SOCI 380 Chapter Ballestero: Ballestero Theory as Parallax and Provocation
19 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
Became a mode of engagement with the ideas of others that went beyond the application of concepts to new contexts. Ideas aren"t individual accomplishments devoid of histories and genealogies. They are open- ended structures with the capacity of being transformed through the questions that we endeavor to ask in a specific inquiry. In some cases it seems that the story to be told is known before the research commences: theoretical saturation at the expense of analytic reconfiguration. Try to sidestep this saturated theoretical determinism by paying attention to theory as a particular mode of braiding a question through a research project. Theory seemed to have a certain precariousness-- a fragility inflicted by how the proseminar revealed the radical historicity of works and names labeled theoretical. Systematic encounter with theory was also a systematic destabilization of any belief in its solidity as a transcendent object.
