Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Difficult thinking

Theory’s long summer
by
March 2022, no. 440

The Summer of Theory: History of a rebellion, 1960–1990 by Philipp Felsch, translated by Tony Crawford

Polity, $51.95 hb, 324 pp

Difficult thinking

Theory’s long summer
by
March 2022, no. 440
Philipp Felsch (photograph by Jonas Holthaus/Laif)

‘Theory of what?’ is the obvious lay response to Philipp Felsch’s title. But for those in the know, it goes without saying that he is talking about Theory with a capital T. That strange hybrid of philosophy, ethnology, and literary criticism cast its spell over participants in the student movement in Germany from the mid-1960s and in Paris after 1968. In the 1980s and 1990s, it reached the humanities departments of Anglophone academia, making a PhD dissertation without a Theory component a risky undertaking. This applied even in history, traditionally the most empirical of disciplines; and in 1994, Keith Windschuttle, soon to be prominent in the Australian ‘history wars’ about the interpretation of European colonisation, was provoked to write a whole book entitled The Killing of History: How a discipline is being murdered by literary critics and social theorists.

Sheila Fitzpatrick reviews 'The Summer of Theory: History of a rebellion, 1960–1990' by Philipp Felsch translated by Tony Crawford

The Summer of Theory: History of a rebellion, 1960–1990

by Philipp Felsch, translated by Tony Crawford

Polity, $51.95 hb, 324 pp

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.