JERR.Y L. MARTI N
639
it, freed from what Michel Foucault called a "regime of truth" and
should become "a form of cultural politics." Teachers should become
"engaged and transformative intellectuals" as schools are transformed into
"agencies for reconstructing and transforming the dominant status guo
culture ."
The new view, according to Duke University professor Frank
Lentricchia, "seeks not to find the foundation and conditions of truth
but
to
exercise power for the purpose of social change." The professor's
task now becomes helping students "spot, confront, and work against
the political horrors of one's time...." As Lentricchia puts it, echoing
Marx, "the point is not only to interpret texts, but in so interpreting
them, change our society." Wesleyan University English professor
Richard Ohmann recommends that faculty "teach politically with revo–
lution as our end.... "
Not only teaching but the content of the curriculum itself is
to
be
used for political change. Giroux argues for "the development of cur–
ricula that embody a form of cultural politics." Writing about women's
studies programs, University of Delaware professor Margaret Anderson
explains that "curriculum change is understood as part of the political
transformation of women's role in society.... "
In
order to use institutions of higher education
to
change society, it
is, of course, necessary to control them. "The democratic control of
these ideological apparatuses," writes literary theorist Terry Eagleton,
"along with popular alternatives to them, must be high on the agenda
of any future socialist programme."
For the transformationist, rebuffing charges of political correctness is
only a tactical maneuver; the strategic design is control over the univer–
sities themselves. While "the public and well-financed assau lt on 'political
correctness' in the academy needs to be answered strenuously and in an
organized fashion by left intellectuals," argues Columbia University pro–
fessor Jean
E.
Howard, "that imperative doesn't lessen the need for con–
tinued work on transformation
oj the academy itself"
According to
Howard, universities "have been radicalized far too littl e. To continue
that radicalization remains a pressing task.... "
It
would be a mistake to dismiss the transformationist view lightly,
to
regard it as either intellectually lightweight or institutionally impo–
tent. It is based on what many regard as the most advanced and sophisti-
Editor's Note: "The Postmodcrn Argument Considered" is adapted from an
essay in
The ill/periled Academy,
edited by Howard Dickman (Transaction
Publishers,
1993).
Citations for all quotations may be found in the original es–
say.
