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Anecdotal Theory

by Jane Gallop
Dale University Press, Durham 2002,
179 pp.
ISBN: 0-8223-3038-5

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium

stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be

Jane Gallop is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Among some books on feminist literature theory in the deconstuctivist tradition, she published 'Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment', describing and analysing an intriguing episode of her campus life when she was accused of harassment by two of her failing students. The accusation came to nothing -- obviously the students had wanted to take revenge on her -- but it left a bitter mark on Gallops life and perhaps a blemish on her carreer.

This 'anecdote', as Gallop herself calls is, is again central to the first half of this book of nine essays. However, this time it is not the story itself that gets the emphasis but the way it is treated in several texts. The author has left the facts behind her to concentrate on what might be learned from the way the facts are dealt with. It is the way theory is constructed (!) by means of the deconstruction of the anecdote that interests her. And she does so with wit and elegance.

Usually, anecdote and theory have diametrically opposed connotations: humurous versus serious, specific versus general, trivial versus overarching, short versus grand. Gallop shows how transcending the anecdote without losing sight of it can fertilise theory-making and how theory gains perspective and relevance when applied to the trivial and letting itself be impregnated by it. In this sense, the abstract becomes real and the general gets the flavour of the specific. (Hegelian dialectics are not far away, wouldn't you think?) Of course, analysing specific cases is not new. The grand masters of psychoanalysis Freud and Lacan did it. And more recently, Slavoj Zizek has done some masterly things as well. But Gallops approach is different in the sense that she sticks to the anecdote throughout the analysis, without ever losing sight of it. The anecdote, she says in one of her two lengthy introductions, is a window onto reality, and she radically refuses to shut that window and retreat into speculative academic semi-dusk. By doing so, she actually sheds some light on the relation between anecdote, theory and theorising. The most enlightening, and probably also the funniest, essay in this bundle is A Tale of Two Jaques, about Derrida and Lacan. Practically all the paragraphs start with some temporal statement, situating the essay in time and turning it into a story, connecting several anecdotes. Gallop visits a lecture by Derrida, she dreams, she visits Lacan and Derrida again, she reads an essay etc. Each time, her understanding of the critique of Lacan by Derrida changes and is seen under a different light. Gradually, she moves into a theory of her own, about her understanding of the two and about herself.

For readers who are not used to the jargon of feminist theory, poststructuralism and deconstructivism, this book might be a bit problematic but the problems are not insurmountable. Just don't bother to get too deep into it. There is no need to. Gallop knows very well that these parlances are all but on their way out. Fortunately, she knows how to wrap the parcels in something lighter and more transparent, and the conclusions are clear anyway. It's a gifted author who can do this.

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