Who's Afraid of Feminist Theory?: A Postscript from the Editors

Who's Afraid of Feminist Theory A Postscript from the Editors 9 Warum noch den Kopf verstecken im verminten Sand? Richard Pietraß Let us begin by acknowledging the anxiety of editorship: we chose our title because, as we see it, just about everyone is a little afraid of feminist theory, including us. We wanted to write something profound, useful, and reassuring about the theory debate in WIG, but have decided to settle for describing what we've learned during the two years it has taken to get this volume together. First, we want to state emphatically that we believe the WIG Yearbook must remain open to a wide range of feminist approaches and theoretical orientations. No one should hesitate to send us her work just because it's not in line with currently dominant or highly visible theoretical positions. However, we are not advocating the "anything goes" brand of pluralism—that may have been appropriate fifteen years ago, when there were few models for feminist scholarship in any field, but today a certain degree of complexity is necessary, and possible. We are well aware that the intensity and increasing sophistication of the feminist debate can make it seem risky to lift one's head into the fray. Surely, though, it is even more self-defeating to bury our heads in the sand. Our work with the authors who send us manuscripts and the reviewers who evaluate them has shown us many forms that anxiety about the feminist theory debate can take. WIG members are at different stages in their professional development and in their thinking about feminism and feminist scholarship. Some may think WIG has not kept up enough with developments in feminist theory. Others see WIG as moving too far toward theory and too far away from political commitment. WIG members who teach only undergraduate courses may see theory as less important 131 than the need for practical criticism and usable materials, while those who teach graduate courses, as well as graduate students themselves, may see keeping up with theoretical developments as their first priority. Feminist Germanists who have been doing research on women writers or related topics without addressing theoretical issues directly may feel that more basic research is what is most needed. Colleagues trained in and identified with poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, or other recent theories may feel that their contributions to feminist theory are being ignored or misunderstood. Women Germanists coming to a feminist awareness or to feminist scholarship for the first time may feel they have landed in the middle of a debate where the terms are already rigidly and inaccessibly defined. Obviously, not every article published in the WIG Yearbook can take all these perspectives into account. But there are many valid needs to be addressed, and the debate has highlighted some central problems that are relevant to all of them. Many of these problems were the subject of discussions generated by the 1988 WIG conference session "Theory—Which Theory?" One area of disagreement concerned the difficulties of reconciling recent theoretical work and political accountability. Speakers whose presentations had described appropriations of French theory (psychoanalytic; Kristevan) as being useful for feminists in Germanistik were challenged to respond to points raised by Magda Mueller's call for interdisciplinary feminist research that is connected with the women's movement. Some participants in the discussion objected to the appropriation of French theories without regard for the political context in which they originated, and to their application to texts written in entirely different contexts, such as GDR literature. It was pointed out that the "privileging" of certain kinds of literary texts most accessible to interpretation by French theory excludes from consideration writers whose works lack a narrowly defined literary sophistication and reinforces the traditional canon. Respondents also wanted to know how French theory would deal with AIDS, rape, hunger, and other critical social problems. Acknowledging the validity of such questions, others warned that we must not let our legitimate criticisms of French theory lead us back to "Theorielosigkeit." In this context, Angelika Bammer explained how she sees the new theory contributing to an awareness of the problematic relationship between the institutional place of feminist scholarship and its critical potential. If...