defunctioning

Guillory argues that the "moment of theory is determined ... by a cetain defunctioning of the literary curriculum, a crisis in the market value of its cultural capital occasioned by the emergence of a professional-managerial class which no longer requires the (primarily literary) cultural capital of the old bourgeoisie" (xii); symptoms of this crisis include the appearance of an alternative "canon" of theoretical texts, and above all — for reasons to be discussed — the exemplary phenomenon of de Manian rhetorical reading.

Professing Literature: John Guillory's Misreading of Paul de Man 2005