The South Atlantic Quarterly

Weber, Samuel, 1940-
Wortham, Simon.
Hall, Gary, 1962-
Responding: A Discussion with Samuel Weber
The South Atlantic Quarterly - Volume 101, Number 3, Summer 2002, pp. 695-724

Duke University Press

Samuel M. Weber, Simon Wortham, and Gary Hall - Responding: A Discussion with Samuel Weber - The South Atlantic Quarterly 101:3 The South Atlantic Quarterly 101.3 (2002) 695-724 Responding: A Discussion with Samuel Weber* Simon Morgan Wortham and Gary Hall This interview was conducted by email correspondence during September 2001. On September 11, the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed and the Pentagon badly damaged by a series of attacks. Although the interview had initially been conceived as a contribution to a collection of essays on the work of Samuel Weber, which would concern itself with the discussion of his work in general, the participants felt compelled to respond to these events. In what follows immediate reactions to the attacks and subsequent developments as they unfolded therefore contend -- perhaps uneasily, but also perhaps productively -- with a series of reflections on Weber's thinking, writing, and critical practice over a number of years. What characterizes the discussion overall, in terms both of its "content" and its very "taking place," is the question of a critical or "theoretical" discourse acting itself out in relation to a series of phenomena, acts or events to which it is bound to respond. It is a matter of judgment whether this distinctive and distinguishing trait of the discussion pulls it apart, or whether in some way it pulls it together. But such a characteristic trait nevertheless engages a whole set of...