1st Edition

The Reading of Theoretical Texts

By Peter Ekegren Copyright 1999
    232 Pages
    by Routledge

    230 Pages
    by Routledge

    Since the structuralist debates of the 1970s the field of textual analysis has largely remained the preserve of literary theorists. Social scientists, while accepting that observation is theory laden have tended to take the meaning of texts as given and to explain differences of interpretation either in terms of ignorance or bias. In this important contribution to methodological debate, Peter Ekegren uses developments within literary criticism, philosophy and critical theory to reclaim this study for the social sciences and to illuminate the ways in which different readings of a single text are created and defended.

    1. General Introduction 2. The Social Sciences and Criticism 3. Language and Criticism 4. The Understandings of Quentin Skinner 5. The Teleological Mode of Reading 6. Interpretation and the Harmonious Whole 7. Holes in Wholes in Wholes

    Biography

    Peter Ekegren