Karizma teorije

slovenian

2014

volume 59, issue 2/3

literary theory    Charisma    socialism 

Slavistično društvo Slovenije
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

Against the background of the policing power of university discourse, the article discusses the prototypes and general roles of charismatic theorists from the 1960s to the present in the contexts of transformations of the university from its Humboldtian type based in the importance of national culture to its late-capitalist subjection to the neoliberal mercantilisation and globalisation of knowledge. Focused on the case study of the Slovenian literary theorist Dušan Pirjevec (1921-77) and the conditions of the communist policing of the university, the charisma of theory is explained as the theorist's fascinating personal presence (working through the transfer with him/herself as the "subject who is supposed to know") that imbues his/her texts with a quasi-metaphysical quality transgressing both the boundaries of any disciplinary knowledge and the "bureaucratised* position of average university teachers. In Pirjevec's case, the charisma of theory is patterned on the figure of critical intellectuals, whereas in the neoliberal present, it is produced or reinforced within the global star system, driven mostly by US-American universities and transnational scholarly publishing.

24.06.2015