WilliamW. Fisher III 66 In literary criticism that emulates creative writing, a reading [of a text] may be praised to the extent that it is a strong misreading and engages its object in an unpredictable, even strangely disconcerting or uncanny, performative manner. Indeed, the stronger the misreading the better insofar as the strength of a misreading is indicative of the extent to which it appears performative, creative, or even original and brings out what it is not evident in the text that becomes its pretext ... Disseminatory writing as well as strong misreading is somewhat comparable to the “riff” in jazz wherein one musician improvises on a tune or on the style of an earlier musician. As in jazz, the more traumatic or disjunctive variations (or changes within repetition) may froma certain point of viewbe the most impressive. In this respect, Derrida may perhaps be seen as the John Coltrane of philosophy or of some hybridized genre it remains difficult to name.''*'* LaCapra goes on to suggest that this style of reading and writing is problematic as a way of doing history (in contrast to literary criticism); it accords too little respect to the texts being interpreted and increases the danger that the analyst will fall into the moral trap exemplified by Derrida’s “unfortunate” effort to reaccredit Paul de Man’s anti-Semitic world-war-two journalism. But LaCapra’s analogy remains evocative in two respects. First, it reminds historians of the extent to which we take pleasure in — and hope our readers take pleasure in- provocative, eye-opening, strenuous readings of documents. Textual interpretations (even of judicial opinions) can be - and can be appreciated as - performances. Second, it suggests that the postmodern paradigmmay hold the greatest promise for producing readings of this sort. Conclusion The methodological debates among intellectual historians who think of themselves as having taken the “linguistic turn” have both excited and riven the field. Most intellectual historians feel today that they are participating in a vital but unstable enterprise, in which the stakes are high and in which the ultimate value of their work is regularly questioned and must as often be reconsidered or defended. In recent years, legal historians’ invocation of the newmethods of intellectual history have become more common and conscious. At the same time (and partly as a result) disagreement among legal historians concerning methodological issues has been increasing. This essay has sought to accomplish two things. First, it has attempted to enhance legal historians’ awareness of the methodological options available to them. Second, it has encouraged legal historians to evaluate and choose among those options, not by deciding which (if any) is convincing in the abstract, but by deciding why they are writing about the history of law and selecting (or inventing) a methods likely to facilitate accomplishment of their goals. Dominick LaCapra, “History, Language, and Reading: Waiting for Crillon,” American Historical Revieze 100 (1995): 799, 815.
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