Quote of the day

“Somehow it seems highly suspicious that it is at this moment in history, when so many groups are engaged in ‘nationalisms’ which involve redefinitions of the marginalised Others, that doubt arises in the academy about the nature of the ’subject,’ about the possibilities for a general theory which can describe the world, about historical ‘progress.’ Why is it, exactly at the moment when so many of us who have been silenced begin to demand the right to name ourselves, to act as subjects rather than objects of history, that just then the concept of subjecthood becomes ‘problematic’? Just when we are forming our own theories about the world, uncertainty emerges about whether the world can be adequately theorised? Just when we are talking about changes we want, ideas of progress and the possibility of ‘meaningfully’ organizing human society become suspect?”
—Nancy Hartstock. ‘Rethinking modernism: minority vs majority theories.’ Cultural Critique, 7, 1987.