symploke: a journal for the intermingling of literary, cultural and theoretical scholarship

Edited by Jeffrey R. Di Leo

ISSN 1069-0697

eISSN 1534-0627

About Table Of Contents Submissions & Book Reviews Editorial Board Announcements Featured Articles Sponsoring Society Resources Useful Links Recommend This Journal

About

symplokē is a comparative theory and literature journal, committed to interdisciplinary studies, intellectual pluralism, and open discussion. The journal takes its name from the Greek word "symploke", which can mean interweaving, interlacing, connection, and struggle. It is a forum for scholars from a variety of disciplines to exchange ideas in innovative ways. Most of the journal's issues address topics of special interest that open new avenues of inquiry and research. Scholarship focusing on the interrelationship of philosophy, literature, cultural criticism, and intellectual history is of particular interest. However, articles on any aspect of the intermingling of discourses and disciplines will be considered. symplokē received the Phoenix Award 2000 for Outstanding Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

Visit the journal's editorial website.

Volume 32, No. 1-2 (2024)
Critical Environments

Contents
Editor’s Note
Jeffrey R. Di Leo

Critical Environments
The Introduction to Critical Environments
Aaron Jaffe

The Eco-Marxist Problematic: Value Between Economy and Ecology
Jan Overwijk

Sick Lit: Zombie Apparatus and Ideology’s Severance
Robin Truth Goodman

The Plantationocene, or Critique under a Black Horizon
Nicole Simek

The Politics of the Faceless
Zahi Zalloua

Eli Clare: Outsider Theory, the Environment, and Brilliant Imperfection
Jane Gallop

Mari Ruti and Climate Grief
Clint Burnham

Nonbinary/Natures
Alison Sperling

The Jargon of Critical Environments
Jeffrey R. Di Leo

How Resilience Became the Content of Digital Educational Privatization and Other Disasters of Resilience
Kenneth J. Saltman

Notes on Abstract Carbon
Derek Woods

Technical Rationality and the Environmental Turn: The Case of Holly Herndon’s Oikos
Michael F. Miller

Information without Meaning in Jeff VanderMeer’s Trilogy of Area X
Cristina Iuli

Total Admin: The College Campus as Critical Environment in Pynchon’s Vineland
Edward P. Dallis-Comentale

The Dreams of Sympoiesis
Cary Wolfe

General Articles
The Materialism of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me
Timothy Hinton

Local Traditions, Colonial Modernity and the Politics of Pressure: Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things
Ubaraj Katawal

Reformation
It’s All about the Benjamin(s), or, Fredric Jameson’s Precursor in Literary Criticism and Theory
Thomas A. Laughlin

“Breaking Out of the Windless Present”: Jameson’s Representation of the Benjaminian Cosmos and History in The Benjamin Files
Koonyong Kim

A Dialectician Entre Nous
Maria Elisa Cevasco

History Disintegrates into Images
Sami Khatib

Forum I: The Ethics of Close Reading?
The Ethics of Close Reading?
Jane Gallop, Eric Hayot, E. L. McCallum, and Gary Weissman

The Ethics of Close Reading
Jane Gallop

On Aggressive Close Reading
Gary Weissman

Is the Ethics of Close Reading Feminist? Or, Friends of Close Readers
E. L. McCallum

How Close Reading Goes Off
Johanna Winant

From the English School to the Archive
Robert Higney

Close Reading Beyond the Anglophone Orbit
Yael Segalovitz

Against the Ethics of Close Reading: Close Readers, Lay Readers, and Critical Humility
Faye Halpern

Some Propositions on Close Reading
Paula M. L. Moya

Close Reading Needs a Better Theory of Actuality
Eric Hayot

Where to Begin?
Paul Fleming

Forum II: Culture Wars 2.0
Targeting Tenure in Dark Academe: Antitheory, Neoliberalism, and the New Assault on Academic Freedom
Jeffrey R. Di Leo

“Hey Asshole, I’ve Got Your Culture War Right Here”: Satire, Invective, and Fighting Back
Paul Allen Miller

The Foreclosure of America and the Emergence of Automania
Daniel T. O’Hara

Race and Sex Redux
Nicole Simek

“I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore”: Anger, Critique, and the Culture Wars 2.0
Robert T. Tally Jr.

Reckoning with America’s Anti-Blackness: From Repression to Disavowal—and Beyond
Zahi Zalloua

Interviews
The Stance of Criticism: An Interview with David Scott
Jeffrey J. Williams

Inside the Walls: An Interview with Doran Larson
Jeffrey J. Williams

Book Notes

Notice to Contributors

Forthcoming Issues

Submissions & Book Reviews

Statement of Publishing Ethics

For the most current information about upcoming issues, visit www.symploke.org

Manuscripts of any length which are appropriate to the aims of symploke will be considered, although those between 4,000 and 6,500 words (approximately 16-26 typed, double-spaced pages) are preferred. Please keep in mind that submitted manuscripts need not only be intended for an upcoming special issue. General submissions of high quality are encouraged. The editors reserve the right to make stylistic alterations in the interest of clarity. Authors will receive a complimentary copy of the journal. All submissions must strictly follow the guidelines for copy preparation listed below. Articles not conforming to these guidelines may be sent back to the author for revision.

Preparation of Copy
1. All submissions must provide a complete listing of references, and if necessary, use footnotes rather than endnotes.
2. Footnotes should generally consist only of references and are to be consecutively numbered throughout the manuscript.
3. References must include the names of publishers as well as places of publication. Also include full names and a complete listing of translators and editors.
4. The format of the manuscript must conform to the MLA Style Manual (the 2016 edition is preferable, although the 2009 edition is acceptable).
5. Submit manuscripts in duplicate. If the manuscript was word-processed, include a copy of your IBM- or Macintosh-compatible disk. Microsoft Word or a plain ASCII file is preferable.
6. All quotations, titles, names and dates must be double-checked for accuracy.
7. All articles must be written in English.
8. This journal has a policy of blind peer reviewing; hence, the author’s name should not appear in the manuscript and a separate title page must be provided.
9. Material not kept for publication will be returned if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
10. Address submissions to: symploke, Editor Jeffrey R. Di Leo, School of Arts and Sciences, 3007 North Ben Wilson, University of Houston-Victoria, Victoria, TX 77901-5731 Office 361-570-4222 Fax 361-580-5501 Email <editor@symploke.org>

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief
Jeffrey R. Di Leo, University of Houston, Victoria

Associate Editor
Ian Buchanan, University of Wollongong (Australia)

Advisory Board
Charles Altieri, University of California, Berkeley

Eyal Amiran, University of California, Irvine

Emily Apter, New York University

Lauren Berlant, University of Chicago

Michael Bérubé, Penn State University

Chris Breu, Illinois State University

Edward Casey, State University of New York, Stony Brook

Andrew Cole, Princeton University

Claire Colebrook, Penn State University

Stanley Corngold, Princeton University

Lennard J. Davis, University of Illinois, Chicago

Robert Con Davis-Undiano, University of Oklahoma

John Frow, University of Sydney (Australia)

Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University (Canada)

Robin Truth Goodman, Florida State University

Karen Hanson, University of Minnesota

Phillip Brian Harper, New York University

Peter Hitchcock, City University of New York

Vincent B. Leitch, University of Oklahoma

Paisley Livingston, Lingnan University (Hong Kong)

Sophia A. McClennen, Penn State University

Paul Allen Miller, University of South Carolina

Christian Moraru, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Jeffrey Nealon, Penn State University

David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University

Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University

Gerald Prince, University of Pennsylvania

Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania

Gerhard Richter, Brown University

Alan Schrift, Grinnell College

Paul H. Smith, George Mason University

Henry Sussman, Yale University

Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University

Jeffrey J. Williams, Carnegie Mellon University

Announcements

Call for Papers: Theorizing Asia

Focus Editor: Alex Taek-Gwang Lee

Asia is not self-evident. The region called Asia was culturally defined after the Russia-Japan War and geopolitically designed after the Second World War. Modern Asia was the historical byproduct of colonialism and its effects; the rise of nationalism in Asia was collective resistance to colonial modernization. Modernity in Asia has been the consequence of the dialectical process between modernization and counter-modernization. Its complicated historical background registers the strong demand of ”Asian theory” for analyzing the structure of Asian modernity. Recently, as participating in the global distribution of labor, contemporary Asia has attracted many scholars not only for its rapid economic development, but its cultural products. Asian contemporary artists and writers have critically acclaimed for their successful recognition. This issue aims to bring together various theoretical interventions into Asian literature, contemporary art and culture as well as any inquiry into the intellectual history of critical theory in Asia. Focus will be placed on the dynamic relation between Western theory and Asian intellectual history.

Deadline for submissions: 1 August 2021. Instructions for submissions.

________________

Featured Articles

Trending Articles - Summer 2021

"The Political Education of Walter Benn Michaels: An Interview" (Vol. 22 Nos. 1-2, 2014)

"The Contemporist: An Interview with Terry Smith" (Vol. 22 Nos. 1-2, 2014)

"The Austerity School: Grit, Character, and the Privatization of Public Education" (Vol. 22 Nos. 1-2, 2014)

"There's No Such Thing as a Cat Person: A Lacanian Approach to Literary Criticism in Light of #MeToo" (Vol. 28 Nos. 1-2, 2020)

"Topographies of a Cinematic City: Vladimir Nabokov’s 'A Guide to Berlin'" (Vol. 22 Nos. 1-2, 2014)

Sponsoring Society

Resources

Reading List: Climate Change

Check out this list of peer-reviewed articles focusing on Critical Theory, Environmental Ethics, Economics & Business, and other areas of study on Climate Change.

Reading List: Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

This reading list is full of academic articles for both instructors & students seeking peer-reviewed materials on Rape Culture, Sexual Help, Models of Resistance, and other areas of study.

Reading List: Social Media

As online communities continue to widen their reach, so too does our list of peer-reviewed articles on various subjects including Journalism, Communal Narrative, Activism, Marketing, and Image Rehabilitation.

Reading List: Migration

This list of peer-reviewed materials features articles on many topics spanning Globalization, Genocide, Religion, Diaspora Communities, and other aspects on the topic of Migration.

Reading List: Willa Cather

This list of peer-reviewed articles & reviews centers on the work of acclaimed author (and UNL alum) Willa Cather. Known for her novels on the pioneer experience, her works are reexamined here through the lens of modern-day academics.

Reading List: Sports-Related Controversies, Social Issues, and Scandals

This sprawling list includes peer-reviewed articles on subjects as diverse as the fields of play they revolve around, including Violence in Sports, Gambling & Game Fixing, Drugs & Banned Substances, Mascots & Offensive Imagery, and other controversies.

Reading List: Pandemic

This developing list arose from the COVID-19 pandemic and includes many peer-reviewed articles on topics like Fictional Pandemics, Politics, Cultural Impacts, The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, and other related areas of study.