Species of Thought

I find the phrase “cutting-edge,” when used as an expression referring to something that seems to exceed perceived limits of practice, to be relatively meaningless when it refers to “representation[s] of knowledge” rather than “experimentation in thought” (Ellsworth, 2005, p. 27). Specifically, I am troubled by its use in relation to research. This is not because I do not find merit in experimentation and challenges to conventional methods or ideas implied by this phrase, but that its use in connection to research tends to refer to what Ellsworth (p. 27) calls “a thing already made.”

The term “cutting-edge” implies that something has distinguished itself by “cutting through” familiar or prevailing orthodoxy and as such is defined primarily in reference to that which it has presumably diverged from. Though not meant to be pejorative, the suggestion is that, at best, the work seems interesting, but is too unfamiliar to be understood within existing patterns. At worst, the term can have an air of condescension suggesting a clever anomaly that will have diminished influence because of its disregard for more generally accepted patterns of thought or practice. In both cases, the term “cutting-edge” draws attention to representations of knowledge (research as a thing that can cut) rather than the types of thought that made such knowledge possible (research as experiment that emerges from a cut). Such work frequently tends to either register as an oddity or irregularity whose intellectual or practical potential is dismissed as a fad or serves only niche interests. Some examples might be challenges to content such as visual culture, or alternative practices such as arts-based research, or shifts in philosophical underpinnings such as the work of Deleuze and Guattari. Each of these diversions was once designated in some way as “cutting-edge” and perhaps rightfully so. However, such a designation can isolate and counteract the intellectual or practical potential of these offshoots to truly affect change by dismissing them until their more unfamiliar ideas or practices are reconstituted by more conventional research approaches. The transformational potential of the work is neutralized when we ignore the most compelling aspect implied by the phrase: the cut itself.

The concept of a cut, a break, or a gap, is part of many accounts of developing ideas. However, this break is often rendered significant by virtue of its deviation from expectations. It is an outlier and oddity. As a result, either the research remains on the sidelines forever residing beyond the scope of acceptable research, or the form is somehow incorporated into the master narrative based on its correspondence to what is already there. What is not interrogated in either case is the fact that perhaps it is the gap itself produced by the irregularity that is the necessary and unique aspect of all knowledge production. Ignoring this possibility can lead to entrenched and unassailable patterns of thought that limit potential understanding and meaningful growth within a field of knowledge.

cut

Competing theories of speciation, or the process by which new biological species evolve, provide contrasting lenses through which to reconsider the term “cutting-edge.” The first, phyletic gradualism, suggests that species diversification is a consequence of small incremental changes over time. On the other hand, punctuated equilibrium suggests that species vary as a result of the splitting of a genetic lineage in which one branch of the split evolves in complete isolation from the other—a process that occurs abruptly rather than slowly, geologically speaking. Even today, phyletic gradualism dominates conventional understandings of evolution. “Under its influence, we seek unbroken fossil series linking two forms by insensible gradation as the only complete mirror of Darwinian processes; we ascribe all breaks to imperfection in the record” (Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 84).

According to accepted laws of evolution, new species occur as a consequence of long and slow transformation of “an entire population from one state to another” (Eldredge & Gould, 1972, p. 87) or through speciation, which suggests a splitting of a lineage. However, through the lens of phyletic gradualism, this split occurs in roughly the same geographic region through what is called sympatric speciation. As such, when fossils are...