self-identities from one discursive moment to the next” (p. 69).

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👥 The Reader as a Social Subject

Johnson emphasizes the gap between “the reader in the text” and “the reader in society”, stressing that actual readers bring complex histories and identities to texts.
“Textual materials are complex, multiple, overlapping, coexistent… all readings are also ‘inter-discursive’” (p. 67).
He argues that we must “trace what stories are already in place” before understanding how texts are received (p. 69).

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🧵 Connecting Lived Culture to Public Forms

In his third approach, Johnson highlights the importance of studying how marginalized groups appropriate and rework dominant cultural forms in everyday life.
“Typically, studies have concerned the appropriation of elements of mass culture and their transformation according to the needs and cultural logics of social groups” (p. 72).

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🚩 Critique of Expressivism and Cultural Empiricism

Johnson is cautious about uncritical celebration of “authentic” experience, arguing that such approaches can romanticize and oversimplify complex social realities.
“Research of this kind has often mediated a private working-class world and the definitions of the public sphere with its middle-class weighting” (p. 71).

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🔧 Toward a Post-Post-Structuralist Theory of Subjectivity

Johnson calls for a theory of subjectivity that integrates structure with lived agency and historical transformation.
“Human beings and social movements also strive to produce some coherence and continuity… and through this, exercise some control over feelings, conditions and destinies” (p. 69).

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📈 Future Directions: Integrated, Conjunctural Cultural Studies

He concludes by advocating for conjunctural analysis that traces cultural forms across different moments—production, representation, and lived practice—recognizing their “inner connections” (p. 74).
“We need to trace what Marx would have called ‘the inner connections’ and ‘real identities’ between them” (p. 74).

• 📚 Expansion of Textual Theory
  Johnson critiques traditional textual analysis for its formalist limitations, emphasizing that texts must be read in relation to their production, reception, and social context. He challenges the isolation of texts in literary studies, arguing:

“The ultimate object of cultural studies is not… the text, but the social life of subjective forms at each moment of their circulation” (p. 62).
This redefines the function of the text within culture and aligns cultural studies with a dynamic model of interpretation.

• 👥 Contribution to Reader-Response Theory
  Johnson shifts the emphasis from the text to the reader, criticizing structuralist and psychoanalytic models that “ascribe this capacity [to read critically] to types of text” rather than to actual, socially situated readers (p. 68).
  He promotes studying how “subjective forms are inhabited” across class, gender, and historical contexts (p. 67), enriching theories of reading with contextualized agency.
• 🛠️ Refinement of Marxist Literary Theory
  Drawing on Gramscian concepts of hegemony, Johnson situates cultural practices within larger structures of class and power. He moves beyond economic determinism, advocating for cultural struggle as a site of political agency:

“Popular cultural forms… may permit a questioning of existing relations or a running beyond them in terms of desire” (p. 73).
This situates literature within ideological and class-based formations, advancing a non-reductive materialist theory.

• 🧬 Critique of Structuralism
  While acknowledging the insights of semiology, narratology, and Saussurean linguistics, Johnson argues that structuralism tends to abstract texts from lived experiences and production contexts:

“Formalism… is the abstraction of texts from the other moments” (p. 63).
This helps bridge literary theory with social and cultural analysis, fostering a more integrated approach.

• 🌪️ Advancement of Post-Structuralist Insights
  Johnson affirms post-structuralism’s critique of the unified subject, but insists it lacks a theory of self-production and continuity. He argues for a “post-post-structuralist” theory of the subject that can account for identity transformation and political consciousness (p. 69).
  This challenges post-structuralist theory to evolve and address historical and collective subjectivities.
• 📜 Revision of Canon and Literary Value
  He questions how “criteria of ‘literariness’ themselves come to be formulated and installed in academic, educational and other regulative practices” (p. 62).
  This contribution encourages literary theory to interrogate the construction of the literary canon through ideology and institutional power.

🔍 Over-Theorization Without Practical Application
Johnson’s essay, while rich in theoretical insight, is sometimes criticized for being too abstract. The complex layering of ideas on subjectivity, textuality, and production risks alienating readers or practitioners looking for concrete methodologies or real-world applications.

🌀 Ambiguity Around Subjectivity
Although Johnson advocates for a post-structuralist understanding of the subject, some critics argue that he does not offer a clear or usable theory of subjectivity. His critique of existing theories (e.g., psychoanalysis, semiotics) is sharp, but his own suggestions remain conceptually vague (p. 67–69).

⚖️ Balancing Acts That Result in Dilution
Johnson attempts to synthesize production, text, and lived culture into a single cultural circuit. However, this inclusivity may result in a lack of analytical sharpness—trying to address all areas at once can lead to intellectual diffusion rather than focus (p. 73–74).

📚 Dismissiveness Toward Literary Criticism
Literary scholars have critiqued Johnson for his apparent dismissal of “literary value” and canonical study. While he critiques “literariness” as a regulatory construct (p. 63), some argue this position undervalues aesthetic complexity in favor of ideology critique.

🎭 Neglect of Aesthetic Experience and Emotional Response
By focusing so heavily on ideological and discursive formations, Johnson’s framework is seen by some as neglecting the emotional, affective, or aesthetic engagement readers have with texts—an aspect central to understanding cultural resonance.

🌐 Eurocentric/Anglocentric Bias
Johnson’s examples (e.g., the Royal Wedding, CND campaign, British film theory) reflect a Western-centric focus, raising questions about the global applicability of his model. Cultural studies from postcolonial or non-Western contexts often feel marginalized in his framework.

🧪 Insufficient Methodological Guidance
Though Johnson critiques formalism and empiricism, he offers no concrete methodology for conducting cultural studies research. Scholars have noted the absence of replicable research strategies, making it difficult for new researchers to follow.

🔸 Naming as a Colonial Practice of Power and Erasure
Walsh begins by emphasizing that the very act of naming in Latin America is a legacy of colonial power. She asserts that naming has historically functioned to impose external epistemologies and erase local identities:

“The politics of naming have always had great significance in Latin America… subordinated differences to map out an image according to their own heuristic code of naming” (Walsh, 2012, p. 109).
The term “Latin America,” she notes, is itself a colonial imposition, with Indigenous communities preferring Abya Yala, meaning “lands in full maturity.”

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🔸 Decolonizing Cultural Studies: From Object to Intervention
Walsh critiques how Cultural Studies, when uncritically transplanted into Latin American contexts, often replicate Western academic structures. Instead, she advocates for a model that emerges from lived struggles and knowledge systems:

“The project of Cultural Studies… seeks to cross, transcend and go beyond the limits that traditionally have seen culture as an object of study” (Walsh, 2012, p. 116).
She calls for (inter)Cultural Studies that actively intervene in society, not just analyze it.

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🔸 Four Legacies Shaping (Inter)Cultural Studies in Latin America
Walsh outlines four key legacies that shape her approach:

1. Scientific Disciplinarity – a Eurocentric system that privileges so-called objective knowledge and marginalizes alternative rationalities.

“The humanities were set up not as areas of knowledge per se… but instead as something more ephemeral” (Walsh, 2012, p. 110).

2. Birmingham School & Stuart Hall – inspiring a political vocation of theory grounded in lived struggles.

“I come back to the critical distinction between intellectual work and academic work… They are not the same thing” (Hall, 1992, cited in Walsh, 2012, p. 112).

3. Latin American Cultural Thought – including thinkers like Martí, Mariátegui, and Barbero, but critiqued for often being confined to elite mestizo academia.
4. Social and Epistemic Movements – rooted in Indigenous and Afro-descendant activism, these movements generate theory and challenge coloniality.

“Movements provoke theoretical moments and historical conjunctures insist on theories” (Hall, 1992, cited in Walsh, 2012, p. 112).

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🔸 The Inter-cultural, Inter-epistemic, and De-colonial Dimensions
Central to Walsh’s project are three interrelated pillars:

• Inter-culturality is not just diversity but a transformative political project:

“It does not simply add diversity… but rather to rethink, rebuild and inter-culturalize the nation” (Walsh, 2012, p. 117).

• Inter-epistemicity involves valuing knowledge produced outside Western academic frameworks:

“To think with knowledges produced in Latin America… by intellectuals who come not only from academia, but also from other communities” (Walsh, 2012, p. 118).

• De-coloniality challenges the colonial matrix of power, including epistemological dominance:

“At the centre… is capitalism as the only possible model of civilization” (Walsh, 2012, p. 119).

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🔸 Academic Tensions and Resistance to the Project
Walsh details the resistance her program at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar has encountered from traditional academic institutions:

“Our concern here is not so much with the institutionalizing of Cultural Studies… but with epistemic inter-culturalization” (Walsh, 2012, p. 121).
She links this to broader neoliberal reforms that have depoliticized and re-disciplined Latin American academia.

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🔸 Reclaiming Intervention as Ethical and Political Practice
In closing, Walsh returns to Stuart Hall’s concept of “intervention” as a guiding principle for Cultural Studies:

“To consider Cultural Studies today a project of political vocation and intervention is to position—and at the same time build—our work on the borders… of university and society” (Walsh, 2012, p. 122).
The goal is to foster knowledge that is rooted in life, struggle, and transformation, not detached academicism.

🔄 Postcolonial Theory
Walsh expands postcolonial theory by emphasizing the limits of postcolonial discourse when applied to Latin America. She critiques its tendency to remain textual and elite, shifting the focus toward lived struggles, knowledge systems, and political intervention rooted in Indigenous and Afro-descendant movements. Her call for “naming” as a site of colonial power resonates with postcolonial concerns, but her decolonial stance goes further by centering epistemic sovereignty.

“The politics of naming have always had great significance in Latin America… subordinated differences to map out an image according to their own heuristic code of naming” (Walsh, 2012, p. 109).
“Inter-culturality has marked a social, political, ethical project… to rethink, rebuild and inter-culturalize the nation” (p. 117).

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🌐 Decolonial Theory (Modernity/Coloniality Group)
Firmly situated in the modernity/coloniality/decoloniality school, Walsh’s work is a practical manifestation of its core ideas. She emphasizes inter-epistemic dialogue, the deconstruction of the colonial matrix of power, and the repositioning of the university as a space for pluriversal thinking. Her model of (inter)Cultural Studies acts as a decolonial educational and theoretical project.

“Our concern here is not… institutionalizing Cultural Studies. Better yet… with epistemic inter-culturalization, with the de-colonialization and pluriversalization of the ‘university’” (p. 121).
“By colonial matrix, we refer to the hierarchical system of racial-civilizational classification…” (p. 118).

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📚 Cultural Studies (Hall/Birmingham School)
Walsh reclaims and recontextualizes the political legacy of Stuart Hall and the Birmingham School by aligning it with Latin American struggles. She upholds Hall’s idea that “movements provoke theoretical moments” and expands it to include epistemic movements, led by historically marginalized communities. Her version of Cultural Studies is not disciplinary but political, embodied, and decolonial.

“Movements provoke theoretical moments and historical conjunctures insist on theories” (Hall 1992, cited in Walsh, 2012, p. 112).
“A practice which understands the need for intellectual modesty… not substituting intellectual work for politics” (p. 112).

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📖 Critical Theory
By challenging the hegemonic Eurocentric academic canon, Walsh intervenes in critical theory by critiquing the Western monopoly on reason and knowledge production. She promotes a critical interculturality that integrates decolonial and ethical commitments into theory-making itself.

“To question the supposed universality of scientific knowledge… that does not capture the diversity… or the counter-hegemonic alternatives” (p. 111).
“We are concerned… with a thinking from the South(s)… to open, not close, paths” (p. 121).

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🔬 Theory of Representation
Building on Hall’s theory, Walsh deepens its application to Latin America by showing how colonial regimes of representation have structured epistemic and social exclusions. Her focus is not only on discursive stereotyping but also on material and institutional naming practices that shape power and identity.

“Practices of representation construct and contribute to the stereotyping… within a supposedly naturalized structure and regime of truth” (p. 113).

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📏 Institutional Critique / Knowledge Production
Walsh critiques the disciplinary boundaries and neoliberal restructuring of academia in Latin America. She pushes for a radical rethinking of what counts as knowledge, who produces it, and where—a critique of both content and academic form.

“Discipline… works to negate and detract from practices… that do not fit inside hegemonic rationality” (p. 111).
“The project seeks to cross, transcend and go beyond the limits that traditionally have seen culture as an object of study” (p. 116).

🔍 Over-politicization of Academic Discourse
Some may argue that Walsh’s insistence on political engagement in academic work risks collapsing the line between scholarship and activism.

❗ Critics might ask: Can Cultural Studies maintain critical distance if it becomes a project of intervention rather than reflection?

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📏 Anti-Disciplinarity as Methodological Risk
Her call for “indisciplinarity” challenges academic norms, but critics may argue that rejecting disciplinary boundaries can result in conceptual vagueness or lack of methodological rigor.

❗ Without clear academic frameworks, how do we ensure accountability, coherence, and evaluative criteria in research?

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🌍 Limited Scalability Beyond Andean/Latin American Contexts
Walsh grounds her theory deeply in Latin American epistemologies and struggles. While powerful regionally, some may question its applicability across global contexts, particularly in societies without a similar history of Indigenous-Afro-descendant political movements.

❗ Is her model of (inter)Cultural Studies transferable beyond Abya Yala?

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🧠 Complex Language and Dense Theoretical Style
The article uses highly theoretical, sometimes abstract language that might alienate non-specialist readers or those outside the decolonial academic community.

❗ Could the accessibility of her transformative ideas be hindered by their presentation?

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📚 Insufficient Engagement with Alternative Views within Latin America
While Walsh critiques Eurocentrism and disciplinary knowledge, she may be seen as underrepresenting dissenting Latin American scholars who support modernization or universalist frameworks from within the region.

❗ Does her framework fully acknowledge intra-regional diversity and contestation?

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⚖️ Tension Between Inclusion and Exclusion
Despite her commitment to pluralism and dialogue, some might find Walsh’s tone to marginalize scholars who remain within traditional academic paradigms, potentially reproducing the very exclusions she critiques.

❗ Can decolonial thinking risk becoming a new orthodoxy, dismissing other valid intellectual paths?

🌍 Reimagining the Canon Beyond “Writing Back”

Riemenschneider challenges the dominant pedagogical focus on postcolonial “writing back” narratives and urges a shift toward texts that imagine alternative futures and explore constructive possibilities.

“Should not our common procedure of prioritizing texts that are ‘writing back’ be modified by more frequently including examples that probe into or even construct possible ‘different worlds’?” (Riemenschneider, 2004, p. 106)

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💸 Globalization as Cultural and Economic Erosion

The article highlights how globalization leads to both material dislocation and the erasure of local specificities, especially in postcolonial societies.

“Destroys local sites of production and jobs… impoverishing an ever increasing number of an unemployed workforce… lost to the circulation of goods” (p. 106)

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📚 Teaching Gap in Literary Academia

Despite an active scholarly community, there is a disconnect between literary research and teaching practices, particularly in the realm of New Literatures in English.

“Academics pursue research… but rarely give much time to the challenge of teaching what they are studying” (p. 106)

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📖 Canon vs. Context: The Globalization Dilemma

Riemenschneider questions whether popular Indian writers like Narayan, Rao, and Seth, whose works don’t address globalization directly, are still fitting in a course addressing global issues.

“Can we responsibly promote the study of such texts… whose basic concerns are certainly not the economic and social havoc brought about by globalization?” (p. 107)

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🤝 Hybridity and Harmony in Historical Encounters

In discussing Dalrymple’s White Mughals, Riemenschneider points to historical periods where East and West coexisted, offering models of intercultural hybridity and mutual transformation.

“A time… of surprisingly widespread cultural assimilation and hybridity” (p. 107)
“That East and West are not irreconcilable… They have met and mingled in the past” (p. 108)

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🏰 From Cultural Exchange to Imperial Domination

Imperial strategies under British governance, such as those of Lord Wellesley, shifted relationships from fusion to conquest, marking a decisive break with earlier hybrid models.

India became “a place to conquer and transform” instead of “a place to embrace and to be transformed by” (p. 108)

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🚪 Barriers to Cultural Crossing in Fiction

Through Thalassa Ali’s A Singular Hostage, the article examines how fictional colonial encounters often reinforce cultural boundaries rather than bridge them.

“Mutual prejudices… never at any time would permit either party to cross the boundary line between their respective worlds” (p. 108)

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🌐 Diaspora as a Space for Alternative Imaginations

Riemenschneider sees diasporic writing as a more productive terrain for imagining “different worlds,” offering possibilities of hybridity and coexistence not bound by nationalist constraints.

“Is it then correct to say that an imagined different world is possible, more or less, only in the diaspora?” (p. 109)

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🧭 Inclusive Teaching in a Globalized World

He ends with a strong call to educators to rethink curricula that either overly conform to Western literary dominance or promote rigid cultural essentialism.

“We must resist both, the globalizing homogenization and levelling as well as a fundamentalist-inspired defence of differences” (p. 109)

📚 Postcolonial Theory

Riemenschneider contributes to postcolonial literary theory by questioning the over-reliance on “writing back” narratives and proposing that literature can also imagine alternate futures rather than only respond to the colonial past.

“Should not our common procedure of prioritizing texts that are ‘writing back’ be modified by more frequently including examples that probe into or even construct possible ‘different worlds’?” (p. 106)

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🌍 Globalization Theory in Literature

The article bridges globalization studies with literary pedagogy by emphasizing how economic and cultural globalization impacts the production and teaching of English literature in formerly colonized societies.

“Globalization… is in the process of erasing not just local cultural specificities but threatening to annihilate their very economic and social underpinnings” (p. 106)

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🧩 Hybridity and Cultural Theory

Through references to Dalrymple’s White Mughals, the article engages with the concept of intercultural hybridity, a key idea in the works of Homi Bhabha, by exploring instances of cultural mingling in colonial India.

“A time… of surprisingly widespread cultural assimilation and hybridity” (p. 107)

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🛤️ Diaspora and Transnational Theory

The text highlights diaspora literature as a space where authors explore identity through cultural dislocation and hybridity, aligning with theories of transnationalism and global citizenship.

“Diaspora writing… focus[es] on the challenges and possibilities of cultural assimilation…” (p. 109)

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🏛️ Canon Critique and World Literature

Riemenschneider critically assesses the canonization of certain Indian English writers, questioning whether literary syllabi should prioritize established names or more politically engaged, local voices.

“Many of which have by now attained canonical status… whose basic concerns are certainly not the economic and social havoc brought about by globalization” (p. 107)

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🧑‍🏫 Pedagogical Theory / Literary Education

He foregrounds pedagogical responsibility in literary theory, pushing scholars to align their teaching with current socio-political realities rather than remain locked in outdated canons.

“What decisions do we take in aiding our students?… Can we responsibly promote the study…” (p. 107)

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🌐 Cosmopolitanism and Ethical Criticism

The article resonates with ethical and cosmopolitan literary criticism by promoting the idea that literature should foster global understanding and resist both homogenization and essentialist nationalism.

“We must resist both, the globalizing homogenization… and a fundamentalist-inspired defence of differences” (p. 109)

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🔍 Historiographic Metafiction / Narrative Theory

By incorporating historically-grounded texts like White Mughals and A Singular Hostage, Riemenschneider explores how fiction and non-fiction can re-narrate colonial encounters, a core idea in historiographic metafiction.

“Dalrymple’s brilliant historical study… not the familiar story of European conquest… but the Indian conquest of the European imagination” (p. 107)

🧭 Eurocentric Framing of Cross-Cultural Discourse

While the article advocates for global inclusivity, it paradoxically relies heavily on Western-authored texts (e.g., White Mughals, A Singular Hostage) to explore non-Western contexts, which may recenter Western perspectives in postcolonial studies.

The core examples are from William Dalrymple (British) and Thalassa Ali (American), potentially sidelining authentic indigenous voices.

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📦 Limited Representation of Non-Indian Literatures

The article focuses almost exclusively on Indian or India-related texts, despite referencing “New Literatures in English” broadly. This regional limitation may weaken its claim to addressing the “global” comprehensively.

No significant mention of African, Caribbean, Aboriginal, or Pacific authors, which narrows the theoretical application.

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🔍 Lack of Textual Analysis or Close Reading

Riemenschneider offers thoughtful thematic overviews but avoids in-depth literary analysis or textual critique of the works he discusses. This might appear more like a pedagogical essay than a rigorous literary-theoretical article.

The references to literary texts serve illustrative rather than analytical purposes.

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🛑 Overgeneralization of Diaspora Writing

While highlighting diaspora literature as a site of cultural possibility, the article risks romanticizing hybridity and oversimplifying the diverse challenges faced by diasporic writers and communities.

“Is it then correct to say that an imagined different world is possible, more or less, only in the diaspora?” (p. 109) – This question itself may reduce diaspora writing to a monolithic category.

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🎓 Abstract Pedagogical Proposals Without Implementation

Although Riemenschneider raises important questions about literary syllabi, the article lacks specific strategies or case studies on how to apply his pedagogical ideas in actual classroom settings.

The text ends with open-ended questions, but does not propose models for curriculum revision.

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🧩 Neglect of Student-Centric Perspectives

While he emphasizes the teacher’s responsibility in choosing texts, the article omits any reflection on student reception, engagement, or learning outcomes—key elements in contemporary pedagogical theory.

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📊 Minimal Engagement with Contemporary Theory

The article implicitly invokes theorists like Homi Bhabha (on hybridity), but it does not explicitly engage with or cite major voices in postcolonial or globalization theory, which limits its intertextual depth.

📚 Cultural studies was born out of a deliberate rejection of traditional disciplines such as literary studies, film studies, and art history. Yet, as Frow clarifies, this rejection was not of the aesthetic object itself, but of the normative frameworks that governed its placement and value:

“It is important to be clear that this was a refusal not of the object itself… but of the normative discourses within which the object and its ‘placing’ were defined” (p. 44).

🎭 However, this strategic distance eventually became a limitation, as it occluded crucial discussions of value within cultural texts — including literature — which cultural studies set out to theorize.

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📖 Three Modes of Literary Emergence

1. 📘 Reflexive Fiction and Truth in Literature
   Frow identifies epistemological reflexivity in works like The Radetzky March and Don Quixote, where literature reflects on itself through layers of truth and fiction.

“The narrative of a resistance to Literature has itself become a work of literature” (p. 45).

2. 📰 The Corruption and Commodification of Literature
   In Lost Illusions, literature appears within a sociological reflexivity, entangled in journalism, commodification, and industrial production.

“The literary… is torn between the two and whose defining character is its status, and its dissatisfaction with its status, as a thing to be bought and sold” (p. 47).

3. 🎤 Lyric Memory and Epiphany in Poetry
   Frank O’Hara’s The Day Lady Died presents lyrical emergence, where literature arises in a temporal rupture, transcending the mundane through memory and voice.

“The ‘emergence’ of the literary… is the effect of this shift of planes from the mundane to the epiphanic moment of memory” (p. 48).

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⏳ Dual Temporality and Historical Value of the Literary

⚖️ Literature exists simultaneously as a historical institution and as a momentary event in reading. This creates a tension between canon formation and fleeting readerly experience.

“The concept of literary emergence… specifies a dual temporality: on the one hand… an act of reading; on the other… a structure of historical value” (p. 49).

📘 Frow challenges universal definitions of literature, noting that all such claims are normative and reflect institutionalized regimes of value rather than inherent qualities.

“Any attempt now to define the literary as a universal… fails to account for the particular institutional conditions of existence” (p. 49).

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🏛️ The Literary Regime: Texts, Readers, and Institutions

🔧 Frow proposes the idea of a “literary regime”—a set of social and interpretive structures that assign value to texts and determine how they are read.

“The concept of regime shifts attention from an isolated and autonomous ‘reader’ and ‘text’ to the institutional frameworks which govern what counts as the literary” (p. 50).

📺 This regime is not superior to other cultural forms like film or television. Instead, it is simply one among many regimes of cultural value, shaped by relations, not essences.

“No special privilege attaches to a literary regime except insofar as such a privilege can be enforced by political means” (p. 51).

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🔄 Reading as a Recursive and Relational Practice

🔍 Frow suggests we move away from fixed textual meanings and instead view reading as a dynamic practice, involving multiple layers of interpretive framing: from content to form, to technique, to institutional regimes.

“Textuality and its conditions of possibility are mutually constitutive and can be reconstructed only from each other” (p. 52).

🧠 Interpretation becomes a historical mediation, where meaning arises between the moment of writing and the moment of reception — not rooted in either alone.

“Any text which continues to be read… will in some sense not be the ‘same’ text” (p. 53).

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🔄 Rethinking the Discipline of Literary Studies

🎓 Frow critiques the current state of literary studies as fragmented — divided between ethical, deconstructive, political, and bellettristic approaches — and lacking a unified theoretical core:

“In one sense, the discipline of literary studies is flourishing… in another, it has become lost in irrelevance” (p. 54).

🛠️ He advocates for a renewed literary pedagogy based not on canon or theory, but on a generalizable, reflective practice of reading that bridges literary and non-literary forms.

“It must be at once continuous with and richer than untutored practice… and be extrapolated from ‘literary’ texts to other discursive kinds” (p. 54).

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⚡ The Ambivalence of Literary Emergence

🌀 Frow closes by noting that every instance of literary emergence simultaneously enacts and undermines the concept of literature itself. Literature, in this view, is inherently unstable, defined by the contradictions that animate it:

“These texts… can be taken as a figure for the institution of a reading that would at once display and displace the literary regime” (p. 55).

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✅ In Summary:
John Frow’s essay is a critical reconfiguration of the boundaries and assumptions of literary studies. By analyzing how literature emerges across texts, regimes, and historical contexts, Frow opens the door to a relational, politically aware, and reflexive understanding of literature’s role within cultural studies.

📚 1. Poststructuralism & Reflexivity

🔍 Contribution: Frow extends poststructuralist ideas by exploring literature’s self-reflexive nature—its capacity to question and remake itself.

“The narrative of a resistance to Literature has itself become a work of literature” (p. 45).
🌐 Theoretical Tie: Builds on Paul de Man and poststructuralist thought, where language is unstable and meaning is deferred.
“The literary constitutes… a language aware of its own rhetorical status and its inherent liability to error” (p. 49).

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🏛️ 2. Institutional Theory (Sociology of Literature)

📦 Contribution: Introduces the idea of the “literary regime”—institutions and social forces that define, categorize, and give value to literature.

“Texts and readings count as literary or nonliterary by virtue of protocols which govern this distinction” (p. 50).
🏛️ Theoretical Tie: Deepens Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and Tony Bennett’s work on cultural institutions, showing how literary meaning is socially regulated.

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🌀 3. Reader-Response Theory (Relational Reading)

👁️ Contribution: Frow reorients attention from the text itself to the relation between the reader, the text, and its framing conditions.

“Reading… moves from a focus on a ‘text’… to the relation between a text and the set of framing conditions” (p. 52).
📖 Theoretical Tie: Expands on Stanley Fish and Wolfgang Iser by emphasizing the historical and institutional embeddedness of interpretation.

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⏳ 4. Historicism / New Historicism

📜 Contribution: Proposes that literature’s meaning is always subject to changing regimes of reception, contesting any fixed or timeless interpretation.

“Any text which continues to be read… will in some sense not be the ‘same’ text” (p. 53).
🧭 Theoretical Tie: Resonates with Stephen Greenblatt’s New Historicism in viewing literature as deeply entwined with historical conditions of both production and reception.

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🧩 5. Cultural Studies / Anti-Canonism

🚫 Contribution: Argues against fetishizing the literary canon, calling instead for a theoretically aware and socially situated analysis of literature.

“The exclusion of the literary… was a strategic delimitation… but there is no reason… why this exclusion should continue” (p. 53).
📚 Theoretical Tie: Extends Stuart Hall’s cultural studies framework, encouraging integration of literary studies into the broader matrix of cultural regimes.

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🧠 6. Critique of Universalism

🧱 Contribution: Refutes attempts to offer a unified, essentialist definition of literature by demonstrating its institutional and historical variability.

“Any attempt now to define the literary as a universal or unitary phenomenon… falls into the fetishism of a culture of social distinction” (p. 49).
📘 Theoretical Tie: Counters structuralist views (like Frye’s archetypes) by arguing for the pluralism and contingency of literary value.

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🔧 7. Pedagogical Theory / Literary Education

🎓 Contribution: Reframes literary education as training in critical reading practices, not the transmission of timeless cultural value.

“What might count as useful knowledge… is less the imparting of systematic information than the teaching of a practice” (p. 54).
🛠️ Theoretical Tie: Contributes to critical pedagogy (e.g., Freire, Giroux), emphasizing interpretation as an empowering, reflective act.

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⚖️ 8. Value Theory in Literature

📈 Contribution: Reopens the question of value in literature—not as eternal or intrinsic, but as socially and semiotically produced.

“The very force of its initial refusal of the normative has become a problem… it occludes those questions of value” (p. 44).
💬 Theoretical Tie: Challenges both formalism and radical relativism, offering a balanced, relational approach to literary valuation.

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🧬 Summary

John Frow’s “On Literature in Cultural Studies” doesn’t simply intervene in literary theory—it restructures its foundation by:

• Breaking down the boundaries between disciplines
• Introducing the flexible but rigorous concept of regimes
• Centering historical, institutional, and relational dynamics in literary meaning

It is a call for theory after theory, where critical reflection and cultural embeddedness take priority over rigid categories and static canons.

⚖️ 1. Relativism vs. Rigorous Criteria

📌 Criticism: Frow’s call for “relative relativism” may lead to a theoretical impasse where no stable criteria remain to distinguish meaningful from arbitrary interpretation.

His dismissal of universal literary value might be read as undermining normative critical judgment.

🔎 Why it matters: Without shared evaluative frameworks, literary criticism risks becoming purely contextual and losing its capacity to critique broader systems.

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🌀 2. Vagueness in the “Literary Regime”

📌 Criticism: The term “literary regime”—while conceptually rich—is ontologically overloaded, blending institutional, textual, semiotic, and social dimensions without clear boundaries.

This may confuse rather than clarify how regimes function practically in shaping reading.

🔎 Why it matters: Readers may struggle to distinguish what counts as a regime versus broader cultural influence or personal interpretation.

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🎯 3. Undervaluing the Aesthetic Dimension

📌 Criticism: By focusing on cultural and institutional framing, Frow potentially downplays the aesthetic and affective power of literature itself.

His emphasis on external regimes may neglect the formal innovations, beauty, or style of literary texts.

🔎 Why it matters: Many argue that literature’s unique value lies in its affective and stylistic power, not just its social embeddedness.

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🧱 4. Risk of Disciplinary Dilution

📌 Criticism: Frow’s encouragement of interdisciplinary openness might inadvertently dissolve the specificity of literary studies into broader cultural studies.

“Literature” becomes just another “regime,” losing its traditional disciplinary coherence.

🔎 Why it matters: Some literary theorists fear this undermines the distinctive tools and methods of close reading, genre study, and formal analysis.

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🗃️ 5. Abstract Overload and Accessibility

📌 Criticism: Frow’s language is dense and steeped in theoretical jargon, making the essay less accessible to non-specialists or students new to literary theory.

Terms like “hermeneutic bootstrapping” or “axiological regimes” can alienate readers unfamiliar with poststructuralist discourse.

🔎 Why it matters: For a piece partly about pedagogy and reading practices, the lack of clarity may hinder its impact in the classroom.

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🧭 6. Limited Engagement with Non-Western Literatures

📌 Criticism: Frow’s analysis is heavily Euro-American, drawing examples only from Western canonical texts (Roth, Cervantes, Balzac, O’Hara).

This limits the scope of his claim that “literary value is institutionally constructed” across global cultural contexts.

🔎 Why it matters: A more inclusive global literary critique would enhance his argument about the variability of regimes across cultures.

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🔍 7. Minimal Discussion of Reader Agency

📌 Criticism: While Frow critiques autonomous conceptions of the “reader,” he doesn’t give enough space to the lived experience and agency of actual readers.

His concept of the reader as a “function” within a regime may overlook how individuals interpret texts creatively or resist dominant regimes.

🔎 Why it matters: Ignoring reader subjectivity risks reducing reading to mere effects of institutional power.

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🧠 Summary:

Frow’s essay is a seminal intervention in redefining the relationship between literary studies and cultural theory—but it also opens itself to critiques related to:

• theoretical overreach 🌀
• undervaluing form and aesthetics 🎨
• abstract language barriers 🧱
• Western-centrism 🌍