Doing underlaboured theory

ABSTRACT

This essay connects the two critical realist ideas of underlabouring and meta-theory, making the argument that the process of underlabouring and making ‘disclosure and transformation of the deep categorical structures of science and theory’ (Hostettler) is ideal for clarifying strata of theory (meta-theory, domain-specific theory and methodology) and therefore points of agreement between different practitioners. Using the 1980s debates over feminism in art history, I show how two important interlocutors – T. J. Clark and Griselda Pollock – used Marxist meta-theory to establish a baseline on which their domain-specific concerns might diverge. A return to this sense of shared agreement and disagreement is urged.

KEYWORDS:

• Underlabouring
• meta-theory
• Roy Bhaskar
• T. J. Clark
• Griselda Pollock

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ian Verstegen is Associate Director of Visual Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He publishes on early modern and modern art, historiography and theory. He has a forthcoming book on the media theory of Rudolf Arnheim with Springer.

Notes

1 For a defense of Žižek’s approach, see McGowan 2007.