In this book, Robert Doran shows that the discourses of Theory require a fundamental ethics whose arc connects the subjective to the collective, the textual to the political. In analyses that are clearly written, historically grounded, philosophically astute, and attuned to a literary sensibility, Doran's formidable erudition leads to original transversal syntheses, such as the idea that key thinkers as diverse as Michel Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jacques Derrida, René Girard, Richard Rorty, Hayden White, and Edward Said maintain a dialogue with Jean-Paul Sartre's concepts of choice, freedom, and bad faith. In addition, Doran has the rare distinction of having studied with many of the figures examined in this book, while remaining faithful to their teachings.

Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, USA

Robert Doran follows up his stunning history of the idea of the sublime with a complex, perspicuous, and authoritative exposition of the rise (and fall) of “Theory” in Western philosophy, literary studies, and historiography since World War II. Doran not only explicates the ethical considerations of Theory's advent and subsequent transformation; he also offers a model of a new kind of intellectual history, one that treats Theory as a symptom of cultural malaise as well as a resource for overcoming it.

Hayden White, University Professor Emeritus of Historical Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA